Loretto Retreats Monday Musings

Every Monday, Loretto retreat directors Susan Classen and JoAnn Gates write a Monday Musing reflection for social media. Here are a few of the recent musings …

“Westerners have forgotten what indigenous people understand to be cardinal. That this world owes its life to the unseen.” – Toko-pa Turner

All around us the invisible life energy of the universe is giving rise to bursting buds, delicate flowers and bright green grass. That same unseen life energy in Minneapolis gave rise to mothers donating breast milk to immigrant neighbors terrified of being arrested by ICE, to volunteers willing to drive a stranger’s children to school and to neighbors supporting local restaurants and businesses which closed to protect their employees.

Let’s pay attention today to the life that arises from the unseen in the form of beautiful flowers, budding trees and countless acts of kindness.

My heart felt as bleak as this apple tree as I began pruning it the day the U.S. attacked Iran. Slowly, carefully, I snipped and cut, trying to save the life of a tree badly damaged in a storm, hoping against hope that it might bear fruit once again. That’s when I remembered Wendell Berry’s words.

“In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.” – Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”

Acts like pruning fruit trees and sowing clover in the midst of suffering aren’t escapes. They are bold stands for life declaring that death and destruction will not have the last word. Continuing to engage with life when the world is in danger sends a clear message to the powerful that we haven’t lost our humanity, and that we will not back down in our work for a future where kindness prevails. What is one small way that you might engage with life today? 

In this age when we can feel so powerless, these words of Thomas Berry, CP, offer us such strong consolation: “We must feel that we are supported by that same process that brought the Earth into being, that power that spun the galaxies into space, that lit the sun and brought the moon into its orbit. Those forces are still present. Indeed, we might feel their impact at this time and understand that we are not isolated in the chill of space with the burden of the future upon us and without the aid of any other power. We are supported by that power that spun the galaxies into space.” – Thomas Berry, “Thomas Berry: A Book of Hours, edited by Kathleen Deignan CND”

It’s easy for me to see the beauty of this sycamore, its color stark against the sky, its form revealed by the absence of its leaves. It’s much harder to see my own beauty when I feel stripped of my protective covering. Maybe that’s the invitation and challenge of Lent: to know that God sees me like I see the sycamore, to know that vulnerability reveals an ache for something more and a longing which sends my roots deep into God, the Ground of Being. May this season of Lent reveal to each of us, not only our own beauty but the beauty that surrounds us as we learn to see through the eyes of our Creator.

So many benefits will come about from last week’s controlled burn (March 2026) by the Loretto Motherhouse Farm staff. Invasive plants have been suppressed, making way for natural grasses which will rapidly rise to attract birds, pollinators and other wildlife. Often, sometimes daily, I need to clear out unhelpful habits or ways of thinking or even “stuff” that invades and overtakes the more beautiful things that want to bloom from within. What about you?