Bøger af Christine Valters Paintner

Contemplative author Christine Valters Paintner explores seven unique fasts tied to spiritual practices--for Lent or a time of focus--to discover our truest hungers and our deepest spiritual reserves. Drawing on desert wisdom and contemplative practice, Paintner helps us enter into our own journey of spiritual growth, both for Lent and beyond.

"The Love of Thousands invites us to understand both the conscious and unconscious influences saints, ancestors, and angels have on our lives. This retreat in ordinary life allows us to see how we can be in relationship with these figures and guided by them while also, especially in the case of our ancestors, work to heal the wounds that have been left on us by their imperfect lives. With the abbess of Abbey of the Arts, Christine Valters Paintner, we look at Christian and Jewish teachings on saints and ancestors, explore the Celtic wisdom of Samhain, and seek to understand other cultural practices of ancestor reverence and remembrance"--

"In this book, Christine Valters Paintner guides readers in moving beyond their own lives and invites them to embrace the natural world and its rhythms that urge them toward rest, reflection, and growth"--

A doorway to intimacy with our inner wilderness, a call to sit and be present to what we discover beyond the borders of our neatly controlled worlds.

Nurture your inner monk & surrender to the natural grace & rhythm of your heart's deepest longings.''''The whole world is, in fact, a text of sacred revelation. All experience has the potential to be revelatory, and God is singing one unending song seducing each of our hearts. So the call is to listen, to attune to the words God utters in the world.'''' - from the AfterwordBreak open this ancient contemplative practice of listening deeply for God's voice in sacred texts. Drawing on her own experience as a monk in the world, Christine Valters Paintner introduces the foundations for a practice of lectio divina. She closely examines each of the four movements of lectio divina as well as the rhythm they create when practiced as a process. She then invites you to expand your practice beyond traditional sacred texts to a sacred reading of the world through image, sound, nature, and life experience.Whether you want to start a contemplative prayer practice or deepen your experience of lectio divina in new ways, you are invited to savor the gifts lectio divina has to offer your heart and spirit.

Be inspired by the writings of ordinary Christians who chose to renounce the world in order to individually follow God's call. Insightful commentary and historical background illustrates how you can use this wisdom in your own spiritual quest.

"In this book Christine Valters Paintner, abbess of the online Abbey of the Arts, invites readers to better understand Mary and her heart through meditations based on thirty Marian titles"--

Christine Valters Paintner, abbess of Abbey of the Arts, introduces us to the spiritual practice of breath prayer and offers beautiful poem-prayers for walking, working, dressing, cleaning, sitting in silence, doing the dishes, living in community--breathing the divine into our daily lives.

The poems in Dreaming of Stones are about what endures: hope and desire, changing seasons, wild places, love, and the wisdom of mystics. Inspired by the poet's time living in Ireland these readings invite you into deeper ways of seeing the world. They have an incantational quality. Drawing on her commitment as a Benedictine oblate, the poems arise out of a practice of sitting in silence and lectio divina, in which life becomes the holy text. No stranger to poetry, Paintner's bestselling spirituality titles have often included poems. In this first exclusively poetic collection, she writes with a contemplative heart about kinship with nature, ancestral connections, intimacy, the landscape, the unfolding nature of time, and Christian mystics. It can be read for reflection to spark the heart and to offer solace and inspiration in difficult times. BreathThisbreathingin is a miracle,this breathing out, release,this breathing in a welcome tothe unseen gifts which sustain me eachmoment, this breathing out a sweet sigh,a bow to my mortality, this breathing ina holy yes to life, this breathing outa sacred no to all that causesme to clench and grasp,this breathing in is arevelation, thisbreathing out,freedom.

Whether you want to start a contemplative prayer practice or deepen your experience of lectio divina in new ways, you are invited to savor the gifts lectio divina has to offer your heart and spirit.

Designed to help spiritual directors and others use expressive arts in the context of spiritual direction

Christine Valters Paintner, author of Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire, invites readers to discover and develop their creative gifts in a spirit of prayer and reflection. This twelve-week course draws on the insights and practices of Benedictine spirituality to explore the interplay between contemplation and creativity. Summarized in the phrase pray and work, The Rule of St. Benedict provides the inspiration for Christine Valters Paintners newest exploration of the mutually nourishing relationship between contemplative practices and creative expression. Artists of all stripes and stations in life--poets or painters, potters or photographers--will discover how traditions of Benedictine, Celtic, and desert spirituality can offer new sources of inspiration for their work. Through this twelve-week course, themes like Sacred Tools and Sacred Space, Creative Solitude and Community, and Nature as a Source of Revelation and Inspiration are enriched by Paintners perceptive discussion and enhanced by insightful quotations from well-known artists and writers. Each week offers suggestions for grounding both the creative and the spiritual life through three basic practices: walking, lectio divina, and journaling. In sync with Paintners vibrant Internet presence, The Artists Rule is supplemented with online resources, including guided meditation podcasts, video lessons, and discussions.

The distorted view of the perfect female body created by popular culture, television, movies, and the media often causes women to become uncomfortable with their own bodies. Christine Valters Paintner, popular author of nine books and abbess of the online retreat center Abbey of the Arts, draws from Celtic, desert, and Benedictine traditions to help women connect with their bodies through writing, visual art, and movement. In The Wisdom of the Body, Christine Valters Paintner focuses on the true meaning of the IncarnationGod became fleshand points to the spiritual importance of appreciating the bodies God gave us. Each of the book's ten chapters is a mini-workshop designed to lead us to new ways of being in relationship with our bodies. Starting with the senses and shifting toward emotions and desires, Paintner explores their role as thresholds to discovering the body's wisdom. She draws from Christian tradition to offer principles and practices such as stability, hospitality, and gratitude to lead us on a journey that ends with a sense of deep peace and self-acceptance. Through expressive arts and creative movement, Paintner demonstrates a new a language and way of integrating and sharing our discoveries. By exploring the lives of women in the Bible and in the Christian traditionincluding Eve, Mary, Hildegaard of Bingen, and Amma SyncleticaPaintner introduces us to companions that accompany us on our journey.

Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness offers a unique prayer resource that provides a thorough grounding in the different moments of the lectio experience: listening, reading, savoring, responding, and then contemplating Gods Word.

The renowned author of eight books and abbess of the online retreat center Abbey of the Arts, Christine Valters Paintner takes readers on a new kind of pilgrimage: an inner journey to discover the heart of God. Eight stages of the pilgrim's way--from hearing the call to coming home--are accompanied by scripture stories of great biblical journeys and the author's unique and creative practices of prayer, writing, and photography. As she did in The Artist's Rule and Eyes of the Heart, Christine Valters Paintner once again helps readers travel to the frontiers of their souls to discover the hidden presence of God. In The Soul of a Pilgrim, Paintner identifies eight stages of the pilgrim's way and shows how to follow these steps to make an intentional, transformative journey to the reader's inner "e;wild edges."e; Each phase of the exploration requires a distinct practice such as packing lightly, being uncomfortable, or embracing the unknown. Paintner shows how to cultivate attentiveness to the divine through deep listening, patience, and opening oneself to the gifts that arise in the midst of discomfort.Each of the eight chapters offers reflections on the themes, a scripture story, an invitation to the practice of lectio divina, and a creative exploration through photography and writing.

In this first book to explore photography as a spiritual practice from a Christian perspective, Christine Valters Paintner builds on the process of contemplative creativity she introduced online at Abbey of the Arts and in her book The Artists Rule. She considers how a camera can help readers open the eyes of the heart. More than a book on photographic technique, Eyes of the Heart is about cultivating photography as a spiritual practice. Adapting the monastic practice of lectio divina (sacred reading) into a form of visio divina (sacred seeing), spiritual director and Benedictine oblate Christine Valters Paintner invites readers to a new way of viewing the world--through the lens of a camera. Paintner guides readers through six themes connecting the medium of photography with the Christian spiritual life. Each theme provides a photographic journey in which the reader does not simply take images, but receives images and learns to see with the eyes of the heart (Eph 1:18). Photos by the author are included.

Lectio divina, which means sacred reading, is an ancient contemplative practice of listening deeply to the voice of God in sacred texts. Drawing on her own experience as a monk in the world, Christine Valters Paintner breaks open the movements of this spiritual practice. She makes them accessible to the contemporary reader.