Pilgrimage of Resurrection: Seeing the World Anew

April 17, 2015 by Christine Valters Paintner

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We are so used to moving through the world analyzing and judging, bringing our expectations to each encounter, planning for the next several steps ahead. It can feel awkward to bring ourselves fully present and draw on intuition, wisdom, and experience, rather than logic and analysis, to see what is most true. This heart-centered knowing comes through practice.

As I cultivate this practice of attending to the gifts the world has to offer me, to what shimmers, I am at the same time nurturing the opening of my own heart. Our minds harden our defenses, but the heart softens and blooms forth slowly, so that we find ourselves looking with more compassion on those who annoy us, and perhaps later, those we actively dislike, and finally those we have previously ignored and not even allowed into our line of sight.

When we discover ourselves surprised by love and grace, we come to trust what shimmers forth as gift. We receive without needing to figure things out. We begin to follow the thread of moment-by-moment revelation, not knowing where it leads, only embracing the call to see with eyes of the heart.

This is the gift of pilgrimage, of making a commitment to daily practice. Art-making can help us to see things in new ways. It calls us to drop below the surface of our experience and discover the new thing happening. How will you practice seeing the world with new eyes during this season of resurrection?

At Abbey of the Arts, we are inviting the community to make a commitment to practice creativity daily in celebration of my new book being released in May 2015 The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within (Ave Maria Press). Please join us (details available at this post).

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About Christine Valters Paintner

Christine Valters Paintner, Ph.D., is a Benedictine Oblate and the online Abbess ofAbbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery without walls offering online classes in contemplative practice and creative expression and pilgrimages to Ireland, Germany, and Austria. She is the author of eight books on monasticism and creativity including The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom (Ave Maria Press) and her forthcoming book The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Inner Journey (Spring 2015, Ave Maria Press). Christine lives as a monk in the world in Galway, Ireland with her husband of twenty years.

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