At Monkfish Abbey we have some spaces in our annual cycle where we just kind of float. For instance, we sort of slip past Eastertide and Pentecost and use the time between Lent/Easter and Solstice as a bit of a reprieve. We call it Ordinary Time – thought it doesn’t correspond with the actual Ordinary Time of the Church Year. It suits the rythm of our living, it work for us.

During this little lull of Ordinary Time, the monks have signed on to help host and cook at our Thursday night gathering. Last week it was Melissa turn. She read to us from a Barbara Ueland’s If You Want to Write: A book about Art, Independence, and Spiritand encouraged us to “be pirates!” in our writing style. In order to get us practicing some dare devilry and tale tales telling, Melissa had us play “Two Truths and a Lie.” We each told three first-person stories and then the others tried to guess which one was the lie. It was a beautiful night, so we lit the firebowl. What could be better than stories around the campfire?

The week before last I was laid-up with a migraine and missed Rebecca’s turn to lead us in lectio divina. Rebecca chose passages from the Tao te Ching for us to interact with, and provided watercolors supplies for those who wanted to respond by painting.

As promised, our homepage is slowly growing. I’ve added information about how we do lectio divina and provided some examples of our collaged responses. I’ve also added the passages from the Tao that Rebecca chose. Check over there from time to time to see if we’ve got new goodies for you. And feel free to email you favorite lectio materials to us – we’re always looking for new goodies.