When the doctor diagnoses my husband’s cognitive loss, I try not to panic. 

Along come four crucial words. They shimmer for me in The Road to Daybreak, an intimate diary of priest, professor, and writer Henri Nouwen. He’s prayerfully poised to forsake his academic career to become a caregiver, and the words, spoken by a fellow priest, illumine his thoughts. And mine.

Picture a quartet of solar lights in a garden, at twilight. Be. Faithful. In. Adoration.

Will devotion overflow into caregiving? But how? I have less solitude now. Then again, might I already have a head start?

• Often beset by illness or broken bones, I discover new ways to simply be in God’s presence—especially when “doing” is off the table. 
• Married 53 years, I know a thing or two about being faithful.
• Caregiving? I’m in . . . 150% (though still a rookie in the School of Love).
• I long to deepen in true adoration.

But some days, I can only sip from ephemeral wellsprings. Will this be enough?

When Dreamer, my beloved, stops driving, our world contracts, largely to ER visits and medical appointments, often in another state. 

I ache for oasis. Leisure. Longer reprieves. 

Then . . . is it whim, or a nudge of the Spirit? While he naps one day, I forsake my lists to update my large terrarium. It already holds a Norfolk pine and asparagus fern. A little stone cottage (long-ago gift from Dreamer) nestles under a frond. Dollar store finds go in next: a weathervane, a thumb-high arch bearing a lantern, a mirror for a pond. The miniature world stirs my childhood love of little things. Housebound as we often are, it reminds me God’s sheltering us. 

Amid daily misting, a prayer evolves:

As I tend these plants around us, 
Dear Spirit, please reground us.
And may every pore absorb
Your living presence, tender Lord. 

The daily prayer and plant care refreshes enchantment, re-paces me, and ushers in a storied, palpable hush. 

Healing may be different from curing. 

When Dreamer and I explore alternative health protocols, a specialized team discovers toxic mold proliferating inside our home’s walls. We jettison two-thirds of our belongings, then relocate while the house undergoes remediation. It takes time to say, and truly mean, Blessed be the Lord, who giveth and taketh away. 

Painful curation prompts questions: Redeemer of All, what in me needs to go? And: What will your redesign look like? 

Sometimes we wake up with ideas not our own. Resettled back home, I strip down Great-grandma’s Victorian loveseat. Upholstery, padding, springs, straps, a gazillion tacks—into the trash they go. And into the gutted, beautifully carved frame? Houseplants.

The loveseat evolves from ruins to verdant wonder. I love you, Merciful Maker. 

“Looks like a forest,” our grandson says. 

Placed near the big west window, it’s a thriving, portable Eden. Acrobatic Black-eyed Susan vines bloom like constellations, vivid orange and yellow, as they swarm ornamental trellis. Solar lights small as earring studs collect sunlight, then radiate a magical glow as night comes on. 

Despite Dreamer’s awful symptoms, ever in flux, the ancient loveseat teems with life, breathing out heavenly peace. O come, let us adore him.

Time passes, and Dreamer’s health flags. No more gorgeous lathe creations, another loss.

I tie on his work apron to tend our indoor Eden, a reminder to clothe myself in the grace gifts of Spirit: compassion, kindness, humility, patience.  

When my lavender topiary dies, I can’t bear to throw one more thing away. It stands in a bedroom corner in bristling, silvery solitude. 

Sometime later, I waken with a quirky image: Someone bedecked my poor little tree with dangly earrings. Lord of Laughter, is this your idea? The notion feels wonderfully playful. 

Then . . . too frivolous.

But wait, when Dreamer wakes from his nap and sees it, he might enjoy my goofy delight. Shared laughter can banish dread. 

I’ll do it!

Oh bother. I tossed the earrings during the household mold purge.

Now what?

O my soul, be faithful in adoration. 

A shiver sharpens my awareness . . . an echoing, boundless chuckle, the sense of an unseen hand cupping my elbow, then a wise, whimsical voice: “You could plant cocktail umbrellas among the boughs.” 

Oh, racing heart, too big for a ribcage! Rather than breathless awe, knee-buckling reverence, I sense a caregiving God’s holy, happy-go-lucky benevolence. 

And this: “Child, all your times are in my hands: your hearts, your hopes, your hurts.”

In The Geography of Memory: A pilgrimage through Alzheimer’s, poet and playwright Jeanne Murray Walker quotes her priest: “Life is SHORT, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So be swift to love, make haste to be kind, live without fear.*”

I’m learning adoration can be playful, fearless, even exuberant, as well as intimate, speechless, yielding. It can be a two-way embrace, one quiet center, an inner Eden we carry with us. Maybe we move toward what beckons, no matter how unlikely: take the topiary—dead, but still shapely—brittle arms, up-stretched. 

What will they hold?

*from Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Laurie Klein is the author of the classic praise song “I Love You, Lord” and two poetry collections. She blogs monthly at lauriekleinscribe.com. She and Dreamer live in a cedar house amid piney woods, a meadow, and pond. Out walking or housebound, it seems leftover atoms from Eden can show up anywhere.

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Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

On Tuesday my fourth and newest collection of poems, What Enters Through the Open Heart, will be published by Monkfish publishing and tomorrow, October 19th, Simon de Voil and I are leading a book launch event! Please join us for poetry and song and celebration! 

The poem above is part of a series of poems I wrote in the collection inspired by saints and mystics. Every poetry collection I have written has poems like this because I find so much inspiration in these wise ones who have journeyed before us and offer us wisdom for the way ahead. 

If I had to choose my favorite saint of all, many of you would know that my choice would be Hildegard of Bingen, 12^th century Benedictine Abbess, visionary, artist, musician, poet, preacher, herbalist, and more. I fell in love with her in graduate school and she led me to my love of Benedictine spirituality and practice. I consider her to be the patron saint of my becoming a Benedictine Oblate. 

Hildegard also struggled during her life with illness. They think she perhaps had migraines, as I have had for thirty years. The difference is that my migraines do not come with intricate theological visions and ethereal music! She is a companion for me in many ways, certainly inspiring as she led both her monastic communities while also being incredibly productive in her creative outpouring. 

Her vision of viriditas, the greening power of God, permeates the entire universe with this verdant richness and nourishment. I often call on this greening in the moments when I am feeling dry in body and spirit. 

The closing line from the poem is the inspiration for the title of this collection. This is the work of our contemplative practice and commitment, to open our hearts and let Spirit and the world enter in and offer us the gift of seeing ourselves and others more deeply and intimately. 

Many of the poems I include in this collection are about my own thirty-five journey with autoimmune illness including chronic pain and fatigue. While I share some of the very real struggles here, the book is also about the solace found in nature, and the companionship of the saints and ancestors through the journey. It is about remembering the beauty of quiet moments and stillness that often reveal the heart of wonder and possibility. 

Join us tomorrow, October 19th, for a free poetry book launch where I will share more about the book and read several poems, and Simon will offer his beautiful gift of music. I hope you will join us and pre-order the book. The session will be recorded if you can’t join live.

I will also be teaching a 28-day e-course with Spirituality & Practice starting November 2^nd. We will be encountering anchoress Julian of Norwich, Carmelite reformer Teresa of Avila, beguine Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen. Each week will have three lessons exploring one of these four wise women mystics and will invite you into specific prayer practices inspired by their wisdom and writing. 

Cultivating Seeds of Liberation prayer cycle

This week we continue our release of the Cultivating Seeds of Liberation prayer cycle video podcasts with Day 3: Hope. The evening cycle opens with this prayer by Wisdom Council member Claudia Love Mair:

We come with humility, Great Spirit. So many trod the valley of despair right now, and if one of us suffers, any of us, at any time can be plunged into waking nightmares. Yet, the reality is we ourselves, as individuals, will never be able to help everyone. That, too, feels hopeless. But where we are not able, you Spirit of Love, are able. You have the power to knit us together in Love to collectively make a difference. We ask that you foster love-fueled hope in us, that drives us to do what is ours to do. And let us trust you to give our other beloveds what is theirs to do to alleviate the suffering of those you hold in your heart, along with us.

You are invited to pray with the videos for Day 3 Morning and Evening Prayer: Hope.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

Cover Image from Monkfish Publishing

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I’ll admit that when the one-inch molded plastic Jesus figurines began to circulate a few years back, I rolled my eyes. I thought they were tacky, and there was something about how they casually but intentionally showed up in places that reminded me of the evangelical tracts from my childhood with their garish type that yelled from the cover—JESUS SAVES. When I looked theologically at this plastic Jesus’s representation of mass-produced consumerism, I wondered if it cheapened grace and pointed to our own stinginess in contrast to the example Jesus gave of the widow’s sacrificial giving of all she had. So, when the mini Jesus began to appear in places and situations of deep grief for me, I struggled with the dissonance. 

It all started in May 2025 when my father suffered a stroke, which doctors first predicted would be mild in its impact, but instead took a downward turn rendering his cognition, personality, and behavior irreparably harmed. Since my father was the primary caregiver for my mother who had Lewy body dementia, his stroke triggered a line of falling dominoes that ended with both being placed into a memory care unit at a skilled nursing facility.

As their only child, everything fell to me—making good healthcare decisions for them, assuming responsible control of their finances, and cleaning out their hoarded home. I had dreaded the day I would have to deal with the hoard that had accumulated from decades of unchecked mental illness. All of this caused my faith and the seeming unjustness of such suffering to collide head on. It was further complicated by the reality that much of the hoard was religious material (books, Bibles, sermons on cassette and CD, etc.) that had harmed me as a child by its toxic doctrine, rendering me hypervigilant about sin and falling out of God’s favor.

It was during this clean up that I encountered the first mini Jesus. I found him collapsed face down on the nightstand of my mother’s bedroom amid scattered pills and cracker crumbs. It was a diorama that appeared staged but wasn’t. I yelled, “Even Jesus has given up on this house!” And yet, that tiny Jesus in his purple sash, came to symbolize the savior, prophesized as a man of sorrows who would be no stranger to grief. I began to recognize in this figurine the Jesus who comes as a compassionate helper willing to meet us where we are, even if that means lying down beside us in the messiness of life.

I shared this experience with a close friend. A few weeks later, she texted me a photo from a local craft store, where under the label of a choking-hazard party favor, you could buy the mini Jesus in bulk,12 for $2.99. That led to another question—What does it mean to buy Jesus in bulk? Again, the dissonance rose up in me.

After my parents had been in memory care for seven months, my father asked for a lightweight jacket, saying that he felt cold sometimes. I retrieved a tan windbreaker from his closet in their mostly empty house and wrote his name inside with a black permanent marker. When I presented it to him, he gave it a thorough examination as if he didn’t recognize it, then slid his hand in the pocket and withdrew three plastic Jesus figurines, a trinity of Jesuses. My mother sat in her wheelchair next to his bed while he tried to explain the meaning of the different sash colors. She, however, showed no interest in their possible symbolism. Her focus was only on possessing them. A purple cosmetic bag that she carried as a purse had become her only source of hoarding, and she greedily tucked them inside like a magpie’s trinkets.

The week before Easter, my mother began a sharp decline, becoming lethargic and preferring to sleep rather than roam the halls or eat meals with my father. On April 20, the hospice nurse declared that my mother’s status had changed to active dying. They moved her to a private room so there could be quiet and the opportunity for family to gather. Of her belongings, the staff only transferred the purple cosmetic bag to the new space. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when upon arrival, I was greeted by a wee Jesus, as Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama might call it. Jesus, in the blue that represented his humanity, keeping vigil on the empty dresser, bearing witness to my mother’s transition from human life to life eternal. Three days later when I exited that room for the final time, I left empty-handed except for that Jesus tucked in my pocket.

Dr. Kellie Brown is a violinist, music educator, and award-winning writer. Her words have appeared in Earth & Altar, Ekstasis, Foreshadow, and others. In addition to 35 years of music ministry, she serves as a UMC lay minister and is pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Theopoetics at Bethany Theological Seminary.

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Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

On October 20^th my fourth and newest collection of poems, What Enters Through the Open Heart, will be published by Monkfish publishing. The poem above, “I Kneel” is part of this collection which includes several poems about illness and grief. 

This is the introduction to the book to give you a sense of the kinds of poems included:

There is so much that can close our hearts off to the world. Choosing to live in an open-hearted way in the midst of illness or grief is a path of courage. 

Life is both tender and fragile, and at times profoundly enduring. This collection of poems centers on the former but often touches on the latter, revealing how this fleeting and frail quality of so many of our experiences, often shows the way toward what is most deeply true.

I have lived over thirty-five years of my adult life with a degenerative autoimmune illness, which my mother had as well. She became so disabled she used a power wheelchair to get around the last few years of her life and the illness ultimately claimed her life. In the section of poems, “Illness and Grief,” I explore some of what it means for me to live with ongoing pain and fatigue and how I both honor the grief as well as strive to make meaning from this (when possible, it isn’t always).

The world itself feels very fragile in these times of climate chaos. Some of the poems in “The Natural World” are a celebration of things I want to hold onto and remember, others are expressions of grief and resistance.

In “Ancestors,” I offer some poems for that often-tenuous link we have with those who have walked before us. The grief, the longing, the confusion we feel and the stories that run through our blood can offer us a sense of direction for our lives. 

The penultimate section is “Saints and Mystics.” These wise and well ones who shimmer from beyond the veil have provided me with daily sustenance to continue to show up in this world honoring my own vulnerability and bringing my strengths as gift. Many of the mystics experienced illness themselves and wrestled with the limitations it brings. 

Mostly, this collection for me is one long unfolding prayer of grieving and hoping, of witnessing all that feels fleeting, and rooting myself in all that endures.

Next week on Monday, October 19^th Simon de Voil and I will be offering a free poetry book launch where I will share more about the book and read several poems, and Simon will offer his beautiful gift of music. I hope you will join us and pre-order the book. The session will be recorded if you can’t join live.

Cultivating Seeds of Liberation prayer cycle

This week we release the video podcasts for day 2 of our Cultivating Seeds of Liberation Prayer Cycle. The theme for Day 2: Morning and Evening Prayer is Vision. The following prayer was written by our program director, Melinda Thomas. 

Breath of Life, your sacred imagination danced creation into being. It can be so hard to see ourselves with the same loving gaze with which you look upon us. Help us to see ourselves with clarity and non-judgement. Open our vision to honor stories of the past, respond to the present, and cultivate a future in which our diversity is celebrated, and our similarities grounded in the recognition of shared humanity.

Watch the video podcasts here. They are also available on Vimeo and YouTube.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

P.S. Marissa Papula at The Christian Century wrote a lovely review of my book A Book of Everyday Blessings.She writes, “As both a spiritual resource and a work of contemplative art, this collection succeeds in what it sets out to do: to widen the circle of who can bless and what is worthy of blessing.” Read the full review here.

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One of the best lessons from the pandemic was the art of slow living. My backyard became my sanctuary, and everything happening in it was suddenly much more interesting to me. The less human contact I had, the more kinship I felt with all the animals who lived just a few steps away. My greatest teachers during that time were a pair of Eastern bluebirds. As the female brooded for a couple of weeks and received support from the male, I began to see the lockdown as a container where something good might grow. I wrote more poems during that period than I ever had before, and those lessons about slowing down, observing, and nurturing my creative self have stayed with me.

Winged Teachers

When the human world had shut down,
the natural world stayed open,
signs still blinking like they always had,
though subdued by brighter lights.

More of us noticed what was happening
in our own backyards.

A bird house nailed to the fence the year before
became occupied with Eastern bluebirds,
the cobalt hue of their feathers nourishing me
like good medicine from an old bottle.

Nesting, they taught me about acceptance of what is,
how brooding does not have to mean captivity,
how the stillness can bring forth something 
new and hungry for life.

Jennifer Miller’s work has appeared in Humana Obscura, Gypsophila, and anthologies by Womancraft Publishing. Born and raised in the North Georgia Mountains, she lives with her husband and a black cat named Raven in lower Alabama. Find her at JenMillerPoetry.com and on Instagram @jenmillerpoetry. 

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