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Monk in the Word Guest Post: Laurie Klein

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Laurie Klein’s reflection on using playful gestures for prayer. I wanted to play more. Ultimately, a childhood diversion beckoned. ‘Busy hands are happy hands,’ my mother always said. Raised to work hard at everything, I’ve […]

Winners of Give Me a Word 2016 Random Drawing and Word Cloud

Thank you to everyone who participated in our annual Give Me a Word! We had over 1700 in the mini-retreat and over 650 leave their words at our blog post here. Above is a word cloud composed of our community words. If you don’t see your word visible, please trust that it dwells in the […]

New Year and Epiphany Blessings ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, New Year blessings to you! I love the Epiphany gospel story (in some churches celebrated January 6th and some next Sunday) and I offer you a reprise of a reflection on the invitations this text has to offer to us: The story of the magi offers us a template for […]

Give Me a Word 2016: 7th Annual Abbey Giveaway

SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2016 In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to God and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to […]

Body-Words of Love

Several years ago, before moving to Ireland, I completed a training to teach yoga. I began the program because I had practiced yoga for many years and longed to dive more deeply into it. I expected to fall in love with my own body even more in the process; what I didn’t expect was how much I would […]

Winners of the 2015 Give Me a Word Drawing!

It is truly amazing and inspiring to read through the words that have chosen you, our dear dancing monks, to guide and challenge for the year ahead. You can read them in the comments here. (And if you still need support for finding a word, the free 12-day mini-retreat is still available at this link). […]