Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • Prayer Cycle
    • About the Abbey
    • About Christine Valters Paintner
    • About John Valters Paintner
    • About the Wisdom Council
    • Monk Manifesto
    • Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks
    • Subscribe to Our Love Notes
    • Website privacy notice
  • Books
    • Breath Prayer:
      An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred
    • Sacred Time:
      Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
    • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems
    • Earth, Our Original Monastery:
      Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
    • Dreaming of Stones: Poems
    • The Soul's Slow Ripening:
      12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred
    • The Wisdom of the Body:
      A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women
    • Illuminating the Way:
      Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
    • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
      Eight Practices for the Journey Within
    • Eyes of the Heart:
      Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice
    • The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom
    • Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated & Explained
    • Lectio Divina–The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer
    • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    • Awakening the Creative Spirit:
      Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction
    • Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness
  • Poetry | Art | Music
    • Music + DVD
    • Poetry by Christine Valters Paintner
    • Poetry Videos
    • Dancing Monk Icons
    • Other Art Collaborations
      • Monk in the World art series by Kristin Noelle
      • Saints & Animals art series by David Hollington
      • Sacred Time art series by Alexi Francis
      • Mary block print art series by Kreg Yingst
  • Programs
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
      • Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color (Book Club – March 2021)
      • God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila (Book Club – February 2021)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
      • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Weekend Retreat Online
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Sacred Balance:
        Aligning Body and Spirit Through
        Yoga and the Benedictine Way
    • Self-Study Online Spiritual Retreats
      • Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert:
        An Online Retreat with St. Hildegard of Bingen
      • Dreaming of the Sea:
        A women’s discernment journey through the story of the Selkie
      • Earth, Our Original Monastery
        A Companion Retreat to the Book (SELF-STUDY)
      • Exile and Coming Home:
        An Archetypal Journey through the Scriptures
      • Eyes of the Heart:
        Photography as Contemplative Practice
        (Companion retreat to the book)
      • Honoring Saints and Ancestors:
        Online Retreat for the Season of Remembrance
      • Lectio Divina:
        The Sacred Art of Reading the World
      • A Midwinter God:
        Making a Conscious Underworld Journey (SELF-STUDY)
      • Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea & Stone:
        A Creative Retreat with the Elements (SELF-STUDY)
      • Sacred Seasons:
        A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
      • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
        Eight Practices for the Journey Within
        (a companion retreat to the book)
      • The Soul's Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (a companion retreat to the book)
      • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire
      • Watershed Moments
        in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
      • Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist:
        A 12-Week Companion Retreat to The Artist's Rule
      • The Wisdom of the Body:
        A 10-Week Online Companion Retreat to the Book
      • The Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact
Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color

Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color

Monthly Conversations on the Christian Mystical Tradition

2021 Book Club - Join us in reading these 11 books

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition. 

Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation. 

This is a free series, the only cost for you is buying the books and we encourage you to support your local bookseller. We have provided links to Bookshop.org who sources from independent stores. 

When you use our Bookshop.org or Amazon.com links we do earn a small commission on each sale that comes at no extra charge to you but helps to support this work. Click here for our Bookshop page with all the titles. You can also request that your local library make these books available for borrowing. 

The first day of each month we will post our video recording to our website and invite you to watch, ponder, and share your insights with us during the month that follows. We then invite conversation and reflection in our dedicated Facebook group (click the link to request to join us). 

*Please note we are taking a break in July for sabbatical 

Join our Lift Every Voice Facebook group
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Watch the video conversation between Jon Sweeney, Claudia Love Mair, and Christine Valters Paintner here

Featured Book for March 2021

Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Catechist, Saint

by Jon Sweeney

Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk (1863--1950) is popularly celebrated for his fascinating spiritual life. How could one man, one deeply spiritual man, serve as both a traditional Oglala Lakota medicine man and a Roman Catholic catechist and mystic? How did these two spiritual and cultural identities enrich his prayer life? How did his commitment to God, understood through his Lakota and Catholic communities, shape his understanding of how to be in the world?

To fully understand the depth of Black Elk's life-long spiritual quest requires a deep appreciation of his life story. He witnessed devastation on the battlefields of Little Bighorn and the Massacre at Wounded Knee, but also extravagance while performing for Queen Victoria as a member of "Buffalo Bill" Cody's Wild West Show. Widowed by his first wife, he remarried and raised eight children. Black Elk's spiritual visions granted him wisdom and healing insight beginning in his childhood, but he grew progressively physically blind in his adult years. These stories, and countless more, offer insight into this extraordinary man whose cause for canonization is now underway at the Vatican.

Watch the video here (February 2021)

God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila

by Claudia Love Mair

Watch the video here (March 2021)

Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color

Edited by Taylor-Stinson, McNaney, & Bryant-Johnson

Watch the video here (April 2021)

Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Catechist, Saint

by Jon M. Sweeney

Featured Book for May 2021

Four Gifts: Seeking Self-Care for Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength

by April Yamasaki

Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Featured Book for June 2021

Meditations of the Heart

by Howard Thurman

Featured Book for August 2021

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

by Austin Channing Brown

Featured Book for September 2021

Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church

by Barbara Holmes

Featured Book for October 2021

Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

by Kaitlin Curtice

Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Featured Book for November 2021

Soul Care in African American Practice

by Barbara Peacock

Featured Book for December 2021

She Who Cannot Be Shamed, Tamed or Contained

by Christena Cleveland

Featured Book for January 2022

Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne

by Wilda Gafney

Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com
Order Direct from the Author
Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com

About the Presenters

Claudia Love Mair is a writer, artist, and Ringmistress of the Beautiful Soul Circus, a private Facebook group for creatives, queers, and tender souls. She’s an Inspirationalista who, when she’s not creating something herself, helps other creatives tap into their deepest intuition and longings through writing and painting. Claudia is the author of the God Alone is Enough, the critically acclaimed novel, Zora and Nicky, and her memoir, Don't You Fall Now. She is a Certified Intuitive Painting and Expressive Arts Facilitator and the Coordinator for the Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative. Claudia lives in Lexington, with two of her adult children, and three cats, including one who thinks he’s a dog.

 

Christine Valters Paintner is a Benedictine oblate and the online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery and global community integrating contemplative practice and creative expression. Christine earned her PhD in Christian spirituality and is a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant and Educator. She is a retreat facilitator and spiritual director, as well as the author of 15 books on contemplative practice and creative expression including two collections of poetry, Dreaming of Stones and The Wisdom of Wild Grace. Christine has lived in Galway, Ireland since 2012 with her husband John, where together they lead online and live retreats to the wild edges.

Upcoming Programs

  • The Two HT’s Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman on Being Free with Therese Taylor-Stinson
    • Apr 17, 2021
  • Writing Into Bloom with Christine Valters Paintner
    • May 1, 2021
  • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
    • May 13, 2021
  • View All Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Greta Kopec
  • Monk in the World Podcast + Harriet Tubman Mysticism ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – April Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available
  • Hildy Tails 12: Is ait an mac an saol ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Easter Blessings + An Elemental Journey ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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