Dialogue: the monastic impulse as a spark to serve something bigger than yourself?
There’s a great dialogue happening in the comments to my second submission (here is part 1) to the Transpositions Art & Monasticism Symposium. These are exactly the kinds of conversations I was hoping would happen. Cole Matson asked: How much do you think the search for God is necessary for a way of life to be called “monastic”? […]
Monastic Technologies (part 2 of 2 @ the Transpositions Art & Monasticism Symposium)
[I wrote this originally for the online Art & Monasticism Symposium, April 30 – May 5, through Transpositions, a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews. This is part 2, and part 1 is here. It was featured alongside great posts by Christine Valters Paintner, Cole Matson, […]
Open-Source Monasticism (part 1 of 2 @ the Transpositions Art & Monasticism Symposium)
[I wrote this originally for the online Art & Monasticism Symposium, April 30 – May 5, through Transpositions, a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews. This is part 1, and part 2 is here. It was featured alongside great posts by Christine Valters Paintner, Cole Matson, Preston Yancey, and Sr […]
Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, was an Artmonk; Beastie Boys’ “Bodhisattva Vow”
[update: good context for this, a Salon post on Yauch, “From brat to activist: Adam Yauch’s transformation from hooligan to human rights figure paralleled a generation’s coming-of-age,” here.] I’ve started to notice recently how the vows we’ve taken this year (of gratitude, fidelity, and resourcefulness), as well as the midnight Vigils Ritual we’re investigating as part of […]
Vigils: Intimacy with the Void
The title of poet Paul Celan’s 1967 collection, Atemwende (in English: Breathturn), suggests that mysterious moment at the end of the out-breath and the beginning of the in-breath. What happens in that gap is… a gap. It permits no concepts (not even “emptiness”) and yet, ineffably, is a part of the fullness of human experience. The breathturn has its […]
The Monastic Cycle
More than just a structure in space, a monastery is a structure in time. With a regularity that can intimidate those outside the cloister walls, monks and nuns gather every few hours, every single day, for a cycle of rituals that involve chant, prayer, and meditation. Far from the kind of mind-numbing routines we sometimes […]
Thomas Merton: “Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself”
Thomas Merton, in the introduction to the Spanish language edition to his complete works: Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself. Contemplation does not feed the hungry; it does not clothe the naked… and it does not return the sinner to peace, truth, and union with God. But without contemplation we cannot see what […]
Winner of Otherhood’s “The Artist’s Rule” Comment Contest: Cole Matson
For his comment on Otherhood Podcast: Episode 1 with Christine Valters Paintner, Cole Matson is hereby awarded a copy of Paintner’s book, “The Artist’s Rule.” The comments were all great, and the decision was a hard one. The passion and devotion Matson offers in his poetry really captured my attention, though. And I’m a sucker […]
Laura Riding was an artmonk
“The mercy of truth – it is to be truth.” In reading Paul Auster’s fantastic collection of essays, The Art of Hunger, I came across Truth, Beauty, Silence, a stunning look at Laura Riding’s life and work. As the poets she influenced (Auden, Ashbery, etc.) are among my favorites, I have read a little […]
Shi Yongxin, “CEO Monk” and abbot of the Shaolin Temple
Buddhism is the dominant religion in China, with as many as 300 million believers across the country. Like other forms of Buddhism, Zen emphasizes letting go of worldly cares and working toward enlightenment through meditation and practice of the Buddha’s teachings, which include a ban on harming any sentient beings. As its home, and […]
