Loretto Retreats Monday Musings

Every Monday, Loretto retreat staff Susan Classen and JoAnn Gates write a Monday Musing reflection for social media. In case you don’t have social media we’d like to share a few of the more recent musings with you.

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“Send my roots rain” has been my frequent interior plea this summer for our dry land. Then the words morphed into my quiet prayer for so many people – family, friends, friends of friends, the farther neighbor … for all who suffer and for all who perpetuate it, ”Send our roots rain.”*

*Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.”

“Wildflowers mark the passing of spring and summer. Coreopsis in the pollinator habitat gives way to black-eyed Susans which give way to bee balm which gives way to sunflowers which give way to goldenrod. Each flower provides a feast, not only for our eyes, but also for a variety of insects and other pollinators. What marks the passing of the seasons in your life and how does each season provide nourishment for those around you?”

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“When in the course of evolution it becomes necessary for one species to denounce the notion of independence from all the rest, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the interdependent station to which the natural laws of the cosmos have placed them, a decent respect for the opinions of all [hu]mankind requires that they should declare the conditions which impel them to assert their interdependence.” (Clifford Humphrey, “The Unanimous Declaration of Interdependence,” The Alternative Press, Sept. 1969, Berkeley Public Library.)

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“Drip irrigation requires very little water as drop after drop soaks through the soil down to the root of the plant. The constancy of the drops provides more nourishment than a bucket of water poured on top where it spreads out instead of soaking down. Perhaps the same is true for us. What allows droplets of God’s love and sustenance to soak down and nourish your roots?”

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“In my very full life when I need to calm myself, I imagine being in this very quiet space.” (Sentiment expressed by a recent guest at Knobs Haven).

Photos credit: All photos by Susan Classen and JoAnn Gates

1. Dry corn crop
2. Fritillary butterfly on joe-pye weed
3. Rain on leaves
4. New tree growing from a fallen log
5. Looking from Cedar’s chapel into the woods