Watching Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show reminded me of sitting in a monastery during retreat, listening to the Benedictine monks sing.

What?! How?!?

The monks often sing in Latin. I have no idea what they’re saying.

But there is more than one way to speak. And the soul and body know how to listen beyond words.

Whenever I hear the Benedictine monks sing Salve Regina, I am transported. Tears often come. I sit in the sanctuary and feel my shoulders soften, my face relax, a burden lifted. A language is spoken for those who have ears to hear and a heart to recognize the gift being offered.

It’s humbling to receive and participate simply by being present to their worship.

The monks know the words and their meaning well. These songs are woven into the fabric of their community. This music is part of their ordinary, day-in-day-out life. Routine.

But not for me.

I am a visitor. An outsider. And yet they graciously welcome me in and give me a glimpse.

Sure, I’ve read the Psalms. But it is not my tradition to chant them daily. If those Latin hymns were translated, I might enjoy shared meaning in the lyrics but I don’t want to miss the moment by looking words up on my iPhone. It’s in simply being present — even if awkward at times — that something deeper opens. 

Whenever I take groups for retreats at Catholic monasteries I invite them to "embrace the awkwardness" of feeling like tourists. It is okay be unfamiliar with the Liturgy of the Hours, it might feel uncomfortable but that's okay. I invite them to "just be present and let the Spirit be at work in what you don't understand."

Likewise, I had no idea what Bad Bunny was singing.

I took Spanish years ago — enough to recognize the language like I recognize Latin being sung — but not enough to understand. At first there was discomfort, then relief that there were no subtitles to distract me from what the sounds and images wanted to say.

I was being invited into a world and its routines that were not my own.

Once my discomfort relaxed, I was transported. I turned it up. My body and soul felt the music. A feast of sound and image — I couldn’t help but dance.

And as I watched, I also felt sadness. The images brought forward injustices suffered, alongside the resilience and daily life of a people and homeland that many gathered in the stadium — or around the screen — only visit.

It felt prophetic as the real was named through sound, color, movement… and a game.

“Together We Are America,” the football he held up read.

Together is the only way forward.

But together requires listening — beyond words, beyond comfort, beyond what feels familiar.

Friends, it is going to take togetherness for the days ahead. We must step outside our awkwardness and discomfort if we hope to step outside cycles of violence and structures of power that demean and diminish the collective soul.

Listening beyond words is not passive. It is courageous. It is embodied. It asks something of us.

It asks us to be present long enough to be changed.

Here are a few ways you can practice that kind of listening with us:

Monastery Retreat | March 26–29
Join Rev. Dr. Amy Steele and me at Monastery Immaculate Conception, home of the Sisters of St. Benedict in Ferdinand, Indiana for Tables of Re-membering as we prepare for Holy Week. What part of you longs to be welcomed back to the table?

The Wisdom of Listening | 7-Week Practice beginning April 7th
With Sr. Mary Rose Bumpus and Wendy Brown, we’ll explore contemplative and active listening that attends to both words and the systems shaping them. This is about presence — not performance.

The Wisdom of the Ordinary | Writing Experience (Tomorrow, Feb. 10th at 11:30 am CST!)
Let your own words and daily life speak. Discover the sacred woven into the everyday.

2026 Fall Cohort Applications Now Open
Applications are open for Year One: Certificate in Spiritual Formation — a standalone certificate or the first year of our two-year Certificate in Spiritual Direction. If you’re longing for deeper grounding in contemplative practice, communal wisdom, and spiritual companionship, we invite you to learn more and begin the journey.

​Learn more & register at www.wisdomtreecollective.com

Come practice a deeper listening.
​
With you,
Kasey

During these turbulent times we must remind ourselves repeatedly that life goes on.

This we are apt to forget.

The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms;
the purpose of life outlasts our purposes;
the process of life cushions our processes.

The mass attack of disillusion and despair,
distilled out of the collapse of hope,
has so invaded our thoughts that what we know to be true and valid seems unreal and ephemeral.

There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility.

This is the great deception.

By it whole peoples have gone down to oblivion
without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength of the clean and the commonplace.

Let us not be deceived.

It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces
by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained.

Birds still sing;
the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam over the desolation of the battlefields,
and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed.

There is no need to fear evil.

There is every need to understand what it does,
how it operates in the world,
what it draws upon to sustain itself.

We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil.

Over and over we must know that the real target of evil is not destruction of the body,
the reduction to rubble of cities;
the real target of evil is to corrupt the spirit of man
and to give his soul the contagion of inner disintegration.

When this happens,
there is nothing left,
the very citadel of man is captured and laid waste.

Therefore the evil in the world around us must not be allowed to move from without to within.

This would be to be overcome by evil.

To drink in the beauty that is within reach,
to clothe one’s life with simple deeds of kindness,
to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God
in the quietness of the human heart and in the workings of the human mind--
this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deception.

Excerpted from Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman, published by Beacon Press, 1953.
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The words of this spiritual mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr., can still offer us wisdom during times of rising anger and increasing hopelessness.  We often reflect on the writing of Howard Thurman in Wisdom Tree Collective’s School of Spiritual Direction. 

He was a civil rights leader, a theologian, author, academic, and pastor who was a mystic at heart, finding solace in nature—a favorite oak tree was a spiritual friend, a nonhuman elder & mentor.  Thurman also co-founded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, the first racially integrated, intercultural church in the United States, which also valued the creative arts as a way of sharing the Good News.  He was familiar with suffering. Let his words speak to your soul today.  Read more of his wisdom in his book Meditations of the Heart.

By the end of December, I was exhausted.  The joy of journeying with the first cohort in Wisdom Tree Collective's School of Spiritual Direction (more about that next month!), was overshadowed by a deep weariness.  And I was dragging..   

My repeated tries to get away for a few days of rest and relaxation?--thwarted!  So, I took a vacation from social media and spent a little time listening to my life (and body). 

What I discovered was over-commitment and way too high of self-imposed expectations for any mere mortal.

You may know this feeling well.

I did not simply need a week away from my everyday life, I needed to change the rhythm of my life every day!  

That became (and is) my prayer this month: to return to the "unforced rhythms of grace" that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 11.  

With that prayer has come the awareness of how I'm out-of-rhythm:

• Operating out of false urgency (like checking email way too much or working way too late)
• An exaggerated sense of responsibility (leaving my neck & shoulders feeling "the weight of the world" which no one asked me to carry)
• A need to do things perfectly (according to whom?!).  

​Such self-awareness can leave me feeling overwhelmed.  Creating space or learning anew seems like another responsibility.  

A spiritual practice that helps soften the hardness and let go of the heaviness in the moment is writing haiku, a 17 syllable, separated into 5/7/5, poem.  Here are two of the six I wrote last week:

When too many words
Are swirling within your brain
Pour them out in ink

Come, laugh a little
Release the seriousness
Everyone needs play

These simple poems helped me focus my overwhelming feelings into three simple lines revealing my soul's wisdom for the present: Pause, write and play. 

Others revealed practical ways of shifting energy and attention, letting go and opening up. 

Space was being created in me! 
This allowed me to see the gifts being offered, like a friend suggesting a children's book on breathing (scroll down to learn more).

Maybe haiku is something for you, too. 

It reminds me of Jesus' invitation to become like a child (especially when struggling under the weight of being an adult)!

As I stepped on the shovel, I couldn't help but smile. 

On Sunday, I joined other members from Wisdom Tree Collective as we partnered with Blessed Earth Tennessee, to plant 12 trees at Jones Brummett Elementary School.  Why? 

Wisdom Tree Collective is a nonprofit that I helped co-found this year (after 3 years of planning!).  My main branch of WTC is its School of Spiritual Direction and our very first cohort of students just started their third month of a 2-year online training program to become fulltime Spiritual Directors or bring a Spiritual Direction lens to their current callings.  

I continue to be amazed by those who are going through the program (from around Middle TN; Joplin, MO; and Tacoma and Seattle, WA)  and the Spiritual Directors who are mentoring them! 

While it's a lot of work this first year, as I am developing both the content and rhythm, to say it's exceeding my expectations would be an understatement.  Already I can tell you that I will whole-heartedly send people to each one of our current students for spiritual direction next year.

Back to the trees...

Part of Wisdom Tree Collective's commitment is to give back to the Earth by honoring our namesake and the ways we have experienced and continue to experience Divine Wisdom through trees.  How have trees been a gift to you?  Do you have any early childhood memories associated with trees?  To read some of ours, go here.

For every person who participates in our training program, classes, or retreats, we will plant a tree in their name.  This year we planted 12 trees—9 for each of the students in the spiritual direction program and 3 on behalf of the 3 founders, the 6 spiritual direction mentors, and the Triune Dance of Love in which we find ourselves!  

And Heather Bennett of Blessed Earth Tennessee, found us the perfect location for our first tree-planting day—a brand new school in the Lebanon Special School District here in Wilson County, TN.  She had no idea how much symbolism there was in planting trees around a new school's playground. 

As we dug the holes and planted the Sycamores, Sweet Gum, Tulip Poplar, Red Maple, White Oaks, Live Oak, and Southern Magnolia, I felt a sense of awe.  Both of us are in our first year.  A new elementary school has been planted in our community and trees have now been planted by the new Wisdom Tree Collective's School of Spiritual Direction. 

Looking up at the playground I smiled as I recalled all the times over the years I have talked about "the playground of God" or "the playground of the Holy Spirit" during classes and in spiritual direction.  What a holy surprise!  Clearly God was joining us in celebration on this crisp and sunny day!

Are you interested in joining me for the 2022 fall cohort?  The Certificate in Spiritual Direction Application can be found here.  And be on the lookout for both online and in-person retreats and classes offered by Wisdom Tree Collective next year!

By the way, if you're in the area, let me know if you drive by Jones Brummett Elementary and see our trees.
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To learn more about Blessed Earth Tennessee, go here.
And for more information about Wisdom Tree Collective, go here.