One day nearly 30 years ago, Benedictine Father Michael Peterson was out walking on the grounds of Blue Cloud Abbey — a Benedictine community in South Dakota where he began monastic life — when he heard something he had never heard before.
“I heard this wonderful music, it was the sound of a flute that I had never heard,” he remembers. “And the sound really went straight to my heart because I’m a lover of the great outdoors and the great open places. The sound seemed to kind of just exemplify those prairie sounds and open spaces.”
Blue Cloud Abbey had long-standing relationships with local tribal members, including those from the Dakota and Ojibwe nations. Curious, Father Michael approached the man playing the flute — the late Dan Jerome, an Ojibwe elder who made flutes, teepees and canoes among other things.
“He was just a cultural treasure,” Father Michael said.
When he asked about it, the man gave him the flute he was playing — one he had made. He offered to give Father Michael lessons, and the rest, he says, is history.
“It’s a great blessing for me to play,” he said.
Father Michael stresses that what he plays is considered a Native American-style flute, adding that his flutes are modeled after the traditional Native American flute and that there is a lot of diversity among indigenous people in how they are made, how they are used and what keys they are played in.
“I’m not indigenous, but I’m grateful for this … and grateful for Dan Jerome allowing me to participate in his culture. It’s been a great gift.”
That gift has since become a way Father Michael expresses his faith and his relationship with the natural world.
Father Michael, who transferred from Blue Cloud Abbey to Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville in 2012, also writes music for the Native American-style flute. He draws inspiration from the natural environment around Saint John’s, he said, especially it’s Lake Sagatagan and the nearby trails.
“I follow St. Benedict’s example of being a good listener. The first word of the rule is ‘Listen,’” he explained. “I listen to the area around here, I listen to pelicans, I listen to the lake, I listen to herons and eagles, and I kind of try to find a tune or a song that kind of exemplifies that. Like a heron on Lake Sagatagan, what does that sound like? So, I’ll just kind of work out some tunes and eventually it comes together.”
Father Michael, who currently serves as the director of oblates at the abbey (lay men and women associated with the abbey) and as one of the organists for Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist, occasionally plays his flute for Masses at Saint John’s, but says his favorite place to play is outside near the lake.
“I’m kind of known as the flute player of Lake Sagatagan,” he said. “But of course, it’s difficult to play in the middle of winter, so spring allows me to kind of finally go outside and play. Otherwise, I do like to play in the church. In our Abbey church the acoustics are great. I can use a small flute, and it seems to fill up the whole space.”
But regardless of the setting, Father Michael sees music as an expression of relationship — with God, with people and with creation.
For him, caring for creation begins with our relationship to the natural world.
“I think that being in relationship is fundamental for caring for creation,” he said.
“We need to stop looking at the created world as simply resources or that which serves me, but rather see ourselves in relationship with creation.”
