God Who Comes in Whispers
August 8, 2014 By Leave a Comment

God Who Comes in Whispers

curly wind clip art.jpg

    First published in The Catholic Times, August 10, 2014, Volume 63:3

Sunday’s reading follows a dramatic showdown between Elijah and King Ahab after three long years of drought predicted by the prophet. During his reign, Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, spread the worship of Baal throughout the land and murdered the prophets of the Lord. Elijah alone remained. Prompted by God, Elijah met with the king and proposed they meet on Mount Carmel.

People from all over Israel were summoned including the prophets of Baal. Tired of their unwillingness to choose between the Lord and Baal, Elijah challenged them to watch and decide: The prophets of Baal were to prepare a sacrifice. Elijah would do the same. Each would call on their god to send fire to consume the offering.

You know the outcome. Despite a day of shouting, dancing, and self-mutilation, Baal’s prophets received no answer. Then Elijah, after preparing his sacrifice and inviting the people to douse it all with water three times, asked the Lord to answer his prayer so the people would turn their hearts again to the true God.

Fire consumed the sacrifice, the stones, the wood, and dried up all the water in the trench. Elijah commanded the people to slaughter all the prophets of Baal who were present. A small cloud over the sea grew larger and darker, and as God had promised, at last, rain came.

Jezebel was furious and vowed to take Elijah’s life. He fled until, exhausted, he sat down by a bush and asked God to take his life, but angels, not death, arrived. And they brought food. Twice they fed the old prophet. Strengthened, he traveled forty days to Mount Horeb.

This is where we meet Elijah in Sunday’s reading. After having spent his life striving to be faithful to his God, he wasn’t sure what he had accomplished. In spite of the spectacular results on Mount Carmel and the killing of Baal’s prophets, his world appeared unchanged.

A few lines are left out of Sunday’s reading. Between the night of sleep in the cave, and the command to stand on the mountain to wait for the Lord, Elijah hears God asking him what he is doing there.

He answers, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

Haven’t we felt that same way at one time or another? Having done our best, our best isn’t good enough. We’ve prayed, we’ve worked, and we’ve hoped but eventually, find hope elusive. As the angels observed, the journey is too much for us. For our resources. We need nourishment from God to go on, and even then we aren’t sure what to do next. Poverty, hatred, oppression, and disease continue to plague our world, and we have no answers.

Elijah waited to meet the Lord, but God didn’t come in the violence of wind or storms. He didn’t come in earthquakes or fire. The Lord didn’t come with force, but in a whisper. All the power of God. In a whisper.

I find that comforting. I think it’s because I can do “whispers.” I can do little things with great love. All the bombs raining down fire on people below haven’t brought peace. All the hatred and angry posturing haven’t brought needed change. Like Elijah’s showdown on Mount Carmel, they might look impressive, but in the end, they only make things worse.

We aren’t perfect. Elijah wasn’t either. He had four hundred and fifty prophets slaughtered because they believed in the wrong god. He wanted good. He wanted what God wanted, but couldn’t make it happen himself.

It’s a story repeated in scripture and in our lives. God brings good from our efforts in ways we don’t know. When we can see no path ahead, like Elijah, God invites us to trust. To be still. To listen. God is passing by. God is coming in whispers. Whispers from the lips of children, from a tired mother. From a scarred earth. From a cool breeze. From a kind deed. From some little thing you do that you think makes no difference.

The Holy One who made all that is and who is beyond our imaginings is a God who comes in whispers.

© 2014 Mary van Balen

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Patience
August 6, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Patience

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Almost three years ago, I bought a Christmas cactus plant at Trader Joe’s. It was my first Christmas in my apartment and the plant looked cheery. It wasn’t big. Actually, it looked as if someone had stuck three stems in a pot of dirt. But it had blossoms. I took it home and placed it on a little prayer “table” that held a book of daily readings, a small cross, and a smattering of sea shells, small stones, and a feather. I think it liked its home because it bloomed at Christmas, but also at other times during the year.

Once, I found a single leaf-like pad had fallen from the main stem. I wondered if it would root if I stuck it in the dirt around the plant. So, I did. I watched it for months. It didn’t wither or turn brown or black, so I figured it was still “alive.” Every month or so, I’d check. No change. A year passed. Nothing. One day I pulled at it gently to see if it had rooted at all. It didn’t offer any resistance, but when I lifted it a bit I could see a white thread-like root, I assumed, so I quickly pushed the leaf-pad back into the soil.

Months passed. Then, a few days ago, when I watered all my plants, including the Christmas cactus, I saw it: A tiny pale green leaf pad growing right out of the top of the one that had been sitting in that dirt for a couple of years! Amazing. A smile spread across my face. I could never bring myself to pull up the leaf, but really, I didn’t expect it ever to grow.

Patience. Some things just take time. I never guessed what work was going on inside that little leaf that looked as if it had been doing nothing for the past year and a half. You just never know. We can be the same, often not a good judge of what is growing and changing in others or even within ourselves. If we believe the Spirit dwells within every person, then shouldn’t we also believe that something is growing within each of us? That God is up to good, even when we see no evidence?

Patience with others. Patience with ourselves. Patience with God’s time.

I called my sister to tell her the news.

“I forgot to show you when you were over tonight. The Christmas cactus leaf is growing!

She promised to have a look when she stopped by next time she stopped over.

“It reminds me of the parable of the fig tree,” she said. “You know, the one where the fig tree doesn’t produce fruit, and the owner wants to pull it out, but the gardener says ‘give me another year…'”

It did:

Luke 13, 6-9  Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.  So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.  If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

The little Christmas cactus needed longer than a year. I’m not sure if the scripture passage suggests that God is patient, or that we’d better get going because God won’t wait forever. I think God waits. It’s earth-time that runs out. When it does, I believe God is there, ready to celebrate what has sprouted from the bit of Divine Self planted in each of us.

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Prayer: When Words Fail
July 24, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Prayer: When Words Fail

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

 

Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is in all.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
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July 24, 2014 By 2 Comments

Jesus Weeps

Photo by James McGinnis

Photo by James McGinnis

The headlines are difficult to read: Plane shot down over war zone, man struggles for two hours during his execution, turning children away at the border, Christians driven from their ancient homeland in Iraq, rising casualties in the Gaza war, conflict escalation in Ukraine, teenagers bludgeoning a homeless man to death…I can’t bear to read much of it. If my heart is weeping, what about the One who created this universe, this exquisite planet and all the people on it?

There are bright spots for sure: New executive orders that provide protection for many among us, interest in wind power in Texas, individuals responding to others in need, moving reception of bodies from Malaysian flight 17 tragedy as the Netherlands declares a national day of mourning and accepts and honors all victims remains regardless of nationality. Good things do happen. We don’t hear about them as much.

This morning, all I could do was sit quietly and hold the world in my heart before God in prayer….and let my tears mingle with those shed by the Divine.

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Reentry
July 19, 2014 By 2 Comments

Reentry

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Reentry is always a challenge whether one is returning to work or school from vacation, rejoining estranged groups of family or friends, adjusting to changing seasons, or for a select few, taking the bumpy ride back into earth’s atmosphere from a stint in outer space. When we “enter again” we are not the same people we were when we left. If they do what is intended, vacations change us into more relaxed and revitalized versions of ourselves. Engaging again with people who have caused us hurt or pain or whom we have hurt and avoided requires growth and maturity, an open heart and a bit of courage. I can’t imagine the change in perspective that affects those human beings who have had the privilege of seeing the earth from outer space. (A stunning book of photographs and reflections of astronauts from around the world give a glimpse into that experience: The Home Planet by Kevin W. Kelley ed. with a forward by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. I am not sure it is available to purchase, but you might find a used copy or one in a library.)

Wherever we are coming from and going to, retuning to life’s routines after a time away presents opportunities. Can I return to work without allowing the pace, atmosphere, and demands overwhelm me? If it’s a job I don’t like, can I keep a positive attitude and look for what is good in it? Am I able to let go of anger and the urge to see just one point of view, mine, when attempting to reconnect with those I’ve been avoiding?

I’m experiencing a reentry myself. After a ten day residency for a two-year spiritual guidance program, I’m doing laundry and preparing to return to work, writing, and family connections. It’s not easy. While the schedule was full of presentations, reflections, and hard work, it also provided a silent sabbath of retreat for a couple of days. The class had gathered from around the country and new and deep friendships were begun.

For ten days I didn’t have to prepare food or wash dishes. I could wander around the fifty-acre spiritual center in Maryland listening to birds and watching deer, foxes, and fireflies. On the night of the Perigee Moon (Super Moon) I found a comfortable place to sit and kept vigil with binoculars and a camera, fueled by a homemade chocolate chip cookie and cup of tea.

Part of the gift of the residency was the opportunity to cultivate a quiet, listening heart, sharing silence as well as conversation and presentations as a group. We focused on the Divine Presence in our lives and in the lives of those we serve. We held in prayer those dear to us, those hurting in our world torn by violence, and creation that offers solace and grace even while reeling from effects of 7 billion people living on the planet.

The night before we would all return home, our class had a party. Spontaneous. Food showed up on tables. People pitched in to arrange the space. Lots of talk. Lots of laughter. I walked over to add some snacks to my plate and laughed when I saw what a couple of clever folks had added to the offerings: From Trader Joes: Inner Peas. From Brewer’s Art in Maryland: Resurrection Beer.

Two things to remember as I ease back into life at home: Take time to be still and to cultivate the sense of living in the Divine Presence.  Have faith that God brings good from all things and invites us to be part of bringing Grace into the world, into our time and place and to rest in the Spirit that blows where it will.

And, when I forget, I just might pick up a bag of Inner Peas, wash them down with some Resurrection Beer and move into prayerful silence.

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Slowing Down
July 13, 2014 By 2 Comments

Slowing Down

Photo: Mary van Balen

Photo: Mary van Balen

 

“Speed Bump Ahead” The warning to slow down. An apt sign for the road along the property of Holy Trinity Spiritual Center in Maryland. It is, indeed, a place to slow down.

I hadn’t realized how much I needed to heed the admonition. Too busy to notice, I guess. I thought I was doing pretty well. Squeezing in scripture readings and some quiet prayer. Well, not as much as I’d like. The busyness of work and the rest of life had become routine. Normal. As it does.

I’m a proponent of meeting God in the moment. Any moment. Every moment. But, it seems, taking time now and then to be still and let my soul catch up with my body, is necessary to allow those God moments to sink in. And, I am finding, slowing down after months of barreling ahead takes longer than slowing down when it is a habit. A bit like putting the brakes on when driving a big truck or my little Civic. One takes longer to stop than the other.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

So, I am grateful for ten days at this center. There are sessions filled with information and words and movement, but also with times of silence. I am grateful.

I ended this night sitting outside with binoculars, a homemade chocolate chip cookie, and a super moon rising above the trees. I’m slowing down!

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Grace Overflowing
May 10, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Grace Overflowing

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Originally published in The Catholic Times, May 11 2014 issue

 

Despite working until close at Macy’s on Holy Saturday night and arriving home around ten-thirty pm, I had energy and decided to bake hot cross buns. Well, I had energy until they were ready to rise the second time. Dragging, by three in the morning, I was savoring the warm, cinnamony-sweet results and cleaning the kitchen.

When the alarm sounded at 7:45, I wasn’t sure I could pry myself out of bed. “I could go to 11:30,” I thought. No. Nine o’clock was the mass I wanted to attend, sleepy or not. After a shower and a strong cup of tea, I headed out to St. Thomas the Apostle where the parish family was gathering to celebrate Easter.

The church was packed, and even though my usual place was taken, I found a seat next to a lovely older woman wearing an amazing hat. Remember Easter hats? As young girls, my sisters and I had new hats each Easter. Hats. Dresses. White gloves. Part of the ritual.

The altar was surrounded with flowers and on the ledge at the bottom of each stained glass window sat a potted spring bulb flower: hyacinths, tulips, daffodils. The tight buds were beginning to loosen, and hints of color were peeking out. A quite murmur rested in the church as people wished one another “Happy Easter” and caught up on the week before. Then the music began.

One of the many things I love about Saint Thomas is the spirited singing accompanied by a variety of instruments. Organ, piano, guitar, flute, drums, tambourine, trumpet, and on Easter I think I heard a trombone. Someone can set me straight if I’m wrong. It doesn’t matter really. What matters is that people are welcome to share their talents and that so many do!

I don’t remember all the songs we sang that morning, but I remember the joy with which they were sung, the clapping to the rhythm, the harmonies. A favorite “sprinkling” ritual at that parish is the procession up the center aisle to a large earthenware bowl that holds baptismal water. Pews empty out one by one, and when each person reaches the bowl, they dip their hand into the water, turn, and make the sign of the cross on the forehead of the person behind them, all the while belting out Marty Haugen’s song, “Up from the Waters.”

“Up from the waters, God has claimed you, Up from the waters, O child of Light. Praise to the One who called and named you, Up from the waters into life…”

Choir members brought up the end of the line, the last two keeping time with their instruments. The tall gentleman who played the tambourine was last. Having no one behind him to bless with the water, he turned, raised his hands and shook the tambourine making a large sign of the cross: He blessed us all, and we applauded our “amen.”

The responsorial song was sung with a strong voice and a bright smile.

And so it went. The celebrant chose to read the Gospel from the Easter Vigil Mass where the two Marys, having been told that Jesus had risen ran “overjoyed” to tell the disciples. They saw Jesus on their way.

The theme of joy ran through his homily, and with a child’s abandon, a young member of the congregation punctuated one of Fr. Denis’s comments with a heartfelt, “Yeah!”

It fit.

A sung Eucharist Prayer, shared peace, shared communion. The wine was sweet. Sun poured into the windows, waking the flowers as we sang our Alleluias and closing hymn. No one was in a hurry to leave. I told the lady next to me how much I liked her hat, then found some friends who had been across the aisle and exchanged Easter greetings.

I lingered, soaking in the Mystery and Grace, and then made my way across the parking lot. Coming out from the common room in the basement, a few people were carrying boxes of candy-filled plastic eggs to scatter for the Easter egg hunt that would follow the later Mass.

Waiting for the traffic light at the corner to change, I looked at the green grass beside the rectory and church. It was absolutely covered with colored eggs. An abundance. I hadn’t kept Lent particularly well, yet there it was, God’s gift of Self overflowing. A never ending Fountain Fullness as a Franciscan friend says. I put down the car window, waved, and took a deep breath, glad I had pulled myself out of bed for nine o’clock Mass.

A joyful Easter Season to you all.

© 2014 Mary van Balen

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Spring Snow
April 16, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Spring Snow

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

 

A friend of mine observed that, while most were complaining about snow on April 15, she reveled in it. I share her feelings. Not a hot weather person, I don’t look forward to hot, humid summer days. (Of course, if I am near a beach, that is a different story!) Cold, crisp days are welcome, anytime. There is something special about a spring snow. It dusts early flowers and budding shrubs with a reminder of the season that provides time and rest necessary for some of spring flowers to bloom, like tulips and daffodils. No cold weather, no blooms.

Other plants have a variety of mechanisms that help them survive winter. All involve using less nourishment. The plants slow down or become dormant. Water can be a problem if it freezes in plant cells, like water in pipes: it expands and bursts the cells. Amazingly, some plants move the water out of the cells and store it in spaces between them.

Like bulbs and plants that live through winter’s harsh conditions, I periodically need time to rest, regroup, and prepare to resume a busy life. I can’t go full bore all the time. Luckily, I don’t have to wait for weather to change. My “winters” can be self-generated by retreating into quiet, not filling up my calendar, and saying “no” more often. Not selfish. Self preserving.

Sometimes life provides the winter season when I don’t want it: Illness, dying relationships, loss of a job, death of someone close. Events I cannot control can bring life as I know it to a screeching halt. It can be uncomfortable. It can lead me to drawing a hard shell around me wounded self, like plants that develop sturdy seed coats to protect potential life until conditions are favorable.

Yesterdays snow, lying lighting on pansies on my porch and more destructively on magnolia blooms across the street, remind me that life has many seasons, all of them good. All of them with purpose and gifts. I will try to remember this while sweating and miserable in late July.

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Being an Appreciator
April 10, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Being an Appreciator

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Originally published in The Catholic Times, April 13, 2014, Volume 63:27

 

A good friend, Rita, once said years ago that she knew herself to be an appreciator: an appreciator of God revealed in the world of creation, of people, of life. I thought of her when I read a reflection by Carole Crumley, Episcopal priest and Shalem Institute’s Senior Program Director. Carole’s morning prayer practice is gazing at the world outside in her backyard, enjoying watching the day wake up as she does. In the reflection she mentions poet Mary Oliver, one of my favorites, whose poetry celebrates the glorious sacred in every day. Oliver, like Crumley, and my friend Rita, is an appreciator.

I’ve often told classes of aspiring journalers and writers that writing helps me stay “wide awake” as I move through life. It helps me notice and appreciate. As spring arrives after a particularly relentless winter, many of us notice the first crocuses and daffodils, the forsythia blooming, the feel of soft earth that just weeks ago was hard and unmoving beneath our feet. Winter makes us into appreciators, at least for a while.

We quickly become accustomed to green crowned trees, warm air, and colorful blooms. Before long many of us will be complaining of the heat and finding refuge in air-conditioned spaces, alert for cool breezes and cooler temperatures. So goes the cycle. The sense of wonder and joy seems greatest at boundary times: winter into spring; Lent into Easter; sickness into health; danger into safety. Then it fades.

The call to be an appreciator or “pray-er” requires one to find the extraordinary cloaked in the ordinary, to marvel at our planet circling the sun even when the sun’s heat is oppressive, to see the Divine Mystery even when it is lodged in someone we don’t like.

Routine may be the greatest challenge to those who desire a poet’s heart or a saint’s prayer. How quickly we look past what surrounds us everyday, longing for something to lift our spirits or inspire us, when we tromp over miracles piled underfoot.

Artists of all types help us see these wonders more clearly. Hasn’t your heart moved at the beauty of a close-up photograph of something very plain: a tea cup, blue paint peeling off an old door, weeds pushing up through cracks in sidewalks? Haven’t you become lost in the light of a van Gogh painting? It’s by looking closely at what we all walk past everyday and wondering at it enough to celebrate it in words, music, or form, that artists awaken the poet and saint in us all.

Mary Oliver writes in her poem,  “When Death Comes,” “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life/ I was a bride married to amazement… I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

I think that the Incarnation and the love that impelled the Creator to walk this earth with us, to eventually die for love of it and us rather than resort to grasping at power and control, invites us to live as poet and saint. Night imparts an appreciation of day, as does day of night. Winter gives us a heart for spring. Lent, a desire for Easter. Routine hides singularity.

Jesus was an appreciator. He saw the Glory of the Divine in poor fishermen and women spurned by society or the men in their lives. He saw majesty in lilies and grace in the poor widow’s gift of pennies. His celebration of all life challenged those who would cherish life only on their own terms. He accepted death at the hands of the extraordinary and powerful only to witness to the victory of what, at first glace, seemed ordinary and weak. An itinerant preacher of love and service, easily dismissed by most, conquered death and invites us to do the same: to see with him the Glory of God infused into every moment, even the darkest, to expect to find wonder and Presence, and to celebrate it by the way we live our lives.

© 2014 Mary van Balen

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Ordinary Grace
March 24, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Ordinary Grace

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I had a marvelous friend who was a great artist, Marvin Triguba. Once, when I marveled at the way he captured light in his paintings, he said, “That’s how I see, and I paint what I see.” He wondered aloud, “doesn’t everyone see light that way?”

No, I would have to say. Not in such a conscious way. Of course, light creates shadows and bright spaces. It gives form and definition to what we see. It entered Marvin’s eyes as it did mine, but what his brain did with that raw material was astounding. Me? Sometimes I recognize the ordinary grace that comes with light.

I thought of Marvin a couple of days ago when I looked into the dining room and was stunned by the beauty of morning light playing across the hardwood floors. Some of the boards seemed all light. Others, darker in hue, glowed. I allowed the beauty of that moment to enter not only my eyes and brain, but also my soul.

This morning, when I turned into the living room from the hall, my eyes were bathed in bright light filtering through half-opened mini-blinds and green leaves in a variety of shapes and shades. I drew a quick breath and moved toward the window, putting myself in a place where the light would bathe me, too. Grace.

Isn’t that prayer? Intentionally putting ourselves into a soul space that is open to receive the Holy pouring into it? Longing for Presence as my plants, and my soul, longed for light this morning?

Artist God, who floods the world in Glory, enter my heart. Flood my soul with light that shows not only bright places there, but also shadow places. Open my inner eye to see the beauty of myself as you have made me. The beauty of creation. I give thanks for the artists, like Marvin, that you have given to the world. Their vision and work remind us of the Grace of light.

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