Two experiences infused me with hope this week – despite the chaos emanating from Washington, the sad news of yet another school shooting, and the disturbing announcement that a million species are in danger of extinction, due largely to human hubris.

I was invited by the Benedictine sisters of Annunciation Monastery to give three talks at University of Mary – a striking modern campus on the rolling plains of Bismarck that the sisters sponsor. My topic was “Stirring the Ashes: Reclaiming a Sense of Hope, Balance and Sacredness in Our Work.”

It was heartening to meet so many talented people – faculty, administrators, and staff -- seeking to live the Benedictine values of community, consensus, compassion, respect, hospitality, humility, and balance in their work lives. It was equally inspiring to learn the history of these Benedictine women on the Plains.

In 1878, five sisters braved the rugged journey from St. Joseph, Minnesota, to Bismarck, North Dakota. Their goal was to open a boarding school for the children of Norwegian and German immigrant families on the Plains. They soon discovered health care, like education, was also a major need.

Though untrained, and out of necessity, the sisters began caring for the sick and injured. Among their patients: Chief Sitting Bull, Medora de Mores, the wife of a French aristocrat who built a castle-like home on the prairie, and later, Theodore Roosevelt, who explored the area’s majestic terrain on horseback. It was an experience that would lead him as President to champion the conservation of U.S. natural areas.

The sisters’ early efforts blossomed over the decades into University of Mary, which specializes in leadership training and has a top-notch nursing school. Their early efforts at health care grew into CHI St. Alexius, a top-rated hospital system. More recently, they formed Ministry on the Margins, a service that supports people who might otherwise might “fall through the cracks in times of transition.”
In these days when the faults of the Catholic Church are apparent in broad Cinemascope, it is good to remember with gratitude the debt we owe to the Bismarck sisters and the other monastic communities – like Sacred Heart Monastery and Assumption Abbey -- on the vast, western Dakota Plains.

With my friends Sister Thomas Welder and Sister Renee Branigan as intrepid guides, I had the chance to journey farther west, to the North Dakota Badlands. It was named by the Native Americans because little would grow amid its rocky buttes and sandy soil, yet the Badlands might be better called Grace-lands. Rarely in any place in the world will you see such breathtaking natural beauty.

Here red-toped and striated buttes jut up hundreds of feet. You can see grazing bison, similar to photographs of the Old West. (Just don’t get too close: these magnificent creatures weigh up to 1,700 pounds and can run at 35 miles per hour. No match for my slight 5’2” frame).

There are large stretches dominated by prairie dogs, which are quirky little rodent animals that like to stand up on their hind feet and perform for visitors. You get the sense of what the early environmentalist Aldo Leopold referred to as the community of creation. While the tall grasses sway, the only sound is an incessant wind

At a spot called Wind Canyon in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, we climbed the rims of buttes overlooking layered canyons thousands of feet down, whose artistry was formed by ancient glaciers and decades of wind and rain. It was like looking at the work of a manic sculptor. Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail

I also couldn’t help but think of our current President’s recent statement that the U.S. can’t accept any more migrants because “there’s no more room.” He should visit the western Dakotas.

I walked away from my time here with a greater sense of how blessed we are in this country. Blessed by natural beauty. Blessed by the spiritual depth of the Benedictine sisters and monks who risked so much to serve our citizens. This week, I plan to say a prayer of thanksgiving whenever I encounter the beauty of nature, and whenever I experience even a small gesture of kindness. Will you join me?