Give Me a Word ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, My newest book Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year has been published by Broadleaf Books! (You can download a free reflection guide or small group leader’s guide here.) The dedication to my book reads: “For all the ancient and contemporary wild-hearted ammas and abbas […]
Christine Interviewed by The Center for Action and Contemplation about Her Book “Give Me a Word”
Christine Valters Paintner sat down with CAC’s Publications Manager Mark Longhurst to discuss themes from her new book Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year. How can we receive a “word?” Christine discusses practical tactics like contemplative listening, dreamwork, and embodiment. She also invites you to embrace nature […]
Give Me a Word Book Launch
Sep 22, 2025 @ 5:00 pm IST – 6:00 pm IST –
with Christine Valters Paintner and Simon de Voil
Join us for a free, one hour gathering to celebrate the release of Christine’s book Give Me a Word. During this free hour-long event, Christine will share the themes and invitations of the book and lead us in a guided meditation experience. Simon will offer the gift of music.
The Year Ahead at Abbey of the Arts ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, We hope you have had a restful and inspiring summer. We always cherish this time of quiet reflection and dreaming into the new academic year of programs. I have savored having some time to simply be and deepen into the sacred rhythms of life. Out of this wellspring of rest, flows […]
Give Me a Word Reviewed by Library Journal!
Christine’s forthcoming book Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year was reviewed by Marjorie Mann at Library Journal. “The tradition of asking “Give me a word” is a spiritual and meditation practice rooted in early third-century Christianity, which Paintner (Journey to Joy: A Fairy Tale for Thresholds and […]
Community + Give Me a Word ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
A Blessing for Friendship and Community*God of friendshipI come to know your love and carethrough the embodied presence of others.Weave me together with kindred spirits,knit me more closely with friends of the soul,cultivate in me a kinship with humanityso that I recognize my struggles and joys in others.In my loneliness reveal to me this communionand […]
Give Me a Word 2025
In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine 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 one’s holy essence. The […]