There’s a well-worn trail through the prairie that leads from the house to the monastery. It’s a path I take each morning as I make my way to join the community for prayer. Each day I witness the progress of autumn as familiar trees along the trail change color, and birds overhead take to flying in formation in the early light. Lately on my walks, I’ve begun to notice seeds. It’s autumn, and everything, everywhere is yielding seed. I don’t know how I missed it before. Years of living in the concrete jungles of New York City have numbed me …
First Impressions: A Time of Harvest
“This is the biggest crop I’ve seen at Holy Wisdom,” Sister Lynne Smith said, referring to the unusually huge bounty of apples from the orchards this year. But she could easily have been talking about this year’s bumper crop of Benedictine Sojourners—six strong, so far. Fall is the season of harvest. But being from New York City, I can forget that food doesn’t grow in the produce aisle of the grocery store! Detached from the slow work of the seasons, I have been surprised by the flurry of activity that must take place as fruit and vegetables ripen in the …
Let Go, Make Room
It is September, and as our sojourner community continues to grow, the monastery prairie again beckons me to come and see and learn from its cycle of being. The long light of summer has fallen from the sky and has stained the landscape a muted golden brown. The chorus of birdsongs has taken flight to some warmer winter home. The towering plants now bend toward the deep from which they come. All is stilling, quieting, making way for another season. I too am feeling a desire to quiet down, be still and move inward. My extroverted energy is waning (for …
Tales from the Monastery: Mother Gertrude McDermott
Born in 1864 in Pennsylvania, Mary Ellen McDermott became Sister Gertrude McDermott as a Benedictine sister in Conception, MO and later Maryville, MO. In 1881 Sister Gertrude traveled with three other sisters from Maryville to the Dakota Territory and Standing Rock Indian Reservation. They had been asked to begin a school for Native American children. Serving under challenging conditions in an unfamiliar culture and with no language in common, their first job was to gain the confidence of the children and parents, while praying for their own resolve. Slowly, working side by side and exchanging words in each of their …
How Does Your Garden Grow?
At lunch and dinner in the monastery, our chef, Barbara Wright, likes to tell the sisters, retreatants and guests what we are having for the meal. She always lets us know what has come from our garden. Retreatants are pleased to hear that most of the vegetables are grown on the property. Monastery chef Barbara Wright checks out the freezer-full of frozen vegetables grown at Holy Wisdom Monastery. Most Benedictine monasteries have gardens. Saint Benedict writes: “When they live by the labor of their hands…then they are really monks.” Manual labor is part of the balance of Benedictine life. Our …
The Humming of the Hive
Here I am peering into the hive of an estimated 50,000 bees. As if this is just a normal part of a Benedictine Sojourner’s day. It’s not, but Sister Lynne, two other Sojourners and I are interested in seeing and understanding more of what goes on with bees. Beekeeper Peter Normandt is thrilled to share with us his labor of love – he so enjoys looking after the movable comb hive. We learn a lot about the wonderful symbiotic relationship between the bees and their environment. Under normal conditions, the prairie’s wide variety of plant life offers the bees an …
Welcome back, again!
“Welcome back, again!” These words were spoken in greeting to me as I arrived in the Oratory for Morning Prayer my first day back at Holy Wisdom as a Benedictine Sojourner. I had visited the monastery twice in the spring, and have been anticipating my transition to life in community as a Sojourner since April. Now I am finally here—at least, my body is finally here. I think my spirit has been here in since last spring. So it was wonderful to be welcomed into the daily rhythm of the community with these words. There is the beauty of the …
Weeding, Watering and Harvesting
I spend a lot of my days in the vegetable garden. It is a good teacher. Some days I weed and that’s that – I am simply present to the plants right in front of me. A wonderful practice of learning to pay attention, I find. Some days this practice of being in the present moment unexpectedly calls attention to some weeding that wants to happen in me. It is as if from somewhere in the deep ground of my being a little more sun wants to give something in my life more clarity or purification. Good, and challenging… One …
Living Day to Day
Summer days at the monastery (l-r, top to bottom): work in the prairie, gathering for prayer in the oratory, time for solitude and mediation, for study, and for shared meals The monastery is quite a lively place this summer with volunteers as well as two visiting women religious from Spain living with us in community! This group, varying in numbers over the last two months, joined the sisters in the daily life of the monastery which is a rich flow of diversity and energy. Weekly volunteers join coworkers in the monastery building or on the grounds. Neighbors and oblates come for daily …
Seeing with Delight
It’s July, full heat bearing down. I am dizzied by the lightness of being, buzzing and blossoming in the prairie. If you haven’t read it already do enjoy Greg Armstrong’s marvelously descriptive ode to the flora on the monastery grounds this time of year (Nature Notes Summer 2013). It seems a day does not pass that I am not exclaiming to whoever is in earshot, Wow – unbelievable! How can such lush beauty be so conspicuous where just three short months ago dead stalks covered acres of barren field? My way to Morning Prayer through the prairie now is quite …