PHOTO:Mary van Balen I stand on the patio behind the apartment and watch rain pour down in long lines, like strokes from a pen, shrouding everything in gray. Thunder rumbles in the background. A small chickadee, sinichka my friend from St. Petersburg called them, takes shelter in the blue spruce beside me. We are both hushed into reverential silence. I stand close to the brick house, beneath the overhang. Together, sinichka and I feel the wind and watch it play across the water, patches of light blooming and then, just as quickly, dissoloving back into dark as the wind changes its mind and churns up brightness somewhere else on the lake. Sometimes the light races across the surface, hanging on to the wind, but can’t keep up and lets go, falling back into smooth green water.

We wait, sinichka and I. I’m not sure what she waits for. I suspect that once the heavy rain turns into a gentle summer shower, she will fly off in search of food, calling out “chick a dee dee dee” as she dips and darts away. I am waiting for Grace. I know it falls around me as surely as this morning’s rain, soaking my heart when I open it wide.

I am standing here, trying to be wide. I don’t want my hair and clothes to be drenched, so I press close to the wall but push my soul out into the storm. “Come, Lord Jesus, Come,” I pray like it is Advent.

Big wet drops of Grace hit the protective crust that encases my soul. Messy splatty drops melting some of the hardness away. Somewhere birdsong blends with thunder, an unlikely duet. It works. I look to see if it is my sinichka, but she has gone. The rain has lightened. Opening the apartment door, I walk through ready for work. I hope it rains all day.

PHOTO:Mary van Balen The Lord’s voice shattering the cedars;
The Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon leap like a calf
And Sirion like a young ox.

The Lord’s voice flashes flames of fire.
The Lord’s voice shaking the wilderness,
The Lord’s voice shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The Lord’s voice rending the oak tree
And stripping th forest bare.
Ps. 29

The Psalm said the Lord’s voice shattered cedars. I looked around the Abbey Church. We were still standing, monks and the rest of us. All in all, morning prayer was pretty calm. A few voices stumbling to follow the chant. A few more following a more hurried pace, not yet used the monastic practice of pausing a bit at the end of each line regardless of punctuation. Prayer with the monks slows me down and gives God time to move into the hiatus. I have been here before. I know the pace will soon become habitual and when I return home, church will seem rushed.

But I am waiting for my heart to be shattered like the cedars. To feel Divine Power shaking me to my roots. Then I’ll know what to be about. What words to put down on paper…or in this case to fill the computer screen. Selling bras at Macy’s, doing laundry, watering flowers. It isn’t enough. Or it seems not to be. Then there was the customer who came by on Saturday just to wish me well at the workshop. Her daughter stopped by last week and told me her mom talks about me all the time. Recently widowed, she is a bit lost, and enjoys our conversations and my interest.

“Remember the worker priests of the 50’s and 60’s?” my counselor asked. “That is you. At Macy’s.” I guess she is right. I have women who come back to see me, sometimes just to talk, like Claire who wished me well, or Katherine, the sweet old woman in a wheelchair who told me she was so glad that she met me and had me fit her for bras. We spent forty minutes picking out three. There was the young woman who worked in the same department. She is a writer, too. Life had been beating her down lately. Assault. Illness. Separating parents. Medications. She missed too much work and was let go. I am sorry for that. She was great with customers and worked hard putting bras away, a thankless and futile exercise. We connected. I read her poetry. We hugged goodbye.

(Hmm the dragonfly at my backdoor. Does he want back in after I rescued him from the bathtub this morning? Or maybe just saying ‘thank you?’)

So, where is the soul-shaking I long for?My ex-husband used to say he was waiting for Jesus to knock him off the horse, ala Saul on the way to Damascus. I always said that for me, encountering God was a process. Something that happened in the smallest details of daily life. Like cooking dinner, or reading to my daughters. Or teaching writing, or taking a walk. I didn’t need or even want something spectacular. Jesus was Emanuel, God-with-us, epiphanies everywhere, everyday. That used to work for me.

Lately, though, encountering God in the ordinary isn’t working so well. Perhaps my “ordinary” is too ordinary. Or I have become jaded. I go to Mass but not every Sunday. My work schedule is my excuse. Working late on Saturday and early on Sunday. I could go if I wanted to get up really early. But I don’t.

I remember a time when church was exciting. When I struggled to pray the hours alone, wishing I had a community to pray with. Enthusiasm for God and all things religious moved me. Over the past few years that desire has all but left. I am grieving. Maybe that is it. Grieving my mother’s loss almost three years ago, my dad’s death a few months ago, a divorce a little over a year ago. And working at Macy’s. I have settled into as much routine as one can when working in retail with its crazy hours and unpredictable schedule, and it doesn’t include Lectio or quiet prayer on any regular basis. My soul is hungry but I am too lazy to get up and fix it dinner.

I am hoping this workshop will shake me out of my discontented complacency. I am hoping the other women here and Lauren will inspire me. I am hoping for God’s voice to shatter the cedars and shake up my heart.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen – View from my apartment Apartment 7 has a new couch and chairs, new beds, but the same wall of windows overlooking the lake. From the moment the door opened up, I felt at home. This was the same apartment I lived in a few years ago while a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute. I am honored to have been invited back for a weeklong writing workshop on spiritual autobiographical memoir directed by Lauren Winner.( Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis; Girl Meets God)

Along with eleven other women from across the country, I will be spending the days writing, workshopping one another’s pieces, and learning about the craft of memoir. Of course there is time for conversation, making new friends, and praying with the monks in the Abbey Church.Uncharacteristically, I woke early and walked up the hill with two other participants for morning prayer. I have grown to love the slow deliberate praying of the Psalms, sometimes reading, sometimes chanting.

The week holds much promise not only for learning more about the genre and developing skills of the craft, but also for hearing the stories of eleven amazing women. The conversation is rich as are the experiences we bring to the table.

A needed time of Grace. Thanks be to God!

PHOTO: Mary van Balen On Father’s Day I was winging my way to Collegeville, MN to participate in a weeklong writing workshop with Lauren Winner. My father was winging right along with me, I know. And how appropriate: Father’s Day. I can’t imagine a better father. Right up to his last days he was encouraging, giving hugs, and bestowing his warm smile. Love sparkled out of his blue eyes. Everyone at the nursing home loved dad. “A real gentleman.” “Such a sweet man.” “He waved at us when he was wheeled into the dining room.”

My blessing. My grace to have such a father. I remember working with him in his workshop when I was a high school junior. I wanted to enter a painting contest and even though I could not fit art class into my college prep schedule, the art teacher had agreed to sign off on my entry. Dad was stretching fabric over a piece of wood. I wanted to paint a pregnant Mary, never having seen an image of her carry the child before.

Dad and I talked as we worked. I confided my dream of writing a book. As was usual in our home, I was given encouragement.

“Honey, if anyone can do it, you can. If you want to write a book, you will.”

He smiled his “reach down inside you and give your heart a hug” smile, and I knew he was right. If he believed I could write a book then I could. Case closed.

And I did.

When I was a resident scholar in Collegeville a few years ago, Dad and Mom were behind my venture. Mom died of cancer during my first month there. Unknown to me until a couple of years later, mom had said, “Joe, if Mary needs anything while she is in Minnesota, you make sure she has it.”

He did.

My computer died in October and Dad bought me a new one. He was all encouragement when I called to chat with him.

Now, back in Collegeville, I know he is rooting me on. He and mom, together again, telling me I can write a book. I will succeed. Telling me I must do the work my heart tells me is mine to do.

I miss Dad. I miss Mom, too. I remember them at morning prayer at the Abbey. I remember them in my apartment study. I give thanks for their lives of love and generosity. My work is partly their work, and I want to make them proud!

PHOTO: Kelson Elijah said to Ahab, ‘Go back, eat and drink ; for I hear the sound of rain.’ While Ahab went back to eat and drink, Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel and bowed down to the earth, putting his face between his knees. ‘Now go up,’ he told his servant ‘and look out to the sea.’ He went up and looked. ‘There is nothing at all’ he said. ‘Go back seven times’ Elijah said. The seventh time, the servant said, ‘Now there is a cloud, small as a man’s hand, rising from the sea.’ Elijah said, ‘Go and say to Ahab, “Harness the chariot and go down before the rain stops you.”’ And with that the sky grew dark with cloud and storm, and rain fell in torrents. Ahab mounted his chariot and made for Jezreel. The hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and tucking up his cloak he ran in front of Ahab as far as the outskirts of Jezreel. 1Kg 18,41-46 (First reading from today’s Mass)

The King needed convincing. His people, in general, had come to accept Yahweh as their God, but Ahab was a holdout. He needed water. Elijah promised his God would send rain. So, Ahab drove his chariot (how does one do that?) up Mt. Carmel at Elijah’s prompting. Don’t know if the king ate and drank, or just brooded. Elijah prayed. Hard. Finally his servant reported that a small wisp of a cloud had appeared.

By the prophet’s reaction, one would have thought it was a thunderhead. He instructed his servant to hurry to Ahab and tell him to get his chariot down in a hurry because the coming storm would soon make descent impossible. This little cloud held that much water?

Elijah looked at a cloud and saw God’s hand. God’s provident care. Rain would come. He had no doubt.

I have been in a bit of a dry spell lately. My spiritual director, friends, counselor, encourage me. “The book will find a publisher.” ” The job front will get better.” “Things will work out.” “Trust in God’s time.”

I look, but when I see a tiny cloud, well, I see a tiny cloud. Not a mighty hand of God, or even a fingernail. I do have better days when I suspect there is more than my eye perceives. I choose to believe, but don’t feel confident. I surely don’t go running to tell my friends to prepare for a torrent of blessings.

I should. I guess. Today I am more Ahab than Elijah. God has to pummel me with heavy cold rain drops, maybe a hailstone or two, to get my attention. If I am Ahab, I give thanks for the Elijahs in my life who have clearer vision and faith that in God’s time, all will be well.

Venus Transit 6.5.12 photo by Mark Mathosian The three transit viewing glasses I had purchased at COSI science museum nestled in my purse all evening. Despite a cloudy forecast, I remained hopeful: Weather conditions can change here every hour. But they didn’t. Gray skies and sprinklings of rain moved in during the morning and camped out all day.

I took the glasses to Sabbath House meeting…a group that has met monthly for years to share food, conversation, and prayer. I knew my friends would be happy to take a look at the Venus Transit after dinner, or whenever the sun broke through. Which it didn’t.

Mid-evening, I took a few moments to walk around the yard and driveway, hoping to see a patch of clear sky, but settled for knowing that something wonderful was happening beyond the clouds despite circumstances that made a first hand experience impossible. I closed my eyes and imagined gazing past Venus to the sun. Because we cannot see something with our own eyes does not mean it does not exist.

That is one bit of perspective. Like Job, I am humbled, an infinitesimal part of the expanding universe. Unfolding every moment. Full of planets and stars. And lots and lots of dark space. Of possibilities. And then there is the universe of family and friends, the universe of my street, my workplace, the grocery store where I shop. I cannot imagine what is going on in the many places and hearts that fill this tiny corner of the world.

Back from the driveway into the warm embrace of Sabbath House. And friends. Companions on the way. Dinner, as always was nourishingly delicious from wine and bread to homemade cardamon coffee cake for dessert. At least as vital was the conversation: Movies to see, the Vatican and LCRW, a letter of support from the president of a prominent Catholic foundation sent to sisters worldwide, including the ones at whose table we gathered.

Laughter. Holding a heart struggling with pain and anger and tears. I love this little part of the universe and thank God for it.

I pulled back sheer curtains all evening, hoping to find a crack in the cloud canopy. No. This is Ohio, after all. But Venus was crossing the face of the sun, as it does so many times a year. But this time, this century, we were invited to watch. Seeing a planet silhouetted against the sun is eerily like viewing a classroom model of the solar system without wires, without dust, that suddenly exploded into the real thing and I am floating in space gazing from in the midst of it.

Or not. It was happening, though. Sometimes you don’t have to see to believe.

In our little space, we sat around the living room, graced with a flame dancing on the oil lamp’s clay ball. Like earth. Like a planet resting. All aflame with Presence. The oil lamp sat on a square Sardinian place mat. A gift from a daughter. I wondered if she would see the transit in Denmark where she was at the moment.

We prayed, reflecting on imagination and the encouragement we give and receive when our lives hit a “blank wall.” Then we asked for a blessing. Max gave us each a copy of her new book, “Silver Linings: Blessings for Shadow Times”. We chose a blessing that spoke to our need. It was read by the person to our right.

“May God be present to you whenever you are angry, energizing you to discover divine truths wherever they may be found…May the God who holds you in your anger, the God of Patience, bless you.” Amen. Amen.

“…May you recognize in God’s unconditional love for you that there is already a place for you, assigned at your creation which only you can fill and only your gifts can bring to fullness…May the God of Stillness bless you.” Amen. Amen.

“May the God of Courage bless you.” “May you be found by God when your path is obscured by the ashes of your life. When the contentment of the present is disturbed by the failures of the past…May the God of New Fire bless you.” “May your embrace of God’s dream once again fire the passion that is in you. May the God of Encouragement bless you.”

Amen. Amen.

We left by the front door, entranced by four young robins packed into the small nest cemented to the grapevine wreath hanging above the mailbox, claiming the address written in black on the yellow siding. Their mother watched nervously from a nearby tree.

“It’s the second family.” Max shared photos of the first gathered in a small album.

“We thought about putting that yellow tape around the porch, posting a sign: Maternity Ward.”

Covered with Blessing, I waved goodbye, the last to leave, and flicked the car’s interior lights to the one standing in the doorway seeing me off.

I checked my phone. A text from a daughter ” I just saw the transit, hanging out with my NASA friend…”

Driving home I kept glancing at the sky. Clouds were beginning to separate. A bit of sunset peeking through.

Perspective. Question. Who is this great God who keeps us all, planets and birds, daughters and friends, and all I cannot imagine, in her hands? Who is this God who dances like flame on the clay ball and in my heart? Who is this God who blesses? Who is With, cloudy or not?

Like the Venus transit, I don’t have to see to know…

And the viewing glasses? They wait in a drawer for the next celestial event that requires looking at the sun!

Operation Chowhound/Manna Delft Commemorative Tile Bud, wearing his veteran’s hat, spoke to the staff on Memorial Day, as he always does. He reminded us of the sacrifices made by men and women in uniform. I listened with a heart still grieving the loss of my father. The first Memorial Day since his death. The first time in a long while that my siblings and I didn’t visit him and thank him for his service.

As a child, I hung his photo on the bedroom wall, Dad looking dashing in uniform, a rare photo of him with a mustache and pipe. I loved the one of him wearing a Scottish kilt taken while stationed in England. I loved them all. I loved my Dad.

He returned from the war a bit quieter than he had been. So I was told. He was a gentle spirit, responding to a need, but not a solider at heart. He was proudest of Operation Chowhound, or Manna, as our Cousins in the Netherlands called it. Near the end of the war, American and British airmen flew over the country devastated by the German army. Bridges had been bombed, fields flooded, canals mined. The Dutch people were starving.

I have heard the story from my father, from family in the Netherlands, and from a couple there who still live by the field where they watched bombers fly low, dropping not bombs, but boxes and tins of food: Operation Manna.

Dad served in the United States Eighth Army Air Force, 490th Bomb Group (H) as an intelligence officer and asked if he might go on one of the Chowhound flights. His Dutch father was one of sixteen children and Dad had lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins in Holland. He watched as boxes fell and people on the ground gratefully waved their thanks.

One Dutchman told me that German soldiers agreed to fire across the fields as food fell from the sky to discourage anyone from dashing out into the open spaces. The containers were heavy and could seriously injure or kill someone driven by hunger who might try to take some. The food was gathered and stored until it could be sent to those most in need.

I thought about my father, his family, and the food drop as Bud spoke to us before our workday began. In the midst of suffering, atrocities of war, and hatred, goodwill reigned for a few hours during the days between April 29 through May 5. Hostilities gave way to humanitarian response to suffering.

I think of Syria, of Afghanistan, of places on our earth ravaged by war where not only soldiers but civilians, children and adults also suffer the consequences today. I pray for Grace somehow to move hearts and minds, armies and politicians to make a way for humanitarian aide to again replace hostilities. I am sure in children’s bedrooms here and around the world, photos of fathers and mothers in uniform hang on the walls. All those young ones will not be as blessed as I was; all their parents will not return.

“Pentecost” by Linda Schmidt, Textile Artist, Quilter,Designer Despite having to drive across town, I decided to attend St. Thomas the Apostle for Pentecost Sunday. It had been home to me for almost two years while I was living with my father. Over sixty years before, St. Thomas had been my parents’ parish. I was baptized there. For the past year I have been going to various churches, trying to attend closer to my little flat. I have found some good places, but today, I wanted to “go home” for the feast.

Like any real “home,” the folks there take you in, no matter how long you have been away. One of my favorite ushers hugged me back with a smile when I could not resist giving him a warm greeting despite arriving a bit late. When I walked up the aisle to find a seat, a woman offered me a place in her pew.

“Mary, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, yes. And you are…” I was embarrassed by the lack of recall. She didn’t mind. Once I heard her name, I knew it well: her family and my family go way back. I settled in and looked around, happy to see so many familiar faces.

I came hoping for an infusion of spirit. A week ago I confessed to my spiritual director that I was low on energy. I wanted to move ahead, discern direction, etc. etc, but I just didn’t have much spiritual oomph.

The Spirit obliged. The liturgical celebration was joyful from the readings, to the baptism, to the music. African drums, piano, organ, electric guitar, rainsticks, and voices showered down on us from the choir loft and as usual, got us moving.

I loved the reading from John, the low-key arrival of the Spirit. No high winds and fire, just the sweet breath of Jesus, breathed on everyone in the room. He breathed out, they breathed in. So did I.

Then a baptism: A tiny girl baby felt water poured over her head and didn’t make a sound. Her small fingers spread wide when she felt anointing oil dripping through her hair; her white-socked feet dangled against her mother’s dress while her proud father looked on. Still quiet, she received a new garment that looked like a tiny chasuble. “Maybe someday, those of our gender will be able to wear that priestly garb,” I thought. The Easter candle was lowered so her godfather could catch its flame on her very own candle. The church erupted in applause to welcome her into the family.

Mass continued. Reminding us of the plethora of languages spoken in Acts’ dramatic retelling of the first Pentecost, the Prayer of the Faithful was read in French, Spanish, Italian, Ugandan, Russian, a few I didn’t recognize, and finally Latin.

Eucharist, the taste of bread, the warmth of wine, feeding the Spirit within.

One thing I love about St. Thomas is it’s spontaneity. Everyone smiled and some of us turned around just to see the music makers when a song began with loud drums and base. The music. The words. They fed my Spirit too:

“Spirit of the Living God, Fall fresh on me…Melt me, mold me, Fill me, use me. Spirit of the Living God, Fall fresh on me.”

And She did.

“Malo! Malo!” Togan for “Thank you!”
“Obrigado!” “Gracias!” “Kam sa ham ni da!” ” Si Yu ‘us, ma a’ se!” “Maraming salamat!””Merci beaucoup!” “Lanu u!” “Spaseebuh!” “Grazie!…..”

Perhaps my favorite, called out with enthusiasm and joy by the woman cantor: “Xie! Xie!”

I didn’t have to leave early or even immediately after Mass as I often do to make work on time. I stayed chatted with friends, drank in hugs and smiles and joy.

“I think I will be coming here on Sundays,” I told Denis.

Thank you Saint Thomas, for sharing the Spirit so well.

On this feast of the Ascension, I offer the reflections of two Catholic’s on the subject, one a theologian and the other a specialist in the fields of spirituality and systematic theology. The first is Karl Rahner, a German Jesuit whose contributions including those at Vatican II have made him one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. In the book The Great Church Year: The Best of Karl Rahner’s Homilies, Sermons, and Meditations, he writes of the gift of the Spirit which is the gift of the Ascension. Though through his leaving Jesus seems to be removed from us, he is really closer to us than he could have been in the flesh: He dwells within us in the Spirit.

“We notice nothing of this, and that is why the ascension seems to be a separation. But it is a separation only for our paltry consciousness. We must will to believe in such a nearness–in the Holy Spirit.

The ascension is the universal event of salvation history that must recur in each individual, in our personal salvation history through grace. When we become poor, then we become rich. When the lights of the world grow dark, then we are bathed in light…When we think we feel only a waste and emptiness of the heart, when all the joy of celebrating appears to be only official fuss, because the real truth around us cannot yet be admitted, then we are in truth better prepared for the real feast of the Ascension than we might suppose.”

Hmm…How does that work, in my life? In yours?

It has to do with the percieved dichotomy: If one is poor, one cannot be rich, right? In this case, wrong. Being poor, deprived of the earthly presence of Jesus, in fact makes us rich because the Spirit comes to live in each of us. Feeling alone and empty can enable us to receive grace and become aware of the Presence within. As one of my favorite poets, Sir Thomas Browne, writes in his poem,
If thou could’st empty all thyself of self:

“But thou art all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes, He says, `This is enow
Unto itself – `twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me.`

In his book, The Holy Longing,Ronald Rolheiser, the second scholar, presents an interesting way of looking at what Rahner says is the “universal event of salvation history that must recur in …our personal salvation history…” In more colloquial language, Rolheiser says the paschal mystery in our lives is “a process of transformation within which we are given both new life and new spirit.” In this process, the ascension is the time of “letting go of the old and letting it bless you, the refusal to cling.”

In my own life, this has been a very real, sometimes painful part of my ongoing transformational process. One example is my divorce, something as a young Catholic woman declaring her vows before God and community, I never imagined would happen. But it did. It needed to happen, but that did not make “letting go of the old” easy. Sometimes the wounds of those years threatened to overshadow the blessing. Rolheiser’s insistence that the old, no matter what it is, has blessings to give is important to remember. My children, of course, are the first and most important of the blessings. There are others.

“Refusal to cling,” is also important. I had to let go, to feel empty and hurt. The temptation is great to hold on to something, no matter how unhealthy, just because it is familiar. Better the known misery that the unknown…

Not true. As Rahner, Rolheiser, and Browne all remind us, sometimes we must be empty to receive.

The women and men who were Jesus’ disciples surely wanted him to hang around, to have dinner and wine and conversation together; to continue to teach and inspire and lead. Letting go was not easy, but it was necessary. The universal “letting go” is also the universal “opening up” that allows the Spirit to fill us and lead us to new ways of living the gospel message and bringing love and transformation to the world.