Celebrating the Incarnation: A Way of Life
December 25, 2022 By 8 Comments

Celebrating the Incarnation: A Way of Life

Decades ago, I read an article about keeping a “spiritual journal.” I was already a dedicated journaler, having begun in earnest while in high school and was writing occasional guest columns on meeting God in everyday life. Keeping a “spiritual journal” had never occurred to me. I tried the practice for a month or so but found it difficult to decide what to put into my regular journal and what to write in the “spiritual” one. Before long I abandoned the effort. Clearly, for me, the sacred was part of the ordinary. Everything, in its own way was spiritual.

A quote that came to mind all those years ago was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s words, “By virtue of Creation, and still more the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.”1 The spiritual journal landed in a bin with older journals, never to be used again.

As I think about that today, I’m reminded of John Muir’s words, “When you try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”2 That pretty much expresses my experience of the Divine. There is no separating it out. It is deeply entwined in all things, you, me, and everything else, what we see around us and everything in the cosmos, far beyond even the amazing “vision” of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). That’s the first incarnation, the ongoing incarnation: God’s outpouring of Love, of Divine Self, and wrapping it up in matter.

So, as Christmas, the great feast of the Incarnation, draws close, I ponder not only that Jesus somehow held the entirety of God in human form, in human time and space, but also that the Divine is present in all creation and always has been. It’s impossible even to imagine, as God proclaims in Is 55:8-9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Madeleine L’Engle called the Incarnation in Jesus The Glorious Impossible, the title of her book inspired by Giotto’s frescoes. She once wrote that for a period of time, she found the best theology in the writings not of theologians, but of mathematicians and physicists. I’m not reading that exactly, but I am reading Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence by James Bridle. It stretches my mind to consider the“beyond-human world.”

What incredible diversity exists on this earth! How everything continues to change and new things emerge! As I read, I become aware that despite the increase in human knowledge, how little we know about the creatures and plants and beings with whom we share this planet and how interdependent we are. Ways of Being has awakened in me a sense of wonder at the inner life of plants and animals. About different forms of intelligence and the importance of respecting it.

Nature itself feeds my wondering. While on a walk, some small leaves caught my eye. (The woman who tends an amazing garden down the street identified them as Bradford Pear leaves.) Brown, they each held colors and shapes near their centers that brought to mind images from the JWST. At my feet, leaves seemed to hold the universe. I was reminded of lines from a poem by William Blake: To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

Some passages in Bridle’s book touch my belief in and experience of the inherent spirituality of all things; some accounts address this directly, as in the case of primatologist Barbara Smuts, who described her experience with a troop of baboons as something like the experience of mystics. Living with the baboons, she felt a shift in her sense of identity from simple individuality to being a part of something much larger than herself. She also described an experience with a troop of baboons who, while traveling, stopped at a small pool and “…Without any obvious signal, each of the baboons sat down on a smooth stone surrounding the pool, and for half an hour (by human reckoning) they sat alone or in small clusters, completely quiet, staring at the water. Even normally boisterous juveniles slipped into quiet contemplation.”3

This occurred in the same area where Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees. She witnessed something that also hints at the “inner life” of the animals. On numerous occasions and locations, she observed an adult chimpanzee (different animals, but usually male) stand in front of an impressive waterfall, hair erect, preforming a “magnificent display” at the foot of the falls: “He always sways rhythmically from foot to foot, stamping in the shallow, rushing water, picking up and hurling great rocks. Sometimes he climbs up slender vines that hang down from the trees high above and swing out into the spray of the falling water.”4 Goodall considered these displays “precursors of religious ritual.” This may be may be imposing a “human world” perspective on chimpanzee behavior, but it gave me pause.

How little we know about God’s presence in creation! Bridle reflects on a presentation by theoretical physicist, Karen Barad on quantum physics. He writes, “Barad’s talk also left me with another impression: That science’s greatest advances arrive not as settlements or conclusions, but as revelations of a still-deeper complexity. This complexity exceeds our mastery and comprehension – but is still relatable, still livable, still communicable and actionable. Science, it struck me then, is a guide to thinking, not a thought: an endless process of becoming.”5

I scribbled in the margins, “Sounds like spirituality to me.”

And so, along with the lectionary and Mary Oliver, Ways of Being has been part of my Advent reading. I need lots of time but, as when doing Lectio Divina, I’m not in a hurry. It is slow, deep reading, letting the mystery sink into my bones.

This holiday, we celebrate two things. The first is the Incarnation of the Divine in Jesus, who showed us what it looks like when a human being lives in complete union with the Divine within. Of course, the unique bit of Divinity that dwells within each of us is not the entirety of God enfleshed in Jesus, but still, in Jesus, we see faithfulness to what we are all called to do: cooperate with the gift of God’s Self given to enliven us and to share. The second thing to celebrate is the incarnation of Divinity at the heart of creation, of time and space. God’s outpouring of self, creating a cosmos beyond our comprehension. Other beings perhaps (I believe so) who reflect a different bit of God into the universe. Into other universes. Other realities. How many billions of galaxies has JWST revealed? How many ways has/is God-life expressed in matter?

The Incarnation is not only something to celebrate, but also something to live—In our ordinary, everyday routines. In our work. In doing what we love. In how we interact with others. In how we interact with the environment. In every little thing. It is our call. Our vocation. Our actions contribute to the ongoing, wondrous reality of God-with-Us. And with all that is.

Notes

  1. Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu. In my 1968 edition, the quote is found on page 66. It is in Part One: The Divinisation of Our Activities, Section 5 A.  Finding the quote in context led to me reading the chapter and putting the old book along with others on my shelf to read again in 2023!
  2. John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1911).
  3. Barbara Smuts as quoted in James Bridle Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022), pp.          54-55.
  4. Jane Goodall as quoted in James Bridle Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022), p. 56.
  5. James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022), p. 86         

Sources:

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu

James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
What the Trees Had to Say on Thanksgiving
November 29, 2022 By 6 Comments

What the Trees Had to Say on Thanksgiving

Recently I stood witness as the old maple tree in my front yard was taken down. Losing a tree is always sad, but, in a neighborhood – not a forest – it is sometimes necessary. Rot had set in, sending the largest branch crashing to the ground barely missing a neighbor’s truck and sprawling across the lawn to the building next door. With winter snow, ice, and wind ahead, the tree was too dangerous to leave standing.

Still, knowing that didn’t make the event easier to watch.

A team of five men arrived early in the morning. What took decades to grow took only an hour to reduce to a stump. I thought it should have taken longer – out of respect. Some ritual. Some acknowledgement of the gift it has been. It’s not our way.

The men were efficient. One wielding a chainsaw from his perch in the cherry-picker’s bucket, cut away small branches and larger limbs, deftly guiding them to avoid cables and wires as they fell to the ground. Once one hit the yard, another man picked it up and fed it to the shredder parked along the curb. Woodchips and dust blew in the air like snow.

Standing in my neighbor’s driveway, I felt the ground shudder when larger limbs fell, and sadness welled in my heart for an old friend’s demise. Observing it over the years, I learned much. Did you know that some tree buds contain leaves, some flowers, and some protect both through winters until spring warmth coaxes them open? The tree led me to books and the internet where I learned that in winter, maples store sap in their branches, not roots as I had thought.  (Read my column, Greening Nature and Spirits.)

Close up of maple tree buds opening with emergent leaves and flowers.

Its branches provided shelter for birds and squirrels. Once I spied a tiny hummingbird nest. In every season the maple provided interesting lines and colors outside the living room window. In summer the leaves bestowed welcome shade.

Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, has proven that trees communicate with each other, linked in part by tiny fungal mycelium. They “talk” and cooperate. Forests, her studies reveal, are wired for wisdom and care. (See Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. You can listen to her interview with Krista Tippett, Forests Are Wired for Wisdom on an OnBeing podcast.)

I looked at the tree, now mostly trunk, and saw it isolated, not in a forest community that shares nutrients, nurture, and protection, but on my suburban street. Trees stand in most of the yards, but they are carefully spaced and part of landscaped patches of grass and sometimes gardens. Most of the lawns are doused with chemicals to keep “pests” and unwanted vegetation under control – all of which, if allowed to live and grow, would create a more healthful environment.

I wondered if the tree might have been stronger if its roots had been part of a rich, woodland network and felt embarrassed that for years I took it for granted, unaware of the challenges solitary trees encounter when planted by well-meaning humans whose preferences for carpet-like lawns and manicured yards do great harm to the life that exits under our feet, out of sight.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is trunk-sections-showing-rot-1024x929.jpg

The chainsaw growled, and with every falling branch and every cut into the trunk, I wondered if the maple next door, clearly near the same age as the one being taken down, was aware of what was happening to its neighbor. Had it been sharing carbon and nutrients with it over the years? What of the other trees growing along the street. What were they “hearing”? Were they grieving? Had they known this old maple was diseased?

Now, when I see the short stump left in the yard, I think, “people and trees have a lot in common.” Not just the chemicals used to communicate, one through an underground network of roots and living organisms, the other through the brain’s neural network. Not just some bits of DNA that we share. But our shared need for others. Trees and people do better in community. We seek it out. Sometimes it’s found in families. Or groups of friends. Or in churches or other organizations.

Mother trees described in Simard’s book gather energy with their huge crown of leaves and send it through their roots into the network where it’s shared with seedlings struggling to grow beneath the canopy’s shade until they, too have energy to contribute to the network. Young human beings need the care and nurture of their elders. Wrapped in an environment of love and acceptance where they can grow and thrive, the young mature, and eventually contribute to the larger community themselves.

Life doesn’t always work out that way. Like solitary trees, some people feel very much alone. Human environments can be harmful, even toxic. Unlike trees that function as they are made to do, human beings, for all kinds of reasons, can be decidedly dysfunctional. Still, we are made for love and belonging, and we flourish when immersed in it. Pandemic isolation made that painfully clear.

On this past Thanksgiving day, my daughters, partners, and I were able to be together, a rare gift. I thought of mom and dad, their love, and the family they created. My daughters and I have grown in the grace of that love and have added our own to it, expanding its reach further, to others in our lives and into the world.

As we gathered around the table, I sat for a minute in silence, reaching into my heart for a before-meal blessing. The familiar words, “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts,” wouldn’t do. I was mindful of the sacrifice of plants and animals and well as the work of human hands that put food on our shared table. The loss of the tree heightened my appreciation for all creation, for the mystery and intelligence of life that we humans do not recognize. Most of all, it deepened my awareness of the interconnectedness of all things and our need for one another. I felt gratitude for the precious community of my family.

Concern stirred for our human companions, many suffering from violence and poverty, traveling on this planet that teems with life of every sort and groans under the weight of abuse and short-sighted policies. All life deserves reverence and love. Glimpses of the universe, time, and space we see through the James Webb Space Telescope images reveal how little we know, how much is mystery.

NASA Webb image Stephan's Quintet shows an Interacting Galaxy Group
Stephan’s Quintet Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

I don’t remember what words I spoke before we started passing food around. Something about gratitude and longing for nourishing community for all. They were few and simple, not important themselves. It’s love, moving from the heart to the world, that counts.

May we embrace Creation as a whole, / and become attuned to all the world; / May we be blessing to the universe, and / see divinity in the within and / the without of all things.

from Psalm106 in Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness by Nan C. Merrill
Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Getting Up Again
October 30, 2022 By 20 Comments

Getting Up Again

One sunny fall morning, a friend and I shared coffee and conversation in an old city park. It’s become a favorite rendezvous. Covid-conscious, neither of us is keen on eating inside. Besides, the park was aflame with color: Maples showing orange and red. Ginkos glowing yellow in the sunlight. Majestic ash and elms flaunting their grand canopies for all to see.

In such a beautiful setting, one might expect lofty thoughts and happy moods. But I was having none of that. I wasn’t dismal, just disconnected. I was tempted to blame my floundering on a three-week vacation, but really, I was adrift before that. If anything, vacation helped me relax and connect with my center, opening me to meet to each day without an agenda, welcoming whatever came: Visits with two of my daughters out east, great food, and long conversations, country walks sandwiched between hurricane Ian’s lingering rains, wanders along the beach, and a little drawing and painting.

Back home, re-entry was difficult. I’ve lived alone for eleven years, but after three weeks in the delightful company of others, I felt lonely. I watched too much TV and ate way too much, wiping out months’ of hard-won weight loss. Settling back into writing routines just didn’t happen. Not much luck with prayer practices or journaling either.

All in all, I felt a mess.

My friend is a good listener. After the rambling “confession” of my failures, we grew quiet and sipped coffee. The air was chill, and I cradled the mug in my hands, grateful that he had brewed coffee and carried it in proper mugs from his home across the street. Hot drinks in styrofoam are way less comforting.

“We’re all in a mess, one way or another,” he volunteered.

“True.”

I thought of Sharon Salzberg, a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher in the West. One of her “On Being Project” interviews with Krista Tippett was titled, “The Healing Is In The Return.” She talked about starting meditation and her mistaken ideas of what it was and how it worked. She thought that each day she would be able to sit longer with a quiet mind. It would accumulate until she reached her goal of long, still, meditative sits. She discovered that wasn’t the point at all:

“… learning how to let go more gracefully was the point. Learning how to start over with some compassion for yourself instead of judging yourself so harshly—that was the point. … It’s still the most significant thing I’ve ever learned from meditation and that I use it every single day, because we do. We must start over and do a course correction, or pick ourselves up if we’ve fallen down, every day.”

In thirty-plus years of meeting with my spiritual director, I have heard her recommend self-compassion more times than I can count. Why is it difficult to practice?

Instead, it’s easier to listen to my inner critic picking on all the things I haven’t done or have done poorly, the stuff I did that I didn’t want to do, like buying chocolate and eating it all at once instead of a piece a day as I told myself I would.

“Good thing God’s in the mess,” I offered.

Isn’t that point of incarnation? The Holy One being with us wherever we are? However we are? Jesus liked to be in the mess, and he liked the people who were in them.  He hung out with the marginalized, exasperated the righteous religious leaders by ignoring their pious rules, and got into trouble speaking the truth.

I love Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message of Jesus quoting Isaiah in Matthew, “I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual.”

Jesus got it. Being a human being isn’t easy. Growing into one’s true self isn’t a linear journey. Lots of stops and starts, fear and love, failures and successes circle around over and over. As Mother Teresa said, “We are not called to be successful, but faithful.”

Salzberg learned that as she embraced meditation. The point is getting up again. Forgiving yourself and showing yourself the same compassion that you show to others.

That’s what I’m learning too. Again. When I blow my efforts to eat better, eat less, and lose weight. When I stay up way too late, even though I’m a natural night-owl. When I binge TV instead of reading the books I want to read. When I don’t journal or draw or paint or engage in prayer practices that bear fruit. Basically, when I’m in a mess and am discouraged—and how often it that?—I need to have faith in God-with-me and start fresh. Like the next blank page in my journal.

This is part of perennial wisdom tradition, a great river that feeds all wisdom traditions from ancient times. Jewish, Christian, Buddhist. All of them, religious or not. It shows up in holy books, literature, embroidery on pillows, and prints on magnets. Here are a few examples:

In Pirke Avot: The Sayings of the Fathers, a collection of ancient Rabbinic texts, there is a short saying that points to the importance of not giving up: “You are not required to finish your work, yet neither are you permitted to desist from it.”

 Buddhist author and teacher, Pema Chodron has a book titled Start Where You Are. Author Lucy Maud Montgomery, in Anne of Green Gables, writes, “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.” It’s possible to let go one day’s disappointments and have enthusiasm for the day to come.

I find strength and hope in knowing that I don’t tackle tomorrow on my own but can draw on the transforming Love and Presence within. Of all the words on this topic, I gravitate to these, most often attributed to Saint Benedict:

Always, we begin again.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
Giving Gold Away
September 24, 2022 By 4 Comments

Giving Gold Away

This morning, walking through a city park, I noticed goldenrod amid a riot of color and texture in a long strip of garden. That flower had made an appearance a few days earlier while I was reading Mary Oliver’s collection of poems, Devotions. “Goldenrod” was the second and last poem I read that day. An allergy sufferer, goldenrod isn’t my favorite fall flower, but one can’t argue with its sunny beauty, especially when it mixes with purple New England asters on roadsides or in fields.

Mary Oliver’s poem wandered through goldenrod’s possibilities: Offering nectar to visiting bees for their honey. Brightening what might otherwise be a barren void. Rustled by a sudden wind, the blooms swayed and caught the poet’s famous attention. She watched them bend and straighten and scatter their golden dust.

“… they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend, / they rise in a stiff sweetness, / in the pure peace of giving / one’s gold away.”

Stunned into stillness, I sat, savoring the image. “Giving one’s gold away.”

Isn’t that how Jesus lived? How we are called to be in this world?

Bending. Flexible? And giving ourselves away?

Didn’t Jesus bend to listen to someone’s story? To scoop dirt from the road and make healing paste for the blind beggar’s eyes? To write in the sand as a woman’s unmasked accusers drifted away?

When he plucked ripe grain-heads from their stalks? Or sat on a rock in the desert or on the roadside to rest or to listen? Wouldn’t he have bent low to notice creatures that passed by or the plants?

Did he bend under Spirit-weight when he breathed life into his followers?

In all his bending and being and breathing, wasn’t he constantly giving himself away? Himself that was all Love—restless Love longing to move outward and find new homes to set ablaze? Surely, Love bending to the other is natural. Godly.

Giving its gold away.

What of my being scatters when life pushes and pulls one way then another? When I bend, what, I wonder, do I offer? I hope it’s Love, at least part of it. After all, isn’t that what life provides—opportunities to open our empty spaces to Love—so we can give it away?

For Visio Divina: Morning in the park

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
Morning Prayer at the Café
August 15, 2022 By 16 Comments

Morning Prayer at the Café

I’m spending more time outside this summer than I have in years, mostly walking but sometimes reading poetry and sipping tea on the porch.  Or, as now, enjoying time at a small French Bakery and Bistro before the afternoon heat arrives.

I arrived early to meet a friend and spent twenty minutes walking around the neighborhood then returned to La Chatelaine and waited. When my friend didn’t appear, I texted: “What a beautiful morning for coffee and a chat! I’m here.” He responded: “Oh no! Not this Wednesday. Next Wednesday. So sorry for the misunderstanding.” He was right. His text had clearly stated next week as a good time to meet.

Not to squander the opportunity to sit outside at the lovely café, I bought a coffee and pastry, borrowed a pen from the young woman at the counter (Couldn’t believe I didn’t have a pen along with the notebook in my cavernous purse!), and returned outside to the cool morning.

Traffic picked up, and several people went into the Bistro and emerged carrying coffees or breakfasts to go. An ambulance sped by; its sirens blaring. A quiet Hail Mary sprang to my lips, an enduring practice ingrained by the nuns in Catholic elementary school. A siren meant someone was in trouble, unexpectedly sick, or had been in an accident. They were in need, and when we heard one, we stopped our work and prayed for them.

Sixty years later I still do, though not always a Hail Mary. More often I utter something simple like “Help them. Love, be with them.” Or maybe I hold them silently in my heart as I am mindful of the Holy One, the healer and comforter, present to them in the moment.

I don’t hesitate to whisper into the Sacred ear a reminder to hold the suffering person a bit closer and to fill the hearts of those caring for them with compassion. I figure even the Holy One can use a reminder. “Don’t forget this one,” I say. It’s the mom in me. I know she’ll understand.

Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

The ambulance passed, and I turned to my notebook. I love coming to this place. Perhaps because it’s not the inside of my modest apartment or because it reminds me of time spent in Parisian cafes. Or maybe because it is what it is: A charming space on a busy American street that offers amazing French pastries and an outside area to sit around tables under big canvas umbrellas, a shady canopy so like the green ones in Parisian parks.

I savored the last bit of flaky palmier that tasted like the creme horns I devoured as a child when mom gave us a few quarters to spend at the bakery as she shopped at the grocery next door.

Palmiers have no filling nor the cloying sweetness of the thick, sticky cream that filled my childhood treats, but the flavor is similar enough to bring back memories with each bite. I push the empty plate away, an offering for the sparrows that scavenge on the patio and tables to feast on crumbs patrons leave behind.

“How lucky to be able to do this,” I thought. “To sit. Feel cool air. Watch traffic. Sip coffee and write in my notebook.” It’s the life I imagine that I want and then am sometimes surprised to discover I already have. While not near the ocean, the perennial pull for me, it is in a place of relative peace. There are no bombs dropping. No war at my doorstep. I can enjoy the sounds of friends meeting for breakfast or indulge in conversation with a guy who walked from his office to work outside.

Following the sparrows, my eyes moved to their perches on gnarly branches that spread from two, low-growing trees bordering the patio. The twisted lines, the mottled bark of browns and greys begged to be sketched or painted. They reminded me of trees in some of van Gogh’s work or Monet’s. I took a few photos, thinking I might give it a try.  

Overwhelmed by the moment, I moved into quiet prayer, filled with wonder and gratitude for Divine Life stirring within, swirling without. Freely given. The simple but transforming experience that pulls us all into the circle of mystics: experiencing communion with Holy Mystery right where we are. Eventually I opened my notebook, clicked my borrowed pen, and guided it over the pages. Words and more words. They helped me unpack the morning’s glory. They are my prayer of thanksgiving.

Watercolor sketch Mary van Balen 10.2021
Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
Icons from the James Webb
July 28, 2022 By 8 Comments

Icons from the James Webb

As far back as I can remember, the night sky has captured my imagination, though early memories are fuzzy. My parents showed me the dusty band of light that was the Milky Way and how to find the Big Dipper. Following an imaginary line through two stars in its bowl, someone said, led to the North Star. I had limited success. The first vivid sky-gazing memory I have is of standing with our small girl scout troop in front of the science museum at night in downtown Columbus. Downtown was darker then, and we watched as the man who had led us through a journey of the “sky over Columbus” projected onto the museum’s planetarium dome set up his telescope at the top of the steps.

“We’re going to look at Saturn,” he said, bending over the telescope and peering through the eyepiece to find the planet. We took turns looking. The view took my breath away: a smooth, rounded shape rising from a thick, flat ring, The planet’s angle provided a view with little space between the rings and the planet itself. Together, they looked a bit like a white, glowing fried egg. I’ve never forgotten it. My heart opened wider and wonder flooded in. Seeing with my own eyes something that had previously existed for me only in textbooks or magazines, shining in the dark over my own city was exhilarating.

I couldn’t get enough of looking.

Over the years I’ve traveled – sometimes by myself, sometimes with family or friends – to see eclipses, meteor showers, blue moons and supermoons, or planets and stars in various configurations. At some point along my journey, I grew particularly fond of the constellation Orion, my protector. He became an icon, a door into an experience of Holy Presence that surrounds me, no matter how alone I feel.  

Once, I spent a night by myself in a friend’s small cabin. I walked along the creek and a pipeline that slashed through the wooded hills. Far from the city, the black, star-splattered sky fed my soul. Before leaving the next day, I wrote in the guest log simply, “Tonight I lived on the stars.”

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous / to be understood. 

Mary Oliver from poem “Mysteries, Yes“

James Webb Space Telescope

With people around the globe, I followed the recent release of the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb). I was in a doctor’s office when the broadcast began and pulled out my phone to stream NASA’s presentation. Preliminary interviews and commentary gave me time to drive home and watch most of the broadcast on a big screen. The images were stunning. Commentary explained how the infrared signals were painstakingly rendered into color images, each hue representing a different wavelength.1 As usual when witnessing such events, I cried.

Icons

You may be familiar with classic icons, the stylized paintings familiar in the Orthodox Church and often referred to as “windows into heaven.” I wrote an article2 using the word icon in a much broader sense, referring to ordinary objects, physical representations or metaphors that have become windows drawing us into communion with Holy Mystery.

The Webb images can be new icons that break open our hearts and let mystery in. Like my view of Saturn through a telescope on the museum steps.

NASA Webbs First Deep Field image shows a cluster of galaxies
Webbs First Deep Field
All Webb Images Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The first image released was Webb’s First Deep Field, a look at thousands of galaxies sparkling across the black field in just a sliver of the universe. Peering back to within a billion years after the big bang, I was reminded of Wisdom in the Hebrew Scriptures, dancing with delight, the feminine spirit creating along with God at the very beginnings of the cosmos.2

NASA Webb image Stephan's Quintet shows an Interacting Galaxy Group
Stephan’s Quintet

NASA Webb image Southern Rim Nebula
Southern Rim Nebula
NASA Webb Photo Cosmic Cliffs Carina Nebula
“Cosmic Cliffs” in Carina Nebula

Image after image filled the television screen: Stephan’s Quintet (you might remember an earlier image of this at the beginning of the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.), Southern Rim Nebula (clouds of gas and dust from a dying star); the Carina Nebula (a “star nursery). Everything in the universe is made of elements created in the birth and death of stars. You, me, the people you love and the ones you don’t. The insects in the soil, birds overhead, rivers, oceans. Everything. Star dust was (and is) destined to evolve into solar systems, new stars, planets, and life that may live on some of them. Might there be other creatures observing the cosmos from their place in it, contemplating the meaning of it all?

Spending time with these new icons may expand our sense of connection not only with the Creative Force that set all this in motion, but also with one another. How have we evolved into a race that finds diversity threatening rather than an opportunity to learn and wonder at the reflections of the Sacred in every bit of stardust?

Hope

Since those first images have been released, I’ve looked at them again and again, marveled at the Southern Rim Nebula, used it in meditation, and painted it to make my own icon. The images stir joy, amazement, and appreciation of the people who’ve given them to us.

But along with these emotions and thoughts, sadder ones emerge. As incredible as these images are, they aren’t enough to change the patterns of human behaviors that push us apart and despoil the creation that has taken billions of years to evolve.

My hope is that these new icons can open minds as well as hearts, inspire people to be still before such magnificence. Can we be receptive to the truth they reveal: That we are an infinitesimal bit of something beyond our most expansive imagination? That we know and understand so little of it? That humility is the proper response?

As we sit before these images and let them open a window into the beginnings of creation, can we be filled with gratitude for the love and graciousness that fills it? Can we find a way to put fear and hatred aside and recognize our kinship with the Holy One, with one another, and with all that is?

Different way of seeing

Decades ago, I backpacked across Western Europe with a good friend. We spent the summer traveling from country to country with no itinerary, meeting people from all over the world as we slept in youth hostels, the occasional hotel, and homes of friends and family. But besides meeting people from different countries, we also ran into folks from back home.

At any other time, coming from the Midwest, meeting someone from the west coast wouldn’t seem like meeting a neighbor. But across the Atlantic, when we ran into someone from Oregon, we were excited. We’d say, “I know someone in Oregon!”, or they’d say, “We have friends in Ohio!” As if we might know them. People we would have considered strangers had we met at a restaurant back home seemed like neighbors when we met in a small German town.

So, I wonder. Perhaps Webb’s images will provide a new context for us, for our vision of who is our neighbor. Seeing the immensity of the universe as we peer into deep space may provide a perspective that encourages human beings to become more aware of their connections, of their responsibility for this tiny little bit of a planet we call home. Perhaps humanity will be more willing to work together, to stop demonizing one another, and to look for ways to live and love together instead.

It’s a dream. I know. A hope. Greed, fear, the desire to “be right,” to view the world and others as either/or, them/us, the need to put others down to elevate oneself, seem to be the human default.

Seeing with new eyes, with a non-dualistic “both/and” mindset, is a journey. Placing ourselves before Webb’s images, quietly gazing at their intricate beauty, may refine our spiritual vision to better comprehend the grace they reveal. Contemplating these windows into creation with openness begins to transform us little at a time. Thank you, team James Webb!

Watercolor by Mary van Balen of NASA Webb image Southern Rim Nebula
Watercolor: Mary van Balen

Sources:

  1. How the James Webb Space Telescope’s images are made  Axios
  2. Icons: Windows into God – Finding glimpses of God in unexpected places:Mary van Balen
  3. Proverbs 8: 22-31
  4. “Mysteries, Yes” by Mary Oliver Take the time to read it. You’ll be grateful you did. I read it in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver published by Penguin Books, New York, 2017, p. 84. It was originally published in Evidence by Beacon Press in 2009.

Images:

Follow this link to NASA’s page, First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope, to examine the images and read information about each one.

If you missed the July 12 broadcast, you can view it here.

Comparison of images of same area taken by Hubble and by Webb” can be found here: Science Friday: Stunning JWST Images Show New Details Of The Universe

James Webb Space Telescope info:

About: Webb Key Facts

James Webb Space Telescope Home: Goddard Space Flight Center

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
Gardening and Other Ways to Heal the World
June 6, 2022 By 10 Comments

Gardening and Other Ways to Heal the World

I walked earlier than usual today, aware that the temperature would rise and that the sun would be unfiltered by clouds later in the day. Approaching the buttery yellow house two blocks from my apartment, I scanned the large flower garden that borders the sidewalk and wends its way along the property line on one side and the driveway on the other, framing the green lawn. I’m not a lawn enthusiast (that could be another column), but I always enjoy flowers.

In the stretch close to the driveway, someone was on their knees, earnestly working at putting something into the ground or perhaps cleaning out a space for a new plant.

“So much time to spend on flowers,” I thought to myself. “To keep such a garden must take hours almost daily.” I didn’t think “wasted” exactly, but the notion that time could be spent on more significant endeavors did, for a second, flit around the edges of consciousness. Embarrassing to admit. A one-time flower gardener myself, I know better.

In years before divorce moved me from a home with lots of outdoor space to an apartment with little, I tended flower beds. Well, “tended” may be misleading. My gardens were on the wild side. Dark red poppies were the showstoppers, but bachelor buttons, coreopsis, larkspur, pinks, snapdragons, marigolds, zinnias – Not my favorite; their leaves always molded, but they were reliable germinators – grew big and wild.  Anything I could enjoy outside and cut for bouquets inside was welcome. The lavender plant had grown into a hedge; herbs grew among flowers near the kitchen door, and of course, there were weeds.

Over the past eleven years, how much joy I have taken in countless walks by the yellow-house garden, mentally thanking the couple who lives there for their work. Early spring into fall, even with winter’s interesting plant “skeletons,” it draws the eye and lightens the spirit. Already this year, I have stopped, struck still by the extravagant, peachy peony blooms and clusters of Virginia bluebells.

Flowers are pleasing in the moment and can be memory whisperers: The garden’s peonies carried me back to my childhood home where I watched big, black ants clambering over peony buds that would open and explode into stunning masses of fragrant pink, white, and magenta blooms along the side of our house. The bluebells transported me back to a spring day at a Trappist monastery along the Shenandoah River where my family was visiting a long-time friend, Father Maurice. A wide swath of bluebells ran along both sides of the river, edging it with a tumble of deep blue and spring green, Hildegard’s viriditas, both an expression and an agent of Holy Presence.

peony bush covered in large pink blooms

My neighborhood gardeners’ work is a gift to me and all who walk by.

It reminds me of a friend who is, among many other things, an accomplished writer, publisher, photographer, presently a seminary student, and a dedicated gardener. On her newly launched website, Urban Gaia, she describes herself as a person sempre in restauro, always under restoration, and helps people find healing and experience the divine through gardening.

Know it or not, we human beings, along with the rest of creation, are interconnected parts of one reality. As Paul writes in his letter to the folks at Corinth, unity springs from variety working together, one Source, many gifts. That’s a good thing. Gardens are wonderful, but we aren’t all gardeners.

Last month, my daughter delighted in the sale of two of her paintings exhibited in a student art show. A first for her, but not the reason she paints. Like the gardener who plants and tends out of an interior stirring or call, she paints because that is part of who she is. She began around 5 or 6 when she fell in love with Monet, set up an easel in the basement, and used a new set of oils to try her hand at waterlilies. Always an artist, she now relishes the thought that her work hangs somewhere in two homes and brings joy to those who see them.

And me? I write. Like my daughter, I started writing as a child and never stopped. Books. Articles. Columns. Songs. Poetry. Published some. Nothing on the best sellers list. Still, I keep going. People may look at me and wonder why I spend so much time writing words that few will read. (I confess to wondering this myself sometimes!) What can I say?

I’m a writer. The couple down the street are gardeners. My daughter is a painter. The list of “gifts,” of interior “callings,” is endless. At our best, we listen to what stirs in our hearts and follow its direction. We do our work, becoming more and more who we are made to be.  We put it out there. We trust it will do what it needs do. Sometimes that’s simply attuning the ear of our hearts more keenly to the interior Presence that guides us.

Still, it’s easy to feel like we are not enough. Not talented enough, smart enough, creative enough, (you fill in the blank) enough to make a difference.

No wonder. The world is overwhelming. Weekly mass shootings in the U.S. continue with legislators beholden to the fear-mongering NRA unable to pass meaningful gun control legislation. Our fragile democracy is threatened from within. Violence is disproportionately perpetrated against Black Americans, people of color, women, LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, and anyone who can be labeled “other.” Wars ravage the earth as unscrupulous autocrats and dictators grab for power and wealth. Ukraine, presently the most visible, is one of many. The planet itself groans beneath the weight of human abuse. Numerous commentators spew fear and hate on popular media, and disinformation abounds. What can one person do?

Nothing? The culture of celebrity, power, and consumerism feeds that lie. Media sources hold up people of wealth, possessions, and fame as paragons of success. They, the news outlets tell us, are the “influencers,” “thought leaders,” and “game changers.” The important ones.

Don’t you believe it. Let me retell a story I heard last weekend on Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast. It was told by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., whose focus on healing not just curing, sharing stories, and being genuinely present to the patient challenged and influenced the medical profession.

Her rabbi grandfather, whom she described as a “flaming mystic,” was a profound influence in her life. On her fourth birthday, he made a gift to her of this ancient story. (While much of this language is her’s, I paraphrase. You can click the link below to hear Dr. Remen tell the story herself in the interview.)

In the beginning, he said, all was holy darkness, the source of life. At some point, the world came bursting out of the center of that holy darkness as a great ray of light. Later, the result of an accident, the vessels that held the grand light, the wholeness of the world, shattered into thousands of pieces. They fell into all people and events where they remain hidden even today.

Credit: ESA/Hi-GAL Consortium

Her grandfather told her that humanity is a response to this accident, We are created with the ability to see those bits of light in people and things and to bring them to the surface, making the world whole again.

Of course, accomplishing this great task will take every person – past, present, and to come – working together. In this story, everyone has a part to play. Everyone is enough. Everyone has just what they need. Everyone makes a difference.

” … we heal the world one heart at a time,” Dr. Remen continued. “And this task is called tikkun olam, in Hebrew – ‘restoring the world.'”

Fred Rogers used those words in a public service spot when he addressed parents about how to be with their children after the attack of 9/11: “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be tikkun olam, repairers of creation.” 

So, next time you are tempted to think that what you are doing when you follow your heart—whether it puts a roof over your head and food on your table or is something you do part-time as you’re able—when you think you’re not making a difference or that you are “not enough” to matter, remember the wisdom of this ancient story. It is echoed in other wisdom teachings.

Do what is yours to do. Take care of who or what comes across your path. Love, connection, kindness, listening. These things always matter. They always make a difference.

 Like drops that feed the lake or seeds that sprout and flourish, our contributions, however small, become light that pushes through cracks and gives hope. This healing takes time. It won’t be as swift as we’d like. We won’t see its completion in our lifetimes, much as we long for it.

This is where trust comes in, trust that being our true selves, responding the the stirrings of Divine Presence within, heals the world and those who live in it, one heart at a time. In the end, Love will prevail.

Resources

Hildegard von Bingen Viriditas

Missy Greenleaf Finn’s new website:    Urban Gaia

On Being with Krista Tippett  Rachel Naomi Remen: How We Live With Loss

Rachel Naomi Remen has written a children’s book that will be published in September, 2022: The Birthday of the World: A Story About Finding Light in Everyone and Everything

YouTube Mr. Rogers: Tikkun olma

Response to gun violence

Write and call your Senators and House Representatives. Let them know you want sensible gun legislation passed now (e.g., universal background checks, assault weapons ban, red flag laws, increased funding for mental health)

Senators’ contact info: Find your Senator

House Representatives’ info: Find your Representative

Donate:

Moms Demand Action

Everytown for Gun Safety

Photos: Unless otherwise indicated, by Mary van Balen

Feature photo: A local gardener who has cultivated his patch in the community gardens for 43 years.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
An Eclipse Unobserved
May 21, 2022 By 10 Comments

An Eclipse Unobserved

Sunday night, May 15, I slept through a total lunar eclipse. Usually, I send email reminders to family and friends a day or two before the event. When the night arrives, I set my alarm and stand on my driveway or in the backyard at any hour, no matter how late, to witness the cosmic display. Eclipses, lunar and solar, have inspired several posts on this blog in the past. (See here, here,  here and here.) How’d I miss this one?

I didn’t notice the date on my wall calendar or date book. (Yes, I still use the paper ones.) I passed over the EarthSkyNews1 email alert. I even missed the second text sent that night on our family thread. I saw the first, at 10:02. Uncharacteristically, I was already in bed. “Don’t forget to check out the Blood Moon tonight,” it read. I pulled off the sheet and walked outside to look. It’s edges and light were softened by misty, wispy clouds, but the full moon was just clearing the apartments across the street, headed for open sky above. The text reference to “Blood Moon” was lost on me. The pale orb looked lovely, but nothing red about it. After five minutes or so, I headed back to bed and to a long night of much needed sleep.

When I awoke late Monday morning, I reached over to the bedside bookcase, pulled off my phone and reading glasses and checked for messages. (I’m way too tied to that phone!) Ah. There was another from Sunday night. It arrived at 10:04 pm while I was out in my PJs and bare feet looking at the moon. “The partial eclipse begins at 10:30.” There it was.

A matter of two minutes made the difference between my watching a stunning total lunar eclipse and my sleeping peacefully away for ten hours! “I needed the sleep,” I rationalized, but didn’t feel any better about missing the experience.

The dance of planet, moon, and sun governed by laws of physics never disappoints. Sunday night, the full moon blushed a deep red as it moved into the earth’s shadow. With feet planted on the ground, anyone with a clear sky above could have looked up in wonder at the spectacle that played out nearly 240,000 miles away. It was glorious—whether or not celebrated by human beings.

Creation continues to do what it has been doing for eons, regardless of our attention—evolving, expanding, birthing new stars, galaxies, and realities we can’t imagine. It’s a work in progress. Occasionally the veil of distance, time, and space is drawn back just a bit, and we catch a glimpse. (Did you see the first photo of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy2?

Image Credit: X-ray – NASA/CXC/SAO, IR – NASA/HST/STScI; Inset: Radio – Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

As I lamented my missed opportunity, I thought of Psalm 27 that reminds us that God’s grace comes even as we sleep and took some comfort in the knowledge that beauty released into the universe blesses even when unnoticed. The splendor of the Blood Moon, the incredible workings of our solar system that produced it, the ongoing evolution of the cosmos in which we live, are all expressions of Love constantly given away.

A child asleep in her mother’s arms is no less loved than when the little one is awake and aware of the affection. My sleeping through the eclipse didn’t diminish its wonder. As I slept those ten hours away, I rested, cradled in the arms of the universe and the creative arms of the Mother-God in whom it unfolds.

Awareness doesn’t change the reality of Love-shared, but it can enlarge the hearts of those who notice with appreciation and openness to receive.

In Mary Oliver’s long poem “From the Book of Time,”3 she writes of beginning a spring day at her desk but being drawn by birdsong into the outdoors where she noticed the grass and butterflies moving above the field.

“ … And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening / is the real work. // Maybe the world, without us, / is the real poem…”

Surely, the cosmos doesn’t need us to be what it is, to be the “real poem.” Yet since we are here, we are invited to help with the composition: a word, a phrase, a comma or full-stop. We contribute, knowingly or not. How and what depends on each of us. A bit of glory here, a bit of sorrow there. Love. Hate. Compassion. Fear.

While I trust in Holy Presence, whether cognizant of it or not, I will pay more attention to special events that can open my heart and the eyes of my soul. November 8, the next total lunar eclipse of this year, is already circled on my paper calendars. I might even add an alert on my phone.

Meanwhile, no need to wait for an eclipse. The universe is always spilling over with unfathomable creativity. The jots we are privileged to witness point our minds and hearts toward the Holy Mystery that is far beyond comprehension but is the life force in all that is. This Mystery showers us with goodness and love, even if we, unaware, sleep right through it.

Sources:

1 Subscribe to EarthSkyNews newsletter

2 The Milky Way’s Black Hole

3 “From the Book of Time” in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, p. 234

More info on the Black Hole: Sagittarius A

The Milky Ways supermassive black hole

Here’s How Scientists Turned the World Into a Telescope (to See a Black Hole)

Black Hole Image Makes History

Feature image by Ulrike Bohr from Pixabay

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Simply Enough
April 30, 2022 By 10 Comments

Simply Enough

At last, after two-and-a-half years, this weary pilgrim again headed to the coast, putting myself in a place where grace flows. Always. Every breath of salty air pulled into my lungs; every shock of cold water closed around my ankles draws me into the rhythms of the place. The infinite horizon. The boom of crashing waves. The gull cries. All of it. Grace sinks deep and soaks my spirit’s tired, depleted spaces with life. On this trip, gentle tears greeted my first steps through the dunes. The place spoke: “Welcome home.” My soul sighed with gratitude.

Bundled in a winter coat, hat, gloves, and scarf, I happily walked the ocean’s edge with my daughters, strong wind making the air feel much colder than its 38-40-something degrees. Following along the frothy seam that joins water and sand didn’t disappoint. The vista changed by the day, or by the hour, from blue skies and sun-sparkled water to dark, low-hanging clouds threatening rain. From smooth, glassy sea to turbulent waves. Birds covered the dunes and beach some days and were barely present on others.

I’ve become wiser over the years, happy with any weather and grateful for whatever the ocean offers up for my attention: The sun glinting on a broken shell. An interesting piece of driftwood. Sandpipers speeding along the tide’s edge, their short legs a blur of motion. Willets standing on one leg to preserve warmth on a cold day.

It might be sighting a dolphin’s fin in the distance while walking with my daughter or a windstorm that left its fingerprint on the sand.

Photo: Emily Holt

Despite gleaning some wisdom on my beach walks, I don’t always heed their lessons.

Arriving home, I wondered how to share the experience with my readers. I searched for a topic, but found no over-arching theme. Instead, thoughts that emerged were of small movements of grace offered in every moment. Simple. Not requiring connection to something bigger for significance. Enough in themselves:

Looking for beach treasures to fill a lamp. Examining feathers on the sand. Learning that what looked like gray, rubber litter was actually a moon snail’s egg collar. Deciding that the walk to an old Coast Guard station was too long to complete before the park gates closed and enjoying the sunset instead.

Photo: Kathryn Holt

There were many small pleasures found off-beach: A morning of shared painting and writing. The delight of sipping our first Vietnamese egg coffee: dark espresso topped with egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk whipped into a thick cream and sprinkled with cinnamon. A walk to the small downtown area and chatting with a local artist at the indie bookstore.

I bought honey from the beekeeper around the corner, and as always when on the coast, I relished freshly made crab cakes.

Wild ponies foraged along the road and a young, great blue heron seemed to preen for the camera. We marveled at a lighthouse and the engineering and skill required to build it in the 1800s. I savored the sweet smell of marshlands, so different from salty ocean air. We laughed together at Ted Lasso episodes while binging on Island Creamery homemade ice cream or white-cheddar “cheesy-poof” balls.

Each moment complete. Lovely. Overflowingly enough.

In her poem “Snow Geese,” Mary Oliver offers the wisdom of loving what does not last, calling it our task “…and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.” Being present to those fleeting moments open us to their gift. They might find their way into memory or stir hope or joy, but only if we are attentive. As Oliver’s poem continues, “…What matters / is that, when I saw them, / I saw them /as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.”

Returning from the ocean is always difficult for me. While I love family, friends, and familiar routines, I am a reluctant inlander. Once home, my challenge is to be as attentive to moments here as I was to moments on the island. Not with expectations, but with openness. Not looking for something that completes a larger picture, but simply moments that are, in themselves, grace enough.

It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a Soul, and a moment. And the three are always here.

Abraham Heschel

Photos: Mary van Balen unless otherwise indicated

© 2022 Mary van Balen

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
A Friend’s Gift
March 24, 2022 By 28 Comments

A Friend’s Gift

Deep friendships add light to one’s soul even in difficult and dark times. Those special people with whom we share our journey offer a safe place to rest, finding a space in their hearts for our struggles and sorrow as well as our dreams and joy. They celebrate with us. (Something I suggest we do as often as possible and for every little thing.) They accompany us as we grieve. As we process what life is handing us. Or ponder big questions along with the mundane: weather, books read, or what to cook for dinner. They share hard-won wisdom. No topic is taboo. These friends may cry with us or tap laughter hiding beneath our tears. They may simply “be with” us when there are no words to say or when neither of us can see a path opening ahead.

Such companions have blessed me. I hope the same for you. The pandemic may have complicated personal connections, but bonds with deep friends are resilient and remain. 

Mike was such a friend. He passed away in February of this year. Our final in-person visit was last year in late June. We shared lunch, and appropriately, guitar playing and song.

Mike Wood playing guitar and singing
Mike

Music and desire for community brought us together when I was around 17. A small group of people, most in their late 20s and early 30s, were gathering to explore their faith and how to live it out during the years that saw the Vietnam war, the growing civil rights movement, and social upheaval. The friends came together to support one another and celebrate life with singalongs, potlucks, and conversations that lasted late into the night. Invited by a mutual friend, I brought my guitar and joined Mike and others providing music.

We gathered in homes and in a member’s shoe store – after hours. Eventually the folks pooled money and purchased a small property nestled along the fringes of the Hocking Hills. It was named Koinia and became their gathering place and a refuge for those of us seeking solitude and nature’s balm.

My life and Mike’s intertwined beyond the small group. We sang in coffee houses, at weddings, and liturgical celebrations. We saw one another at holiday parties and birthday bashes for mutual friends. Years flipped by like pages of a riveting novel.

Life took us in different directions, and opportunities to connect became fewer though we offered support as we could, especially during difficult times. Hearing Mike’s voice and music and meeting his compassionate gaze was a great comfort when he sang at the funerals of both of my parents. No matter how much time passed between our visits, when we did reconnect, conversation flowed as easily as ever.

Four years ago, Mike inspired me with a story of struggle and forgiveness. I had been working alone in a small cabin near Mike and Patty’s home. Preparing to co-direct a retreat, I needed the quiet, away-from-everything space. A few days before, a longtime mutual friend, Mario, had died. On the funeral day, I drove into town, picked up Mike and his wife, Patty, and took them with me to the funeral. People gathered afterwards to share memories and food. When things quieted down, I returned Mike and Patty back to their home then stopped at a nearby convenience store to buy drinking water for the cabin.

Mario and Mike

On my way out of town, grief settled in as profound loneliness, and I wasn’t ready to return to the empty cabin. I sat in my car on the edge of a park. And sat. Finally, I called Mike and invited myself to dinner. He and Patty warmly welcomed me and shared more food, laughter, and stories. Their company bolstered my spirits, and as night approached, I headed back to the cabin. Providence had other ideas. A fallen tree blocked the final stretch of road, and unfamiliar with an alternative route through the hills to the cabin, I called Mike again.

Patty had the guest room ready when I arrived, complete with an extra nightgown laying on the bed. We visited until 11 when she said goodnight. Mike and I stayed up for a couple more hours and sang a song or two. Then just talked. As conversations go, ours meandered from Mario to grief at his passing to times at Koinia. Perhaps led by our sorrow, we eventually talked of struggles with past hurtful experiences. Mike shared a particularly difficult episode. Then matter-of-factly said, “I forgave them.”

After a quiet pause he continued. “I had to let it go. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.” I watched him. One of the kindest, gentlest, loving souls I have ever known. “I had to move on. And you know, it hasn’t been a once-and-done thing. As time went by, memories came back. Occasionally still do. I felt hurt and betrayed all over again. And angry. Each time, I forgave. It got easier.”

We sat in silence for a while. I watched him and tried to imagine him different. Bitter. Cold. Nursing a wound that wouldn’t heal. I was grateful Mike had chosen forgiveness all these years. That his life, like his songs, was full of kindness and hope.

I shared something with Mike that night. Something I hadn’t forgiven. Not completely. Not every time it resurfaced. Not easily.

What is it about old wounds that make hanging on to them feel deceptively comforting? Is it that dwelling on someone else’s shortcomings shields one from their own? Is it self-doubt? Does pulling someone else down make one feel better about themself? Oddly attractive, hanging on to hurts gives power to those who hurt us. Power that can affect one’s life long after the event. Lack of forgiveness can poison a personality. Mike knew that and refused to let it happen.

I took a deep breath. I forgave. I knew I’d have to make that choice again and again. But I could. I would. Remembering Mike will help.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: , , , ,