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    Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    Ebook159 pages2 hours

    Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements

    By Christine Valters Paintner

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Organized around "The Canticle of the Creatures" by St. Francis of Assisi, Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire is the first book to consider the ways in which praying with the natural elements can enliven Christian spiritual life. Teacher, artist, and Benedictine oblate Christine Valters Paintner offers concrete suggestions and guided contemplative exercises; for instance, she suggests that readers take time to "watch the sunrise or sunset and breathe in the beauty of the fiery sky. Contemplate what those beginnings and endings have to say in your own life." Readers benefit from Paintner's extensive training in theology and Benedictine spirituality, as well as her unique work in bringing the expressive arts to spiritual direction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAve Maria Press
    Release dateMar 1, 2010
    ISBN9781933495507
    Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    Author

    Christine Valters Paintner

    Christine Valters Paintner is the online abbess for Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery offering classes and resources on contemplative practice and creative expression. She earned a doctorate in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and achieved professional status as a registered expressive arts consultant and educator from the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association. She is also trained as a spiritual director and supervisor. Paintner is the author of numerous spirituality titles, including The Love of Thousands; Birthing the Holy; Sacred Time; Earth, Our Original Monastery; The Soul’s Slow Ripening; The Wisdom of the Body; Illuminating the Way; The Soul of a Pilgrim; The Artist’s Rule; Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire; and three collections of poetry. She is a Benedictine oblate living in Galway, Ireland, with her husband, John. Together they lead online retreats at their website AbbeyoftheArts.com.

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    • 4/5
      having won the Autumn Blessings poetry party from Abbey of the Arts, today i received Christine's autographed prize gift of her new book *Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements*.

      i'm already more than pleased in the reading. how about sharing an appetizer with you?

      *The element of wind invites us to "open our souls to Being," which means opening ourselves to a God who flows in directions we cannot predict. This element invites us to a radical posture of surrender in releasing our hold on our own plans and making room for God to blow us in the most life-giving direction. As a metaphor for God, wind reminds us that God's ways are not our ways. The invitation of wind requires of us a detachment from our own longing to control the direction of our lives and a simultaneous surrender to Spirit to allow ourselves to be carried to places of growth and newness.*

      hungry? i know i am. looking forward to much more...

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    Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire - Christine Valters Paintner

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