Time for another invitation to come join me and my delightful teaching partner Betsey Beckman in November for a week of integrating creative expression and spiritual practice.  We already have several brave and beautiful souls signed up and there are just a handful of spots left, so won’t you come and play?  Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Arts & Imagination with Betsey Beckman, MM and Christine Valters Paintner, PhD November 11-17, 2007 St. Andrews Retreat Center Union (Hood Canal), WA A week-long experiential intensive exploring tools for integrating the arts and imagination into spiritual

In the last couple of weeks we have watched Blood Diamond which takes place in Sierra Leone and The Last King of Scotland which is about Uganda.  They were both heart-rending films.  I also have been reading A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmeal Beah which addresses the Sierra Leone story from the perspective of a boy soldier who was rehabilitated and now lives in the US.  It raised again for me the question of how we live in meaningful engagement with the sorrows and struggles of the whole world? A couple months back we went to see a powerful performance of the Soweto Gospel Choir. 

I am very touched by the response to my post yesterday both in comments and in email.  I knew opening up this vulnerable place would begin to shift things in me again, move me again to that place where honoring my body is a gift rather than a burden.  I am always struggling in some way with the tension between the limits of my body and the calling of my creative inspiration, but it occurred to me that this tension sets up an antagonism between the two which I don’t at all mean to build.  I believe deeply that caring for

We had our fifth Awakening the Creative Spirit session on Friday and Saturday.  The focus this time was on movement led primarily by my teaching partner Betsey.  I was eager to see our group of wonderful women participating as always, but also wondered how I would do during this session since my body hasn’t been feeling very well lately.  I deal with chronic illness and it has been rearing its ugly head these last couple of weeks again.  I have dealt with this my whole adult life, and it doesn’t get any easier to confront the limitations of the body. 

Greetings again dear readers, I have added two different sets of photo notecards (trees and flowers) to my Offerings page, so head on over and take a peek (and better yet, order yourself a set or two!).  They are packaged with love and care and always a little extra treat.   More reflections to come later in the day. . .

I am fashioned as a galaxy, Not as a solid substance but a mesh Of atoms in their far complexity Forming the pattern of my bone and flesh.  Small solar systems are my eyes, Muscle and sinew are composed of air. Like comets flashing through the evening skies My blood runs, ordered, arrogant, and fair. Ten lifetimes distant is the nearest star, And yet within my body, firm as wood, Proton and electron separate are. Bone is more fluid than my coursing blood. What plan had God, so strict and empassioned When He an island universe my body fashioned? -Madeleine

Last night we invited four of our neighbors over for our Sabbath evening meal.  Below I share two new recipes I used that turned out really well and were not hard to make.  We feasted on good food and wine and then laughed for hours playing board games.  Our neighbors are delightful people, not folks we would probably get the chance to know otherwise.  What we seem to have in common is an ecological commitment, a commitment to our building and neighborhood, and a desire to enjoy the company of others and have some fun.  The table was prepared in the afternoon as I gathered