Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that St. Francis of Assisi's "Canticle of the Creatures" (also known as the "Canticle of the Sun") is a powerful and poetic evocation of God's presence in the elements of nature. But few Christians, in my experience, seem to draw the connection that if the elements are indeed agents of God's blessings and means by which we can offer blessing and worship back to God, then it might make sense to think in terms of "air prayer," "water prayer," and so forth. This is the simple yet powerful premise of this lovely new book from Christine Valter Paintner, a Benedictine Oblate and the founder of the Abbey of the Arts website which explores the connection between spirituality and creativity.

Some readers may wonder if this is a crypto-Wiccan book, and indeed anyone interested in creative cross-fertilization between Neopaganism and Christian spirituality will find much to explore in this book. But let's be clear: the four elements (air, fire, water and earth) are universal energies, since they are grounded not only in the nature of the earth, but indeed in our very bodies (think of it: your skeleton and flesh are earth, your blood is water, your lungs and breath bring you air, and the very heat your body generates is the fire within you). Historically speaking, knowledge of the four elements and exploration of their spiritual meaning can be traced back to Greece, where Plato speaks of the elements, following the earlier Sicilian philosopher Empedocles. In other words, our earliest knowledge of the elements is not occult or magical, but rather philosophical and scientific, in scope. For Christians today, befriending the four elements is a way to honor the incarnational dimension of our faith, seeing God's presence in nature just as we believe the Holy Spirit and the Mind of Christ is present among those who are knit into the community of faith.

This book is essentially a workbook ("playbook"?) for prayer, divided into sections where Valters Paintner explores each element through poetry, stories, blessings, quotations, lectio divina, and suggestions for prayer and reflection. Most of the connections she highlights are obvious enough: water is linked to baptism, air to centering prayer, earth to feasting. This is not a book of secrets revealed so much as earthy common sense: water goes with the flow, fire brings passion and creativity, earth stabilizes and grounds us. Weave all four elements together and we find balance, perspective, and a sense of being at home in the good universe God has given us.

Obviously, this book should appeal to anyone with a love for Franciscan or Celtic expressions of Christian spirituality. But I think the author was wise not to limit her exploration of the elements to those particular strands of wisdom. This book feels universal in its tone and its application -- it is a book for all Christians, and indeed, for all people, anyone who might be interested in finding out what mystics like Hildegard of Bingen or John of the Cross or Thomas Merton might have to say to the question of bringing prayer and nature together.

As a journalist, I see thousands of new books on religion and spirituality flowing from publishers every year and a huge portion of those books relate to prayer, which is the most widespread religious expression in the world. Prayer is a practice, or rather a wide array of practices, extending to us from the roots of human civilization thousands of years ago.

Often, we forget the richness of our own traditions, even the specific Christian tradition that most Americans share. Often, helpful guides can emerge to reconnect us with themes and creative ideas that can wake up our prayer life--and can connect us with parts of the world we often overlook. Right now, millions of Americans are waking up to their deep connection with the natural world. For a long time, American evangelical movements were so focused on the "next" world that this one was almost an afterthought.

Where does our faith connect with "Creation care"? That's a two-word phrase now popular among religious environmental activists. For thousands of years, this wasn't even a question. Religion and environment always intertwined. Remember that the roots of our spiritual traditions lie in ancient lands where life depended on the weather, the fertility of fields--and the overall balance of non-human life on Earth. In the past 500 years, in particular, the Western Christian world seems to have lost track of this connection.

That's why this book is so fresh and so important. Just like me, you can find hundreds of books on prayer. Why choose this slim paperback volume? Because, in 150 pages, Christine Valters Paintner helps to reconnect Christians with our own centuries-old traditions of praying with "the elements"--the connective tissue between our faith and true Creation care.

Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements is filled with mystical moments. Author Christine Valters Paintner explores the essential role nature plays in our spiritual lives. Through events from Jesus' ministry, quotes from scripture, Christian mystics, artists and Native American spirituality, she shows how the elements are relevant today to the spiritual life.

This charming and breezy book invites the pray-er to incorporate each of these elements into his or her spiritual life. These four elements aid the mystic in the journey to deeper experiences of God. They each reflect a dimension of God, and yet are the simple stuff of our earthly existence.

In addition to Paintner's insights and experiences, Ralph Waldo Emerson, St. Francis of Assisi, Chet Raymond, Hildegard of Bingen, and other mystics, poets and writers share their wisdom. Each brings their own voice to the wonders of God expressed through creation.

Water, wind, earth and fire present themselves to us in many different forms. Whether solid, liquid, gas or some combination influenced by temperature or light, each offer a poignant theological lesson. Each invites us to surrender to God's magnificent power and to know at the core of our being that we are uniquely created and loved by Him.

In her book Water, Wind, Earth and Fire, author and contemplative artist Christine Valters Paintner explores the four natural elements named in the title and traditionally associated with ancient philosophies and nature-based religions. Paintner examines each element in turn as a metaphor for the myriad ways spiritual seekers can learn to connect with the divine matrix and unfathomable mysteries which fill the earth we walk upon.

Hence, this book is primarily about learning to see. Within its pages we are offered new ways of looking at the world. Instead of seeing only the superficial and obvious, Paintner teaches us to look lovingly into the depths of a shimmering world which is constantly shifting and changing. The rhythms and cycles of nature are a recurring theme throughout this book. Indeed, a major component of the contemplative work in which Paintner engages incorporates a deep resonance and response to these ever-changing rhythms--the cycles of our days and nights, weeks and months, seasons, and even our very breaths. In this way, the author shares her understanding of a world filled with the rising and falling of a never-ending, eternal dance of love and loss, pain and pleasure, desire and absence--both poles pointing to the dynamic tensions which underlie our daily existence, including that between our inner spiritual journey and the outer landscapes we inhabit.

She teaches us to read the natural world as a sacred text which, if we learn to discern its subtle movements, may reveal itself to us as the source of Divine Mystery. While her interpretive lens is primarily Christian based, its roots lie deeper than any single tradition. In her opening chapter the author refers to the many allusions of the elements evident in numerous ancient and tribal cultures, and other sacred texts. She goes on to link each element with traditional Native American practices based upon the four directions, connecting air with the east, water with the west, fire with the south, and earth with the north, noting that directional awareness is present in ancient Christian practices also.

Paintner cites a multitude of mystical writers, such as Hildegard of Bingen and St. Francis of Assisi, alongside contemporary poets and spiritual authors such as David Whyte, Denise Levertov, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, and many others; and, in the process introduces her readers to a wealth of inspirational nature writers, many of whom this reader had not heard of before. Through her own words, and those from which she quotes, the author encourages us to slow down, to stop and take the time to notice what lies before us, always, everywhere, suffusing all our senses, in our every waking moment.

If we can live in an open-hearted state of awareness to the elemental nature of our world, then we will learn to become fully present, not just to the world, but to ourselves also, and to the part that each one of us plays in this magical, mysterious universe; then we will be transformed into the contemplative beings we truly are. But first we need to listen with the ear of our hearts, so that we can open ourselves to the bright, shining ever-new world which is rolling out at our feet, even now, calling to us to play with its shimmering, pulsing, elemental nature, in wonder, awe and delight. In her book, Paintner, abbess of a virtual monastery, teaches us how.

by Edith O'Nuallain

for Story Circle Book Reviews

reviewing books by, for, and about women