The Artist's Rule by Christine Valters Paintner

The Artist's Rule: Nurturing your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom

For creatives with a strong bent toward the spiritual and the contemplative, you will find treasure in this book. Written by a Benedictine oblate, Christine Valters Paintner presents a 12-week course for establishing a spiritual/creative practice by using some of the Rules of St. Benedict.

I enjoyed the book to a point. Though I consider myself more reflective than unreflective, I still found her exercises, in most cases, something I wouldn't waste my time on.

Well, maybe when I was younger, I would have.

That's not to say others wouldn't find it to be just what they need. Or to say that I got nothing from the book.

I especially enjoyed her descriptions about The Divine Hours, which are the sacred cycles of each day, and their connection to the creative process.

I also enjoyed learning about a Benedictine monk's commitments to Obedience, Stability, and Conversion, and how those commitments can support the growth of a spiritual/creative practice.

Obedience is "listening deeply to the ways God calls you in everyday life and how you respond." It's about being faithful to the call God has put upon your life and not spending your precious time on things that don't further that call.

Stability is not responding to restlessness of heart and mind by searching for new experiences, new relationships, new geographical locations, in order to escape your problems by avoiding them. It's about finding mystery in ordinary life, growing long-lasting, deep relationships, and getting to know the people in the communities you're involved in. It's about staying with your problems and solving them where you're at.

Conversion is stability's opposite. It's asking yourself, "What is worth living for in this place at this time?" Having asked, it's acting in accordance with the answers discerned.

Those were the ideas I liked best in this book, however I also liked some of her other ideas as well.

If you're a fan of Kathleen Norris, you will be a fan of Christine Valters Paintner. 

Abide: Keeping Vigil with the Word of God

Abide: Keeping Vigil with the Word of God by Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB

To begin with, not being a Catholic, I wondered about the "OSB" behind Ms. Wiederkehr's name. Apparently, she is a Benedictine oblate. What is that? It means she is a monk at a Benedictine monastery, or affiliated with one. 

What is a Benedictine monastery? St. Benedict was a fifth-century saint who wrote a book of Rules that still have much to teach us today. He also founded 12 communities of monks, and even today there are Benedictine monasteries all over the world. 

In fact, last fall my husband and I visited a Benedictine monastery, St. Gertrude's in Cottonwood, Idaho, not too far from our home, which I wrote about here. 

Now that we know the briefest information about Benedictine monasteries and Benedictine oblates, let's move on to Abide: Keeping Vigil with the Word of God. It focuses on Lectio Divina, a Benedictine practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer that promotes communion with God. 

This was not my first encounter with Lectio Divina, which I love so much that I bought about a dozen books on the subject, written by authors from several different traditions within the body of Christ. (But they all borrowed the original idea from St. Benedict!)

The author of Abide, Ms. Wiederkehr notes, 

"In the monastic way of abiding with the Word, we do not read the Scripture text to obtain information. The careful reading of the text is for the purpose of opening our hearts to be formed by the Word of God. We listen to the words so carefully that even our reading becomes a prayer."

So, how does one practice Lectio Divina? 

1. We read a selected scripture portion, generally only a few verses
2. We meditate or reflect on anything that seems to have special meaning to us, especially in ways that invite us to greater spiritual maturity. 
3. Once we have reflected, we pray about what God is telling us personally and specifically through the passage. 
4. Then we abide or rest in God.

In this book, at the end of each passage, the author poses questions to think about, and then to pray about, relative to the reading. 

I bought this and the other books on Lectio Divina because of an eagerness to see which passages each author selected to meditate upon. 

God's Word is full of treasures that I could read on my own. But I love reading the passages in concert with the thoughts of others who've meditated on them, to see what they received, as well. 

The book is divided into five chapters, each with eight scripture selections for meditation. For example, here are a few of them:

Our Desire for God: Ps. 63
Come to the Water: Isa. 55
Pilgrimage to the Heart of God: Ps. 84

Do you practice Lectio Divina? Do you think it's something you might like to try? If so, pick one of the scriptures above and see what God has to say to you. 

It's a lovely spiritual discipline, a lovely method of prayer and meditation by which to deepen our relationship with God.