PHOTO: NASA Eternal Spirit,
Life-Giver, Pain-Bearer, Love Maker,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The Hallowing of your Name echo through the universe!
The Way of your Justice be followed by the people of the world!
Your Heavenly Will be done by all created beings!
Your Commonwealth of Peace and Freedom sustain our hope and come on earth!
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For your reign is the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.

Version of the Lord’s Prayer
Jim Cotter in the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer

In today’s gospel, Matthew 6:7-15, Jesus admonishes his disciples not to babble on and on when they pray as the pagans do. Since God already knows their needs, their prayer can be simple. Jesus then teaches them the prayer we call the “Our Father” or “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Years ago, while attending a writing workshop/retreat directed by Madeliene Le’Engle, I was introduced to the above version of the prayer as we gathered each evening to pray compline.

The New Zealand Prayer Book, He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, was published in 1989 for the province of Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, and incorporates Maori text and elements of indigenous culture, sensitivity to creation, and direct simplicity of language and expression. It has become a popular prayer book around the world.

The unique phrases and language served as a “whack on the side of the head,” helping me to look with fresh eyes at a prayer so often on my lips that its words tumble out without engaging my brain and more importantly, my heart.

I am not saying that every time I prayer the Our Father familiarity renders it simply a rote recitation, but there is something to be said for attempting to word this great mystery in a new way.

I particularly love the image of heaven being “in” God, and that of God’s name echoing through the universe. The choice of words brings the hallowing of God’s name into the never ceasing present.

Amine.
© 2011 Mary van Balen

PHOTOS: Mary van Balen For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.”…And the King will answer, “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”
Gospel Mt 25, 35-6; 40

This morning I craved something warm for breakfast along with morning tea.

“Too bad the waffle iron is gone,” I thought, almost able to taste the crunchy sweetness of the well-done pastry drizzled with maple syrup. I looked through the pantry for biscuit mix, the refrigerator for something to warm up. Nothing.

With resolve, I pulled the old stainless steel mixing bowl out of the cupboard below the counter and began to assemble ingredients for biscuits. They are not difficult to make: a little flour, salt, leavening, milk, and sugar tossed together then kneaded and patted into a soft pad of dough.

Ten minutes later, brown crusty biscuits easily broke apart revealing a fluffy white center begging for a drip of honey or smear of butter. Besides satisfying my craving, they filled the kitchen with the warm smell of “someone is home.”

Joy is often not found in complicated plans and labor intensive projects. Sometimes it comes with simplicity: warm biscuits, conversations with a friend, birdsong heard while taking out the trash, the earth sinking beneath one’s step after a spring thaw.

Today’s readings reminded me of simplicity. God’s precepts are not complicated. No intricate theological arguments or reasoning needed: Love God. Love you neighbor. Do good. Share what you have been given.

All today’s readings point to that truth. God does not desire fancy sacrifices, but rather reverence of one another and creation. We are not required to travel to earth’s ends or even the next city, but to show mercy and justice to our neighbors and those who are struggling.

Images of anguish from Japan played in my head as I munched my breakfast. I cannot share biscuits, but in today’s world, response that can send food and water to those suffering from the earthquake and tsunami is a click of a “donate” button away.

Caring for those closer to home requires time and human touch to mediate God’s love and concern.

Whatever we do to the least among us…

Holy One, help me embrace a way of life centered around your simple but profound truth: Love you neighbor and you love Me.

The precepts of the Lord are right,
they gladden the heart.
The command of the Lord is clear,
it gives light to the eyes.
Responsorial Psalm 18,9

© 2011 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen For thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel: ‘Your salvation lies in conversion and tranquility, your strength will come from complete trust.’ The Lord is waiting to be gracious to you, to rise and take pity on you, for the Lord is a just God. Happy are all who hope in him.
Noon reading (Sext) Isaiah 30:15,18

You will seek the Lord your God, and if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul, you shall find him. In your distress, all that I have said will overtake you, but at the end of days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God and will not desert or destroy you or forget the covenant he made on oath with your fathers.
Afternoon reading (None) Deuteronomy 4:29-31

I have written many times about struggling to grow into “complete trust,” as mentioned in the readings from today’s Liturgy of the Hours. As I ponder these words tonight, images of Japanese people huddled around fires and searching for food and water cycle over television news programs.

How does one find trust and tranquility in the midst of trials, whether those presented by daily life or those resulting from natural disasters? How does one maintain trust in a faithful God, always present, eager to be gracious?

I chose a photo of an ocean sunset to convey a sense of tranquility, but the ocean was a source of chaos and destruction just days ago. Life is unpredictable.

“If I knew all that life would have in store for me from the start,” an old friend of my mused this evening,” I might have decided to crawl back into the womb!”

We laughed, but knew that at some level, what she said was true. Some days, life’s challenges are overwhelming. Taking them day at a time may take all the faith and strength we have. Not knowing what the future holds is grace as well as mystery.

It allows for faith, enabling one to trust, to know tranquility even in the face of extreme trial. As the events of the past few days have made clear, despite our best efforts, we are not in control of our world or our lives. In a moment, plans can fall apart. At those moments, we realize we cannot rely on our efforts alone, or even the collective efforts of others. What enables us to continue is reaching deep within and holding fast to faith in the Presence of a merciful God who will not abandon us.

Carmelite poet, Jessica Powers, wrote of this faith in her poem “The Garments of God:”

God sits on a chair of darkness in my soul.
He is God alone, supreme in His majesty.
I sit at His feet, a child in the dark beside Him;
my joy is aware of His glance and my sorrow is tempted
to rest on the thought that His face is turned from me
He is clothed in the robes of His mercy, voluminous garments –
not velvet or silk and affable to the touch,
but fabric strong for a frantic hand to clutch.
and I hold to it fast with the fingers of my will.
Here is my cry of faith, my deep avowal
to the Divinity that I am dust.
Here is the loud profession of my trust.
I need not go abroad
to the hills of speech or the hinterlands of music
for a crier to walk in my soul where all is still.
I have this potent prayer through good or ill:
here in the dark I clutch the garments of God.

To believe in Holy Presence when events cry out that God must be absent or nonexistent requires faith strengthened by prayer and practice; by “seeking God with all your heart and all your soul.”

Lent reminds us of this need to nurture our faith and relationship with the Holy One. How we observe these forty days is our choice: We may give up something or we may incorporate some practice into our lives. We may attend Mass more frequently or volunteer in some community service. What we choose should be something that strengthens our faith, that brings us closer to living life with complete trust in God-with-Us, that better enables us to hear God’s voice and to instinctively “clutch the garments of God” and hold on tight.
© 2011 Mary van Balen

God come to my assistance. Lord make haste to help me.

Images on newscasts and online bring the widespread devastation ravaging Japan’s Northeastern coast into our homes and hearts, but I had another, more personal connection. On March 7, I stood in line at Tokyo’s Narita airport, buying boxes of green tea and a drink to keep me going until Delta Flight 620 would return me to the States through Minneapolis/St. Paul. Four days later, passengers on the same flight were among the last to depart Narita before the airport was closed down. I read they waited seven hours after boarding before the plane was given the go ahead to take off.

As I viewed video and listened to reports, I wondered about the young women who worked at the kiosk where I made my purchases and the crowds of travelers I had seen returning to their homes in Japan. How many of them were headed to the Northeast? What once would have been regarded as remote has been made more immediate through travel and technology. Some of the first images broadcast to the world were taken on cell phones. We no longer need spectacular photos of our planet from outer space to realize that we are one human race bound, one people of God.

As I prayed morning prayer and then searched through the Liturgy of the Hours and Mass readings to find something, some wisdom that spoke to the tragedy.I read and reread until suddenly becoming aware of the introductory prayer common to them all. An ancient prayer, it says it all, “Help!” in a more elegant, poetic way: “God come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me.”

I cannot imagine how those living in areas demolished by the quake and tsunami feel. What happens to one’s heart while looking at piles of debris that were once home and neighborhood? What happens to one’s faith when the closest sources of water, food, and shelter are miles and miles away?

After the first flood of gratitude that you are still alive, how do you face the future without becoming overwhelmed? With communication lines disrupted, what fear accompanies the long wait to hear from loved ones?

Another quote comes to mind, this time from St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

There are many ways we can respond to the disaster that has befallen our sisters and brothers. Here are a few links to charitable organizations that are responding to this crisis:

Habitat for Humanity

Donate through Catholic Relief Services

Soles for Souls

© 2011 Mary van Balen

In the eyes of God our Father, pure unspoilt religion is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.
James 1:27 Afternoon reading (None)

Unlike those who sport yellow, pink, or green varieties,I am not a wearer of plastic bracelets. I have been tempted, though, by Sojourner’s WWJC? campaign and confess to donating $3 to send one to my Senate and House representatives.

While not pretending to understand national budget complexities, I do believe that many cuts proposed in the current budget before the Congress are unconscionable to those striving, however imperfectly, to follow Jesus’ teachings on caring for the least among us.

Today’s reading from Isaiah 58 poses and answers this question: Why fast when God seems oblivious to our efforts?

The answer? Our idea of fasting and God’s idea are, no surprise, not the same. Giving up chocolate, not eating between meals, or exercising more (modern equivalents of “hanging one’s head like a reed” or “lying down on sackcloth and ashes”) seem low on God’s list. Instead, Isaiah offers this list:

…Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me
– it is the Lord who speaks –
to break unjust fetters and
undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and break every yoke,
to share your bread with the hungry,
and shelter the homeless poor,
to clothe the man you see to be naked
and not turn from your own kin?”

True, we are each called to personally respond to the poor among us,even grouchy neighbors or irritating family members. And “poverty” can refer to mental illness, loneliness, and abuse as well as homelessness and hunger. As members of society, we also have the responsibility to witness to Jesus’ call to care for the poor to those in positions of power, to those who will vote on how tax dollars will be spent, or dare I mention, be raised.

Many politicians on both sides of the aisle are claiming Christian values as their guiding light when they face decisions on how to cut the deficit. Today’s readings, and the gospels together, have a common message: We are judged by how we care for the least among us. What we do for them, we do for Jesus.

While I offer a couple of links at the end of this post to provide food for thought, nothing compares to spending time prayerfully reading Scripture and sitting quietly with God, discerning how we can make a Lenten fast this year that will bring us closer to God and direct our lives to join in Jesus’ work of bringing the Kingdom.

As Isaiah reminds us:

“Then will your light shine like the dawn
and your wound be quickly healed over.
Your integrity will go before you
and the glory of the Lord behind you.
Cry, and the Lord will answer;
call, and he will say, ‘I am here.’”

© 2011 Mary van Balen

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by Jim Wallis 03-04-2011

Article from Reporter, official newsletter of the Lutheran Missouri Synod

PHOTO: Mary van Balen In the morning let me know your love, O Lord.
Lord, listen to my prayer:
in your faithfulness turn your ear to my pleading;
in your justice, hear me…
The enemy has hounded my spirit…
So my spirit trembles within me,
my heart turns to stone.
I remind myself of the days of old,
I reflect on all your works,
I meditate once more on the work of your hands…

Show me your mercy at daybreak,
because of my trust in you.
In the morning let me know your love…
Psalm 142 (143) from Morning Prayer

I am not a morning person. Ask anyone who has lived with me or even spent a few days in my house. I meet the morning with glazed eyes and when possible, a long time laying in bed working up to engaging in the day.

One of the problems I encounter in the early morning hours is battling worries and thoughts that come whooshing in, unbidden, filling an empty mind like air rushing into an open vacuum.

Rather than energizing me to rise and meet the challenges head-on, those thoughts make laying in bed all the more attractive…except when I do, everything seems worse. Impossible. Overwhelming.

Perhaps that is why this morning’s Psalm spoke to me. With the possible exception of sleepless late nights, early morning is the time I can most use the recognition of God’s love.

Embedded in the psalm is also helpful adivice: remember God’s Presence in days past; remember how God has been with me, helping me through other rough days. Remember, God is God. Always has been. Always will be. I am not alone.

Reflecting on this truth can help us during Lent as we enter honestly into the quiet room of our hearts. Being alone with one’s self is risky. We have to own the darkness we find there as well as the light.

For some reason, when I begin my days, I am tempted to act on the illusion that all is up to me. Remembering the Holy Presence in my history, in the history of the world, is more that entertaining pleasant thoughts or empty hope.

Remembering has power. It makes present again what has been present before. This will be my morning prayer for the next thirty-eight days: In the morning, let me know your love.
© 2011 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

But when you pray, go to your private room and, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. Mt 6:6

I slid into the pew at my old parish church, choosing to sit where mom and dad had in the latter years their life. Looking over the sparse congregation, I smiled realizing that I had become one of the “gray-hairs,” a euphemism we had used as teenagers to indicate the preponderance of older people in the church.

When Mass began, I looked to discover who was responsible for the emotive singing and powerful notes pouring from the piano. After Mass I learned he is a student soon entering law school.

“He is wonderful,” my old friend said. “He is looking at different schools and will probably go where he gets the most financial aid. We want to keep him here, though. He is the choir director now…”

For the parish’s sake, I hope a local university makes him an offer he can’t refuse. The hymns he chose were familiar and I enjoyed the feeling of pushing strong, clear notes out from my heart. Most of the people were timid when it came to singing, but that didn’t stop me. I belted out the notes, hanging them in the air with abandon.

One of the hymns sung was Tom Conry’s “Ashes.”

“We rise again from ashes, from the good we’ve failed to do.
We rise again from ashes, to create ourselves anew.
If all the world is ashes, then must our lives be true,
an offering of ashes, an offering to you.

We offer you our failures, we offer you attempts,
The gifts not fully given, the dreams not fully dreamt
Give our stumblings direction, give our visions wider view
an offering of ashes, an offering to you.

Then rise again from ashes, let healing come to pain,
Though spring has turned to winter, and sunshine turned to rain,
the rain we’ll use for growing and create the world anew
From an offering of ashes, an offering to you.

Thanks be to the Father, who made us like himself,
thanks be to the Son, who saved us by his death;
thanks be to the Spirit, who creates the world anew,
From an offering of ashes, an offering to you.”

As we sang, I looked at the stained glass window across from me. One of many circumscribing the round nave, it depicts the Holy Spirit, the power within that enables us to “rise from the ashes.”

The combination of song, sacrament, and community worship reached into my depths and stirred a weary soul with hope: Hope for renewal of faith. Hope for prayer. Hope for knowing God in my present place.

As the Gospel reminds us, we are called to go to our private room and pray in that secret place. What more private place than our heart? There, without pretense, we can meet God and open ourselves to conversion of life. Whatever discipline we choose, may it lead us to deeper faith and willingness to offer ourselves for others as Jesus offered himself for us? May we emerge at Easter a clearer reflection of the Holy Presence to the world.

Part of my Lenten practice will be, as it was last year, posting a reflection each day on this site. This Ash Wednesday, I give thanks for the liturgical season that reminds us of God’s outpouring of Grace that enables us to grow in love and relationship with the Holy One. The Grace that enables us to “rise from the ashes” time and time again.
© 2011 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

What is good has been explained to you; this is what the Lord asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8 Afternoon reading (None)

Most days, walking to the grocery means passing a beggar sitting at the top of the steps that lead to the metal walkway across the busy street. He is a young barefoot man with a scraggly goatee and dirty clothes. Sometimes he holds a throw away plastic cup. At other times he lays beside the cup and covers his face with his shirt. I don’t know whether it is a sign of humility, shame, or just an attempt to keep the bright sun off. I pass by making a mental note to keep some change in my hand on my walk back, but often I forget. Carrying plastic sacks of food, I walk past without adding to his daily take since unzipping my purse and rummaging through it to find coins or small bills is too awkward.

Poverty is all around this city. Families live in metal huts with no plumbing that sprout along alleys and streets behind store fronts and the plastic table and chair restaurants that spill out onto the sidewalks in the evening. Some street vendors have lovely carts refrigerated or piled with ice to keep fruits and meats cold. Some set up stands where they fry batter dipped bananas or bamboo and greens stuffed pastry. Others have little to sell and customers are few. How do they make a living? I wonder.

As I walk by the young man, I remember the anguish felt by my young children when we passed homeless people on the streets of Washington D.C. How could such a thing be possible, they asked? How could someone have no place to go?

Once, our youngest was upset as we exited the freeway and she saw a man standing by an off ramp holding a “Homeless” sign.

“What are we going to do?” she kept asking, until my husband stopped the car and got out along with our oldest daughter, walked to the man and gave him some money.

“That will help a little,” she said when they returned. “But what else will we do?”

Her question replays in my mind as I walk by the young man; when I see children peering out from dark doorways in crowded alleys. I think of our congress and cuts some are pushing to make in our national budget.

What does God call us to do?

The question remains:
“What can we do?”

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I visited the Baan Kuhn Pranee project to purchase intricately woven bamboo baskets by women employed by the SUPPORT project in Phanat Nikhom District. On July 21, 1976, Queen Sirikit of Thailand established Supplementary Occupations and Related Techniques, popularly known as SUPPORT. For many years, the Queen had established cottage industries using her own money, enabling women living in rural villages and on farms to work from home or near home. The women were taught Thai crafts in danger of being lost. The results are baskets and fabrics of top quality and unique patterns and style. These women are paid a fair wage and are able to help raise their families out of a life of poverty.

In some of the SUPPORT projects, women with handicaps are taught the fine crafts giving them, as the Queen said, a chance at raising their self-value as well as earning a living.

In Phanat Nikhom, populated by Thai, Chinese, and Lao people, diversity of cultures is celebrated in the project. Baskets woven in styles of each culture are made and sold there.
The baskets I purchased are unlike any I have seen in other markets. Expensive, they are well worth the price, not only for the product itself, but also for support of the women and the goals of SUPPORT.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen On February 18, Buddhists in Thailand celebrated Makha Bucha Day or Sangha Day. It commemorates the unplanned yet simultaneous appearance of 1,250 disciples before the Buddha nine months after his enlightenment. They paid him reverence and listened to him before setting out around the country to spread the teachings which became the root of Buddhism.

“You lucky to be in Thailand now,” a friend of mine said. “February a holy month for Buddhists. You go to temple, buy lotus and candle, and walk with the people three times around temple.”

I did. Sandra and I took a taxi to a nearby temple. The young Thai driver parked the car and led us through the rituals. We wended our way through vendors of flowers wrapped with three incense sticks and a deep yellow candle. We walked past a few people selling small wooden cages of birds, or so it seemed. Actually, they were selling the opportunity to set the birds free, a symbol of peace and freedom for the people.

The procession, called Vien tien, moved slowly clockwise around the temple with the people remembering the Three Jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. As I walked I again prayed to the Holy One who created us all for peace and justice in this world.

Once people have walked three times around the temple hall, they removed their shoes, climbed the steps and placed the flowers, incense, and candles before statues of Buddha.

I looked up at the full moon in a hazy sky, and then at the people gathering in the green space around the building, waiting for the monks to arrive to lead them in prayer. They gather to pray, to seek truth, to live good and holy lives.

We crossed the main street that had been blocked off and bought some festival food: a cup of juicy sweet corn, sugared and salted, and some small pastries topped with meringue and shredded egg, orange for spicy, yellow for sweet.

Once the monks arrived, the people became quiet. He began to pray. Sandra and I stayed a bit longer and then motioned to the taxi driver that we were ready to leave.

I looked out the window and reflected on my faith. Jesus came to reveal God’s compassionate face, the Divine love for every one, especially the outcast and poor, and to show us the way to live, allowing the Sacred Presence to Grace us and transform the world through us.

On their holy day, my Buddhist friends were reverencing the Buddha, his teachings, and the community of holy men and women who continued to teach his way. They reverenced the community of Buddhists around the world, past and present, who strive to be faithful to their beliefs.

I thought about my own community, my small group who gather each month to eat, pray, and encourage one another on our way. I thought about the little parish church where I celebrate Sunday liturgy along with a diverse group who welcome all, including me. I thought about the larger community of those past and present, who try to follow the example of Christ.

I thought of the people on this planet holding a myriad of beliefs, of so many journeys, so many hearts longing for Good, and I asked the Holy Spirit’s blessing on us all.