PHOTO: Mary van Balen When my daughter briefly entered graduate school in science and math education, she did a short stint in an affluent suburban high school physics class. Besides being disappointed in the interest and knowledge base of the students, she was surprised by the software being used. Instead of actually building small “contraptions” to test various energy sources (springs, levers, weights, etc) the students manipulated models on a computer program.

“If the spring didn’t work, ‘click,’ they replaced it with something else. If that didn’t work, ‘click.’ No one was invested in the project. They didn’t have to be. They just clicked their way to the correct answer, not having to give much thought let alone time to the process.”

I thought of this conversation while reading an article in the Oct 8 edition of the New York Times, “Inflating the Software Report Card,” by Trip Gavriel and Matt Richtel. Basically, the article reviewed rating systems for the success of computer based curricula and found them misleading.

My experience as a teacher and programming director as well as being the mom of three children tells me that acting on concrete materials is indispensable in the process of learning. Unfortunately, many students have few opportunities to do that with teachers being forced to focus on high stakes test scores for both curricula development and their evaluation.

When my children were young, a well-meaning educator suggested that I enroll them in summer school for the gifted. I said I would rather have them climbing trees, playing in the creek, and getting bored enough that they had to dig deep and find things to do. (That often ended up with art projects, contraptions built in the basement, a hut built with the help of cousins, elaborate imaginary games, etc.)

Years later, one daughter used her understanding of life’s interdependence gained through hours of playing and observation in the creek at as the organizing theme for her Rhodes Scholar application.

I am not saying that computer and technology have no place in today’s classrooms. Certainly they do; they are an increasingly important part of the world in which our children live. I am saying that concrete experiences undergird virtual experiences. Measuring out ingredients to bake a batch of cookies or make a blob of “super clay,” help kids understand what fractions are all about. Trying to build a bridge out of toothpicks to hold weight, or make a car powered by a mousetrap help students understand geometry and stored energy.

Wasting time” mixing concoctions of baking soda, vinegar, and cabbage juice can whet the appetite for chemistry. Keeping a microscope in a kitchen cupboard, making place for a chemistry set in the basement, having art supplies easily accessible, taking long walks and picking up bugs and plants…all these things are, at some stages, more important than playing computer games or learning math online.

I recently visited friends who have a two year old daughter, their first. Someone had given her a plastic “computer” on which she could play games. My friends had yet to install the batteries, not sure how much they wanted their little one to spend time with it.

I say, more time should be spent baking together, reading books, exploring the backyard and parks, making puppets, taking walks, playing with water toys and cups in the sink or bathtub. Go to hands-on children’s museums, have messy things like finger paint, water colors, chalks, and clay around the house. And “play” with her. When she paints, you paint some too. Let her see you write more than a check and read more than the newspaper.

I probably sound old fashioned. Computers and technology are critical parts of our children’s world and are an important part of their education. Children without computer savvy are at a disadvantage. Still, computers cannot replace foundational experiences and are not the best way to “teach” everything from reading to physics.

In addition, immersion in creation and interacting with it teaches even more than the obvious. The age of electronic and virtual worlds is also the age when developing respect for creation and concern for human impact on it is as critical as developing intellectual concepts and computer skills.

Cleaning bones found on a walk and figuring out what animal they came from or framing a recent artistic creation provides opportunities for developing relationship, respect, and a sense of wonder that clicking a mouse does not.

© 2011 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen Almost two months have passed since my last blog. The reasons are many. The most important is the passing of my father, Joseph Van Balen. My siblings and I have shared Dad’s care for about two years. Despite evenings when I wanted to drive home after a long day at work rather than drive to have dinner and a walk with Dad, I was always richer for having spent time with him. I hope the hours we spent together were as much a blessing for him as they were for me.

He was a gentle man who touched the lives not only of his family, but of everyone who walked through his door. Along with Mom, he had an easy way of making visitors feel special, giving them undivided attention and, of course, food and drink.

He was a wonderful father providing unconditional love to each of us. Once, a friend who was a priest told me he wanted to meet my father. He gave Dad much credit for my knowing of God as loving Presence in my life. How true that parents are a child’s first glimpse of God, the one they trust, the one they depend on. Mom and Dad gave us experience of unlimited love that could be counted on, no matter what.

As a teenager, I remember a conversation Dad and I had in his workshop. He was covering a board with fabric for one of my projects: I had decided to participate in an art contest through my high school. Even though I had not taken an art class, the instructor agreed to sponsor my entry. My plan was to paint a pregnant Mary standing in front of her young husband.

I held the board while Dad stretched the fabric. After we talked about the contest and my idea, conversation turned to another dream: Writing a book.

“You know, honey, if anyone can do it, you can. If you want to write a book, you will!”

He said it with a smile and a confidence that left no doubt in my mind that eventually, I would do just that. And I knew when I did, that he and Mom would be the proudest ones around when it happened. They were.

As my life settles back into some sort of routine, I will continue with this blog.

Dad would approve with a smile and hug.

While cleaning my parents’ home, I came across a framed print of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that hung in their bedroom. Devotion to the Sacred Heart was not big in our home. I think someone gave the picture to my mother, a convert, when she entered the Catholic Church. Jesus always looked a little wimpy to me, and I couldn’t get into the “heart on his chest” image. I donated the print to a local Saint Vincent de Paul shop figuring someone who frequented the store might want it.

Beginning the search for an image to place in this blog, I was sure I would recognize the painting. I don’t know why, but I was surprised at the number of choices that popped up. I scrolled through the pages expecting one to jump out at me with its familiarity. In one Jesus is barely able to balance the huge gold crown on his head while balancing a globe on his left hand. Lest one lose sight of the heart, he obligingly pointed it out with his right hand.

There was the buff Jesus of Salvador Dali and countless pale, curly haired ones. In some Jesus was holding out his heart, offering it to us. In others, he held it looking for all the world like someone who wasn’t sure why he was holding his heart that should be in his chest and wondering what to do with it. Hearts were big and small, pierced, thorn-crowned, and cross-topped. Bleeding, glowing. Take your pick.

So I did. I just picked the one least offensive to me since none hit the nostalgia button. I remember the print in my parents room as warm, painted in shades of browns and gold, except of course, the heart. For my entire life I looked at it as a bit of pious sentimentality that I happily did without.
Then, yesterday, I read about St. John Eudes (1601-1680) on Universalis and changed my mind. Not that I would have any of the images that popped up on my computer screen, but I had a different take on the Sacred Heart of Jesus thanks to St. John.

He preached over a hundred missions combating Jansenism which taught that human beings were riddled with original sin and try as they might, would likely never attain the perfection required for salvation. The Church was corrupt which, as the author of the Universalis article points out, seems to be a perennial problem. It’s priests were either wealthy and busy protecting their entitlements and power or poor and uneducated.

John spent many years as a priest ministering to those who suffered from the Plague that engulfed France, isolating himself from others in his order lest he infect them with the disease. Eventually he left the order and founded a new order to educate priests. Johsn was also moved by the women he saw in the streets, women “of ill repute” who had no place to go and no one to care for them. He found women to help and eventually another order emerged to give refuge and spiritual nurture to them.

As one who has worked with poor, abused women, I am sure many in not most of those homeless women on the streets were not prostitutes by choice. Some things don’t change. Just as the Church today must deal with its issues of corruption, power-protection and scandal, women are still abused and used. This is where St. John’s take on the Sacred Heart hooked me.

The great heart of Jesus is not something isolated, like so many painting and sculptures portray. It is firmly planted within Jesus’s chest, aching, longing to help, eager to welcome. It is, as John Eudes said, “the emotional core of Jesus.” Jesus is not judgmental or condemning, as the Jansenites preached. He did not care about power or money or position. He is Love. Pure, simple, encompassing Love.

The last words in the Universalis article are: “And over and over again we find God’s grace acting through people like St John Eudes. They do not stand outside and complain or run campaigns, they go in and do things, removing the mould of worldly corruption and putting back, bit by bit, the leaven of grace. They will always be needed, until the world ends. “

I am challenged, we all are, to be the heart of Jesus in our world, in our time. How we do it depends on our gifts, our call. But the Sacred Heart of Jesus is beating in each of us. It is up to us to let Love flow from it to those who most need to feel its warm embrace.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen “I am SO glad this is August 2 and the mess in Washington, for better or worse, is finally over.”

Noreen, my spiritual director and friend was gathering our small spirituality group for prayer after dinner and expressed her relief that at last, for a moment anyway, there was quiet in Washington. I think many agree with her. The constant talk, attacks, and general cacophony made one want to turn off the tube and retreat to a monastery hoping to find some common sense and quiet.

Silence enough to be in touch with our true selves and the Holy Presence within is hard to come by these days. Resting in it requires a conscious choice and effort. “Noise” takes many forms. The obvious is aural – sounds that fill our days. Speech, music, traffic, appliances, TV, radio. Where I work two televisions hung outside fitting rooms compete for attention with Muzak, not to mention the buzz of customers who sometimes check out while talking on their phones.

“Noise” can be visual as well. Pop up adds on computer screens have become more distracting now that many are videos. I particularly dislike ones that explode across the screen retreating to their place in the sidebars only after confounding my efforts to find the “X” to close or and stop the car from racing or whatever “eye-catching” visuals an advertiser has dreamed up.

“Some silence,” one of my friends said as she settled into the recliner, “is what we need, but don’t always know we need…”

“This Saturday, I gave myself few hours to read the NCR’s special section on Spirituality” Noreen continued. As a prelude to our prayer, she shared some of the articles including one on a book on Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating and an enthusiastic review of Joan Chittister’s new book The Monastery of the Heart.

“I just received an email from my friend, Wilfred, a Benedictine monk,” I said. “I had asked what he was reading lately. ‘Lots of Cynthia Bourgeault,’ he wrote. So, I Googled her. She has a new book out, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening. Has anyone read her work?”

Someone had. Someone who has been practicing and teaching centering prayer for years.

Noreen opened our prayer with a time of quiet. A time to simply be present to ourselves and to God Within.

“You don’t have to DO anything. You just have to be present. In the quiet prayer, God does the work, the healing, the blessing. We just show up with the intention of spending quiet time focused on the Holy One. It is about INTENTION.”

The room became still. An unanswered phone’s ring came and went. The seven of us, connected by silence, sat together in prayer.

Driving home after our meeting, I wondered if the mess in Washington might have taken a different turn had the members of the House and Senate spent some time together each day, not arguing, not haranguing one another about “pure” ideals or politically expedient polices, but sitting in silence, allowing the Holy One to heal, instruct, and move each one. How might our politics, our world be changed if we all let go of personal agendas for twenty or thirty minutes a day, and made ourselves available to the One who lives within each of us, around the globe, and the Grace that flows from such encounters.

Silence anyone?

News stations have a countdown clock ticking off minutes as the deadline to raise the United States debt ceiling approaches. Tuesday is the day, and many Americans are watching to see what will happen. Will the US default on its debts? Will our representatives and senators be able to transcend their philosophical differences and compromise?

Jim Wallis of Sojourners suggests that someone other than politicians, the American public, and financial experts around the world are watching the process: God is watching, too.

Read his blog God Is Watching; it expresses my feelings and those of many around the world. I cannot understand a political philosophy that is comfortable with keeping tax loopholes for huge corporations and tax cuts for the richest Americans while proposing huge cuts in Social Security and Medicare as well as funding cuts for numerous social services and education.

When push comes to shove, Jesus sides with the poor and those on the fringes of society. We are told to care for the poor, widows, and orphans. I pray for wisdom for our government leaders, for compassionate hearts. A phone call our senators and representatives might help. (Find yours here: Senators; House of Representatives)

The countdown clock is ticking.

Portrait by Berthold Pluum He was listed under “Other Saints” on the Universalis:Today site that designated today as simply Wednesday of week 17 of the year. I had never heard of Titus (Anno) Brandsma, but his birth in Friesland, Holland (place of my family’s origin), work as a journalist, and contemplative spirituality (He was a Carmelite priest.) piqued my curiosity. I googled his name and found numerous sites that provided information on this man who, along with the Dutch Church, refused to accept Nazi orders for Catholic newspapers to print Nazi articles and who eventually paid for public resistance with his life.

Perhaps journalists who work for Catholic newspapers or magazines know of this man. If not, I will do my part to introduce him. An interesting biography including photos appears on a Carmelite website. The same website hosts a series of short essays or meditations on his life written by social worker, Jane Lytle-Vieira, a member of the Carmelite’s Third Order and a graduate studying theology.

Titus (Anno took his father’s name for his religious name.) was a man of deep spirituality but, like Karl Rahner, did not find mysticism something reserved for the few or for those called to cloistered life. His relationship with God, nurtured by contemplative prayer, enabled him to live involved in the world, its politics, and its need. He understood life to be lived in service to others, and according to those who knew him, he gave freely to all with a joyful spirit. Some saw his generosity as a fault. He gave so much that one friend said if everyone lived as Titus lived the rich would soon be poor and the poor would become rich!

Blessed Titus was an educator, receiving his doctorate in philosophy from the Georgian University in Rome. He became a founding member of the Catholic University of Nijmegen in 1923, and served as President, of the University in 1932-33. After this the bishop appointed him spiritual director to the staff of the thirty Catholic publications throughout the country. Later, Titus toured the United States, lecturing at all the Carmelite foundations in 1935.

Not many years after returning home, Titus along with the rest of the Dutch people began suffering under the invasion of the Nazis. In both his writing and preaching, Titus refused to follow their directives. When the Dutch Church decided to instruct the editors of all its newspapers and magazines to refuse to publish Nazi articles and propaganda, Titus insisted on informing each editor and staff himself.

This very public display of resistance resulted in his arrest, imprisonment and eventual transfer to Dachau, where he was beaten, tortured, and after being part of medical experimentation, was put to death by lethal injection.

The links I have provided will take you to sites that include comments about Titus during his lifetime and his time in Dachau by fellow prisoners. As Jane Lytle-Vieira suggests in her meditations, Titus has much to say to Christians living in 2011. Whether the issue is politics and religion, serving the poor, prayer, life in prison, or capital punishment, this marketplace mystic speaks to us through his life. I encourage you to read about him and celebrate the grace God has given through him.

This blog is named after the symbol for pilgrimage that had its beginnings with the great pilgrimage to the cathedral of Santiago de Compestela in Galicia in Northwest Spain: The scallop shell. The connection of this shell with pilgrimage is rooted in both use and legend.

The legend surrounds Saint James the Greater, whose feast we celebrate today. Along with his brother John, James identified in Scripture as one of the sons of Zebedee. Jesus called them “Boanerges,” or “sons of thunder,” giving us some idea of their temperament! (Mk 3, 17). The mother of James and John, most likely Salome, asked Jesus to guarantee her sons places at his right and left hand when he came into his kingdom. After receiving their assurance that they could drink of the same cup that Jesus would drink, he promised them not places of honor but a share in his suffering.

James was beheaded in 44CE by Herod Agrippa I, who was trying his best to appease the Jewish population that was upset by the increasing number of followers of the Way, of Jesus. Legends abound about the remains of St. James. One claims that his body was miraculously transported to Northwest Spain and finally resting in Compestela. Here begins the legend that connects James with the scallop shell. Some stories have his body transported in a boat without a crew, or even a sarcarpchogas, arriving covered with scallops. Another claims that the arrival of this mysterious boat coincided with a wedding on shore. When the boat appeared, the grooms horse was spooked and plunged into the sea only to return with its rider, both covered with the shells.

Whatever happened, the scallop shell became the symbol of the pilgrimage to the place believed to hold the remains of the saint.This became the most famous place of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages, with people following paths from all over Europe, Britain, and other parts of the world to pay homage to St. James. Along with a walking stick and gourd, the scallop shell was standard pilgrim equipment used for identification of the traveller as a pilgrim, used as a scoop for food and a cup for drinking.

Today, thousands of pilgrims continue to travel the well-worn paths, and the scallop shell has become the universal symbol of pilgrims.

As I ponder Saint James and modern pilgrims, I am reminded of a poem by Deborah Chandra, “Grandpa’s Shoes.” It is the first in her collection of poems titled “Rich Lizard and Other Poems.” I loved it the moment I read it and used it often when working with children. It hints at the life journey of the man who wore them, who was softened and gentled by the paths he trod.

St. James was witness to both the glory of the Transfiguration and the agony in the Garden. He knew heady moments of joy and hope as well as paralyzing times of sorrow and fear. His journey brought him to a violent death, but one, I imagine, that was embraced with hope and acceptance.

I think of my father, grandfather to my children. I think of his shoes. I remember heavy boots he wore into coal mines when he inspected equipment he helped design and spoke with the men who used it. I remember his “regular” shoes, black with laces, worn to the office day after day. I remember his slippers that gave his tired feet a rest, and his canvas shoes he wore when he took us fishing or walking along a creek.

Dad’s shoes were part of his pilgrim equipment as he made his way through life, walking with his life partner, Geneva, and their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

We are all pilgrims. We know joys and sorrows, hope and fear. We find God walking the path with us. We experience the Holy One in special ways that remain in our hearts and minds: birth of children, times with special friends, suffering, illness, return to health. A special place along the beach or in the mountains, or in our backyard.

Today, pilgrims all, we remember St. James and the scallop shell, and ponder the reality it reveals: Many paths, one destination: The embrace of the Holy One.

By the time my daughter picked me up at my destination, the cell phone mystery had been solved: I left it at home when I put it down on the kitchen counter to hang up my keys before leaving. WIthout the worry of having lost it, I have had a wonderful few days without it. I can’t call home and no one can call me. No phone conversations while shopping, riding to the beach, or visiting with my daughter.

Since nothing drastic has happened, I feel no need to communicate with folks back home. One advantage to not having a cell phone is the ability to be unavailable. Years ago, I wrote a column about the dangers of being available all day, every day. What was once a novelty has become a necessity. I have heard people complain when the person they want to call does not answer.

“Why have a cell phone if you don’t answer it?” they ask. I know another person who turns off her cell phone for part of every day.

“Sometimes, I want to be by myself. At other times, I am busy with something and don’t want to be interrupted.”

That might be considered rude by many. Not me. Technology can control us instead of the other way around. One can be exhausted by receiving and responding to phone and text messages.

My week without a cell phone has been a gift. Since I am one who usually answers the phone whenever it rings, or can think of reasons to call someone else, I have been better able to be present to the moment.

I arrived at the airport in plenty of time. My flight was delayed, enabling me to grab a quick breakfast. While waiting for the food to arrive, I decided to check out my cell phone. It had to be SOMEWHERE in my black carry on, I told myself as I rummaged through it. No luck.

I unloaded everything. Still no phone. The only other customer at Max and Erma’s was a kind man who lent me his phone. I called my sister, suspecting that the phone had fallen out in her trunk (still my hope). No answer. I left a message.

“Try calling your phone,” the man suggested. Of course!

“It’s ringing SOMEWHERE,” he said with a smile.

“Yes. I hope it is in my sister’s car’s trunk, or maybe on my couch.”

After thanking him and eating breakfast, I retraced my steps, even had assistance from the policeman at the Lost and Found department.

So far, the phone has not appeared. I should walk to the gate and be ready to board in 15 minutes. Keep checking this blog, not so much to see if the phone turns up, but for updates on a week without a cell phone. Something almost unthinkable to us today, but unheard of when I first began traveling. Our dependence on technology is taken for granted. A missing cell phone is a strong reminder!

This sonogram was shared by a friend whose daughter is expecting her first child. The baby in the picture is about the size of a quarter. Amazing, both the detail of the sonogram and the clearly developed features of the tiny baby.

“I think I will be feeling some kicking before long,” the young mother said. The baby does look like she/he will be pushing the boundaries in this photo. I remember the first time I felt new life stirring within my womb. A sacred moment when the baby makes it’s presence known. “Was it gas?” I wondered at the strange feeling in my abdomen? Not long after the kicks and stretches were unmistakable.
One of my children was an acrobat, I think. She turned around in the last month and made her appearance feet first. In the midst of the morning sickness, final months endured during summer heat, or bed rest required by complications, a mother might lose sight of the privilege of nurturing the little one until it is able to survive on its own.

The wonder returns and now, as a mother of three young adults, I look at them, amazed that they began their life’s journey within the protection of my womb.

In my job I see many young expectant mothers, sometimes accompanied by their husbands. Sometimes the parents are pushing strollers and have other older siblings trailing along.

Families are easy to take for granted. Becoming a parent is so common that for those not immediately involved, the process slips from their minds filled with other concerns and agendas. This photo from my friend reminded me of the glorious invitation we women have to be special partners in bringing new life into the world. The reality may be commonplace, but it is also awesome.