Last week a friend and I travelled to Oklahoma to spend a few days in spiritual retreat with the monks at Our Lady of Clear Creek. He took his three sons, and I took three of mine.

Clear Creek Abbey is a traditional monastery where the brothers live by the rule of St. Benedict and practice “ora et labora” (prayer and work) as their spiritual discipline. We were able to join them to pray the Hours, which is an ancient practice of joining together in prayer through the day.

This is the schedule the monks follow:

They chanted the Psalms in their prayers, which was hauntingly beautiful, particularly during the Vespers services where a Brother accompanied the singing on the organ.

The monastery was beautiful, quiet and holy, with a library of books and a lot of homegrown food. We were able to assist in the orchard picking apples, and I was also able to spend some time talking agriculture with a Brother who was in charge of their large vegetable garden. I brought him some Seminole pumpkins so he could try them and save the seeds – maybe they’ll be able to add them to their gardens next year.

The discipline, holiness and hospitality of the brothers was wonderful. If you get a chance to visit, I recommend it. We were blessed.

After our time in Oklahoma, we spend a few days in Arkansas, hiking, exploring a cave and enjoying the beauty of nature.

When I got home, I found some seriously huge cucuzza squash in the garden which I hope are still good to eat! There was some wind and rain while we were gone and some of the Grocery Rows are impassible due to Jerusalem artichoke plants and Florida Cranberry blowing down into the pathways. This evening I hope to get out there with some stakes and tie them back up – and to do some pruning of the fruit trees. We’ve had a lot of rain and the overgrowth is incredible.

This evening we also have a live Zoom call over in our Skool community where I’ll be discussing if chickens are worth it. See you there.