Category Archives: Art and spirituality

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Writing from the Center: Persistence, Not Perfection

Persistence, Not Perfection Kathy Fleming is a talented visual artist (www.kflemingart.com) who serves as the Artist Coordinator for the Benedictine Center of St. Paul's Monastery. Her canvases are captivating both in their craftsmanship and the deep reflection underlying each one. Those who see the exhibits she designs in the Monastery Gallery benefit from her uncanny…

Ice Break: Annotated Selections from a Book of Poems

Ice Break: Annotated Selections from a Book of Poems Writers too infrequently have the opportunity to witness people in the act of receiving their work. I was recently afforded that privilege as I shared a poetry reading with my friend and colleague Victor Klimoski. The experience encouraged me to annotate a handful of poems for…

Writing from the Center: In Praise of Mary Oliver and Her Call to Attentiveness

Writing from the Center In Praise of Mary Oliver and Her Call to Attentiveness We recently convened a gathering at the Monastery to celebrate the life and work of poet, Mary Oliver. She died January 17 at the age of 74, leaving behind a body of work that will sustain generations of readers. As a…

Writing From the Center | Wisdom for Putting It In Words

Writing from the Center: Wisdom for Putting It In Words I am convinced that writing from the center of who we are requires time and companionship. In that spirit, we recently held a weekend retreat for writers. The invitation was to come into the embrace of the monastery with a single focus: to sit at a…

Practice

Practice We all intuitively use the word practice in at least two ways that we don’t even think about anymore. The first is the idea of doing something to improve your performance for a specific task. I had football practice and my daughter has oboe practice. The second way we talk about practice is the…

How I Walk with Others in Spiritual Companionship

How I Walk with Others in Spiritual Companionship Some of My Questions Thirty-five years ago spiritual direction found me. At a crossroads in my life, I was seeking some answers. What was my relationship with God? Who and what is God? What does Silence have to do with inner awakening? What gifts did I have…

Poem: The Uncluttered Mind

Before my mind is overcome / by news of the world’s woe, / I want to think of water, / fresh, cold water, cascading / over shelves of jagged rock / and falling like skeins of rich silk. . .

Art as Spiritual Practice

©Birth of Christ, Luke Frontispiece, Donald Jackson, 2002, The Saint John’s Bible, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Art…

The Vision (a poem by Victor Klimoski)

When Obama was first elected, I wrote a poem that tried to capture some of the surge of hope that event occasioned. Since then, I have returned to the poem in an effort to bring it to its rightful voice. For reasons unknown, as I thought about the 2018 Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and…

Writing from the Center | The Journey of a Poem

PHOTO CREDIT: A local man helps a Syrian refugee swimming exhaustedly from a dinghy to a Lesbos beach, Sept. 17, 2015. Yannis Behrakis / Reuters Writing From the Center Writing from the Center is a new feature in the Benedictine Center's regular eBulletin. For nearly ten years we have been convening writers to explore how…

Category Archives: Art and spirituality

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