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Give Me a Word 2018: 9th Annual Giveaway

SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2018 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 […]

Becoming Body-Words of Love ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists, 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 […]

My Word for 2017: Hermit

Dearest monks and artists, I have been grateful for this last season, a time of descent into the outer darkness and then the stillness that comes during those in-between days from Christmas to Epiphany. There has been a bronchial flu going around Galway which I came down with a couple of weeks ago. It amplified […]

Give Me a Word 2017 Drawing Winners!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2017 Give Me a Word invitation! We had almost 1000 participants take the online retreat to help a word choose you. Above is a word cloud made from all the words submitted by January 6th. Please note some appear larger when they were submitted more frequently. Some […]

Give Me a Word 2017: 8th Annual Giveaway

SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2017 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 […]

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 […]