It’s done it again. Stolen my post. My apologies. Part 2 of my interview with Christine Valters Paintner will appear again. I just have to rewrite it.

Liz, over at Just Be. Love All. Live Life has created a wonderful photo journey for the month of May — an invitation to explore the idea, Who am I?, through the art of photography and reflection.

Just for the fun of it, I decided to sign on. There’s not really much to do to sign on, just leave a comment on Liz’s blog page announcing the ‘Photo a Day for the month of May’ event, and send a tweet or Instagram message to tell her you’re in. And then, every day, turn up, be present, be curious and alive to the question, Who am I?

I’m all in!

All of me. Not just fingers and toes, or lips and back of my neck. I’m all in. Committed to exploring who I am through a photograph a day that speaks to who I am in that moment.

May 1 was, All heart.  May 2, Wild and creative (though I thought afterwards it should be Wildly creative — but hey, that could be me another day this month!).

It’s a fascinating idea — to take a photo of yourself everyday that depicts how you are in that moment.

Last night, as I painted with my two painterly buddies, we laughed and joked about what we were in that moment, and then, I just decided to have fun. It was in the having fun that I realized — taking a photo a day of myself can be fun.

I always look forward to seeing the photo my daughter, Alexis, posts of herself everyday on her blog, The Wunder Year. She’s asked stranger’s, co-workers, her boyfriend, me and anyone around at the moment to snap the shot everyday since she began The Wunder Year on Jan 1. And the collection of photos she has is fun, fascinating and a great visual reminder of where she’s at in any given moment on her quest to fall in love with herself, without her credit card or eating disorder defining her. To accept who she is, exactly the way she is, without needing the crutch of shopping or the perils of disordered eating keeping her playing small.

In our busy, get it done, get it going, get it all now, world, it is easy to allow ourselves to be defined by what we have. Fancy cars, right addresses, big titles all become the benchmark upon which we measure success, ours and others.

Strip away the accoutrements of a modern-day life and the statement, “I am _______________” is harder to express. I am a mother. A daughter. A sister. An aunt. A friend. A co-worker. A neighbour.

Dig beneath the label and who are you really? What makes your heart beat, your feet skip, your mind expand, your lips smile, your belly laugh? What rocks your boat?

In her photo a day invitation, Liz writes, “the other thing that is important to me is the idea of living an authentic life… of being exactly who you are. because all of us are unique, beautiful, and wonderful… exactly as we are.”

Last night as I painted, I was exactly who I was in that moment. Wild and creative.

I threw paint. Dripped it. Lathered it on. I smeared and pushed and rubbed and scraped it all over the canvas. I let myself express my authentic self through the creative wilderness, untethered to the idea that I was defined by what I was doing. I wasn’t.

I was the act of creating. I was the wild freedom of being in the moment, of the moment, all the time.

I was me. Wild and creative. In that moment.

This morning, I am still me but this me is informed by those moments spent dripping paint upon a canvas. This me is informed by all the moments that preceded the last. When I stop to take a breath to capture who I am in a moment in the future, I wonder what I will be experiencing? I wonder how I will express myself. I can hardly wait to see!

I’ll be posting my photo a day throughout the month.

Why not join me, and Liz and her other blog followers who have signed on to be part of this adventure?

You never know what you may discover. You never know who you will reveal yourself to be within the moment of living your life in the rapture of now!

PS. Here’s a hint for my photo for Who am I? today. When I went back to proof this post, the statement, I’m all in, struck me as a great way to be. Now… to figure out a way to photograph myself in the act of living All In!  I’m looking forward to the adventure! Come back tomorrow and you can share in my discovery — and hopefully, share your own photo a day discovery too!

It was one of those wonder-filled days. Busy. Jam-packed. Enlightening. Filled with moments that blew my mind. Crammed with opportunities to explore the more that’s always out there.

The day included a tour of a family shelter that provides emergency care for 14 families. A conversation that expanded ideas into possibilities. A presentation that blew my mind on the power of data to inform decision-making. A panel discussion about ‘safe cities’ where I was one of three presenters to a group of 24 – 40 somethings engaged in making a difference in our city. And then, I painted.

Perhaps it was that I was inspired by the energy of the audience at the panel discussion. Or maybe it was just that throughout the day I kept encountering the expansiveness of possibilities everywhere. Or, perhaps it was just that I felt the call of the canvas inviting me to let go and create. Whatever the ’cause’, the process was divine — even when I decided that painting over one of my previous works was the only way to get it somewhere pleasing.

And so I did. Paint over.

Unlike life, paint-overs really do create possibility. They use what was to create a brand new what is…

Paint-overs rock.

My eldest daughter taught me that many years ago. If you don’t like it, paint over it, she advised me when she was sixteen and I had just begun to paint with her.

My dear friend Ursula had been at me for years to pick up a brush. An amazing artist, she kept trying to get me to join her in her love of creating beauty on a canvas. Don’t believe everything you think, she’d tell me. And I’d laugh and say, No thank you. I won’t like it. You’ll love it, she insisted.

I didn’t believe her.

Instead, I believed the voice inside of me that whispered, “You’re a writer Louise. Not an artist. You can’t paint. You have no artistic ability.”

Don’t you love it when you finally find the courage to prove the voice of self-doubt wrong?

One day, after Alexis had asked to go to the art supply store to pick up some fresh canvas and we’d returned home with canvas, paint and new brushes, I decided to pick up a brush. And fell in love.

Ten years later, I know how wrong I was. I am an artist. I do have talent. I can create! And on May 10 and May 11, I’m in my first art show and sale. How cool is that!

I wonder what else I tell myself I can’t do that really, if I just give myself a chance, I can? I wonder how many limits I set on myself just because saying, “I can’t” is easier than, “I can”? I can’t means I don’t have to take risks. I can’t means I don’t have to step outside my comfort zone.

I can’t keeps  me uncomfortably stuck in my ruts of self-doubt, limitations and inhibitions.

I can sets me free to fly, to explore, to be the more I’ve always dreams was out there waiting for me to become.

Think about it. Everyday we’re faced with opportunities to explore the unknown and everyday, we turn our backs on what is not known or unfamiliar to hold onto what is within the comfort of our known capabilities.

It may be human nature to fear the unknown, it’s also human nature to step into it and fly.

For today, invite yourself to step out of the known into something, new, unexplored, previously untried. For today, let yourself talk to strangers, take a different route to work, wear different coloured socks, pick up a paintbrush, give a speech, ask the guy in the cubicle two over out for coffee, phone the one you’ve been avoiding, say “I’m sorry”, ask for what you want, turn down a drink, turn up the volume and dance.

Let yourself go where you’ve never dared to go. Let yourself be who you’ve always dreamed of being.

Just for today, give yourself permission to do the things you’ve feared, to be the one you’ve always dreamed of being.

Just for today, let yourself fly.

Who knows what you might learn? What you might do? What you might achieve? And along the way, who knows how many limits you might break?

C’mon, just for today, go for it!

My mind is blank this morning. I wonder what I will write and no words, no thoughts appear. See, my critter mind hisses, I told you this would happen. You’ve run out of original thoughts.

Now, I don’t know why that thought immediately made me think of my Catholic upbringing, but it did. Perhaps it’s the idea of original thoughts which leapt to original sin.

It was the part of Catholicism that bothered me every day when I was a child. The doctrine teaches that I was born with ‘Original Sin’ and unless people prayed for me and I behaved and never did anything bad in my whole life, I was a) lost forever in Purgatory, or b) going to hell.

Neither seemed like such a good option. And, anyway, the God I envisioned was not that small minded that he’d sentence a newborn child to a place called Purgatory. Nothing I heard about the place was very appealing. The sun didn’t shine and there were no birds tweeting in the trees and no brooks burbling with joy as they rushed down tree draped mountainsides to join the mighty rivers flowing to the sea. Nope. Purgatory was not a place where any soul wanted to be trapped. Why would God want anyone to live there throughout eternity? In fact, as a child, I used to ask why would God even invent a place like Purgatory. It wasn’t a particularly good expression of His  creativity.

Though my inquiring mind did sometimes earn me a rap on my knuckles, no one seemed to have an answer to my question. Just as they never took me seriously when I asked where God lived from Monday to Saturday. If he was in church on Sunday, what happened to him the rest of the week? ‘Cause in my view, the world seemed to fall apart during the week and sure could have used a lot more God.

I still wonder. About Purgatory and where God is, but, I’ve let go worrying about what he’s up to and learned to express my own God-like qualities that reflect the creativity and divinity I want to see in the world everyday. It is true what Ghandi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

I saw that change in action yesterday through the words of a man who has grown far beyond the sinful life of drugs and running wild he once indulged in, to be the kind of man he always wanted to be, kind, funny, generous.

When he was 51 John B. tried crack for the first time. That one puff on a pipe lead him on a 15 year odyssey into the depths of despair and the futility of a drug of which he could never get enough.

Yesterday, in front of 200+ grade 3’s to 6, I listened to him share his story. I come and tell you all of this, he told the wide-eyed children sitting on the gym floor of a local Catholic elementary school, because I want to open your eyes to what can happen. You don’t think it can happen to you, but it can. So if you’re ever presented with the choice, if anyone ever offers you drugs, or suggests you do something you know is wrong, walk away. Just keep walking away.

At the end of his half hour talk, after he’d expressed the sadness he felt in having lost all touch with his only daughter for the 15 years of that journey, a young boy put up his hand and asked, “How did you feel when you saw your daughter again?”

John swallowed hard and took a breath. “It was wonderful,” he said. “We’re not perfect together today, but it sure is better than it was.”

And I wondered about that young boy. What caused him to ask the question. What sorrow was he carrying.

Later, I learned that several of the students from this school are in foster care. The sad fact is that close to 50% of children in foster care will become homeless as adults. Perhaps, like John’s daughter, drugs have stolen this young boys parents from his life. Perhaps he wonders what it will be like when they return. Will he have a home of his own? Will he be safe? Will they want to be with him one day?

I hope that in John’s words he found some comfort, and strength. I hope that in hearing John’s story, and the joy he expressed in seeing his daughter again, he will hold that possibility close to his heart. That he will know, the sins of the parents are not the property of the child.

And I wonder if he is worried that this place called Purgatory is his life on earth.

I pray he knows differently. I pray he finds his truth. God knows, he deserves better.

The first time I encountered Christine Valters Paintner was through my beautiful friend Maureen Doallas of Writing Without Paper. She shared a link to Christine’s website, Abbey of the Arts, and I was hooked. Even just a cursory exploration leaves you yearning for more. More spiritual connection, more sacred moments, more contemplative practice and creative expression.

Recently, I had the gift of spending an hour on Skype with Christine, the Abbess of the Abbey. I am so grateful for her gracious acceptance of my invitation to chat and explore what it means to be a Monk in the World.

My conversation with this amazing woman who lives everyday from that place of sacred connection to the divine essence of every day, left me with a sense of awe and a desire to seek out the sacred in my every day. I felt touched by grace, embraced by the gentle rhythm of her voice and the beautiful images her words evoked of what it means to be “A Monk in the World”. Today, I share Part 1 of my interview with this amazing woman.

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, is a Benedictine oblate and the author of 7 books on monastic spirituality and creative arts including her latest: Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice from Ave Maria Press. For Christine’s full bio, click HERE.

Q. What does it mean to be a Monk in the World?

Being a monk in the world means being committed to helping people reclaim their contemplative self. Everybody has an inner monk, whether you live in a monastary or not. The monk energy is strong in the world, and there’s a growing hunger to live in this meaningful and committed way in every day. My passion is about helping people connect to this ancient energy, this longing. The monk is the part of ourselves that longs for presence to the world through seeking out the sacred in every day moments whether in our homes, or out in the world. To bring that quality of sacred awareness to everything.

Q. How do you stay present in your own experience in the midst of a world that holds a lot of suffering?

There is suffering in our world. There’s large-scale like Boston (this interview took place the day after the Boston Marathon bombings) and in the everyday suffering that we all experience in losses of identity, home, jobs. Being a monk in the world is not about creating a pious always happy persona. It’s about how  I bring myself, my full awareness to my experience and how do I make space for that and how do I honour that in what it means to be human. And to trust that there is something sacred that pulses through all the experiences of our lives. And then, to draw upon this sacred presence in the most difficult times.

Q.  How do you transmit that sense of the sacred to the world around you?

You live it. It’s not always done well by words. In western culture there are a lot of religious traditions that like to tell people how to live a godly life. Being a monk in the world means striving to always put this into practice. How do I live a life that is full of presence and compassion and hospitality so that others will be moved by my example, regardless of what religious tradition they come from. It is more how I am in the world, how I engage, my presence that that will be the inspiration, or witness to the sense that there is something meaningful, there’s a depth dimension to life.

Q. How did you discover your monk in the world.

On some level, I have always been drawn to a contemplative life. I have always been nourished by it. I am an only child and solitude and silence were close companions  and very familiar when I was younger. And then, in my twenties in graduate school that I discovered St. Benedict and through that process of study that I fell in love with a monastic way. And it was a wonderful discovery to realize there was a whole  path that already reflects how I live and what I value. It was a way for me to deepen into that practice and articulate it and find a community of people who were already committed to that way of life. I stumbled into it and yet knew that I was already living that way for quite some time and just didn’t quite have the language to put into it.

The monk path is a universal path. Anybody, regardless of whether they have a religious orientation or not, has this inner monk and inner impulse towards this sense of presence to the sacred or towards what is  most meaningful. And, we can also root our monk practice within specific religious traditions. For me, its rooted in Benedictine practice which is in a Christian tradition.  But I feel like the practice is spacious enough that I could meet with someone in the Buddhist Tradition and while our beliefs may be different to some degree, our practices would be very similar. that’s where we find this kinship which is where living it feels more important that how I explain the beliefs behind it.

Q. How long do you spend in a typical day in contemplative practice?

I strive to keep that awareness throughout my day but I have practices that cultivate it. I will spend time in every day in Lectio Divina, the ancient practice of sacred reading of text whether scripture or poetry or the mystics. I spend usually half an hour to an hour journalling and silent prayer. I find walking and swimming to be contemplative practices. It’s based on the premise that whatever we bring our attention and awareness to can become this contemplative prayer and there are specific practices we might have that help our contemplative capacity. When I go out for a long walk, and I am intentionally walking with this sense of contemplative presence to the world and open my heart to how I might have an encounter with something that is greater than me, that is a contemplative practice. Hopefully, I can bring this awareness to everyday tasks like going grocery shopping or to the bank. Whatever I do.

It takes discipline. It’s pretty essential for me to have regular practices. That I have times in the day that I am consciously and intently cultivating that awareness. And then there are lots of  times in my life  that that the contemplative artist takes over as a natural practice because of who I am and what I’ve done. Practice though is key, showing up again and again so that we can strengthen that ability.

Q. Are there times when you realize you haven’t been engaged in your practice? How do you reconnect?

What can happen is we fall away from our practice and maybe engage in self-judgment, or because we simply forget. And then we remember, oh, I made this commitment to do this practice and now I haven’t done it for a week. And maybe, I just give up on it. When really the call is to keep returning, again and again. That really is the only important thing to remember — to always begin again. We will all have times when we fall away from this central commitment, it’s just part of who we are as human beings. We forget. We fall asleep. And so to begin again is an awakening, over and over. Whenever we notice we have fallen away, we can begin again, we can come back, again and again.

Next Week:  Part 2 of my interview with Abbey of the Arts Abbess, Christine Valters Paintner, PhD on what it means to live as a monk in the world.

It was the finale to the, This is My City Festival. Three weeks of arts and theatre celebrating the creative souls of those engaged, involved or living the homeless condition. Last night 4 women shared their stories, and afterwards, 10 of us took to the stage to share our words through poetry and song.

What a blast!

For me, it was a first. Three of my poem were being read. Two by others and one by me.

Now reading my poetry in public is not a common occurrence for me. In fact, this would be the first time I’ve done it.

I like firsts. They suggest, nexts. And, they take me outside my comfort zone. They move me beyond that place where I think I know all I need to know about what I am capable of into that place where all that I know is nothing compared to all that is possible when I let go of setting limits on myself.

Like being in my first art show in two weeks, I never imagined I would be writing poetry, and performing it in public. Yet, there I was last night, standing on stage, listening to my poetry being read, and then, standing up and reading one of my poems myself.

Yup. Definitely a blast!

In my teens and into my twenties I wrote a lot of poetry. Angst riddled verses of love lost, heart’s broken, dreams forsaken. And then I quit. Maybe I didn’t think my words mattered. Maybe I didn’t think I had anything to say, or worth hearing, or sharing. Maybe I told myself, I’m not a poet. I can’t remember. All I know is I quit. Stopped the flow of words and let myself fall into the trap of believing — I don’t do that.

It wasn’t until I connected into a circle of poets here online a few years ago that I started to stretch my writer’s muscles, started to delve into writing in verse that I remembered how much I love expressing myself through the poetic form. It was connecting with people like Maureen Doallas at Writing without Paper, and Glynn Young at Faith. Fiction. Friends and Diane Walker at Contemporary Photography that I reconnected my spirit to the soul of my creative core — poetry. And in that connection, I awoke to all that I am capable of when I quit telling myself — I can’t/don’t/won’t do that.

Last night I stood on a stage and read a poem I wrote about homelessness, Can You See Me?. Kirk Miles of Midnight Yoga for Alcoholics read a poem I wrote this year for my brother who passed away with his wife on March 17, 1997, And Now You’re Gone, and the irrepressible Shannon Jones (who inspired me to get up and read myself) read a ballad I wrote when I took a song-writing course a couple of years ago with Eric Bibb, Fear Lived In Her Belly.Kirk, who was also the ‘poet-maestro’ of the event, set the ballad to a blues guitar played by John Harris with Sally Truss providing percussion and back-up vocals. It gave me shivers.

I had a blast last night and in the process, I cast off limitations and stepped into the pure joy of being present and alive to the moment.

It was inspiring. Fun. Enlivening. And…. to make it even more exciting my friends GC and CY arrived in from New York just in time to share in the evening!

Here is the poem I read:

Can You See Me?

I knew it was there. Could feel it. Sense it. Perceive it.

I seldom have to go looking for it. It’s always there. Always lurking, pulling me back, stopping me up, pushing me away from my desire to live life fully in the rapture of now.

It doesn’t have to sneak up, slink in, or crawl under my defences. It just is. There. Here. Present. Even in times like last night, when I am deep into meditation, connected to the light of our group circle, it turns up. I’d say it’s uninvited but seriously, it’s so accustomed to being present, it doesn’t need an invitation.

It just is. My resistance.

And there it was, as I tripped the night fantastic of a meditation circle focused on experiencing the light of the Wesak moon. There it was, pulling at me, picking at my peace of mind, disturbing my equilibrium.

Surrender thy will, the voice of knowing whispered. Surrender thy will.

I didn’t want to. Surrender. Surrender means to give in. To let go. To release my control.

I don’t like giving up control.

Surrender thy will, the voice whispered in a loving stream of consciousness that floated out all around me into the star lit night. Surrender thy will.

I resisted.

And tears flooded my eyes.

Surrender thy will.

I breathed. And surrendered and was bathed in the beautiful light of Love that radiated out from my heart into the night. And in that light I was One with the One. I was immersed in the power of the moment where I was completely, totally, at peace, right where I was, exactly as I was born to be. In that light I was the One I was waiting for. I was the reflection of Love that flowed in and all around me. And I knew, without fear, without hesitation, without question, we are all the beauty and the magnificence of our being who we are meant to be when we let go of resisting our magnificence, our beauty, our Love.

It was a powerful meditation last night. A circle so connected that in its radiance I felt my heart break open, my soul shift in delight, my spirit spread its wings. In its beauty, I found myself surrendering my will to let Love be all that I am, all that I know, all that I become in Love.

There is no need to resist. No need to hold onto control. To hold back on surrender. There is no need unmet, no need unknown, no need to need, when I breathe into the light and surrender my will to Love.

Namaste.