Dona Nobis Pacem: A Morning Prayer on Whidbey Island
July 22, 2024 By 8 Comments

Dona Nobis Pacem: A Morning Prayer on Whidbey Island

Dona nobis pacem. Give us peace. I offer this simple sharing of yesterday’s morning prayer that began with attentiveness to the overwhelming beauty and variety of the natural setting. I moved into singing the traditional round Dona nobis pacem, then spontaneously sang words from my heart, and finally slipped into silence. A prayer for peace in our troubled world. You might find it helpful to listen to the song using the links below to become familiar with its rhythms before continuing to read.

Dona nobis pacem, pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem, pacem. Blessing of the sun, present to the One, pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

In the woods, all is good, pacem, pacem. Every thing I see, help me learn to be pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Creation sings, birdsong rings, pacem, pacem. Holy, blessing-song, my heart sings along, pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Always flowing, Presence growing, pacem, pacem. Weaves diversity into unity. Pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem, pacem, pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

road lined with Douglas Fir trees

Center deep, wake from sleep, pacem, pacem. Simple way to start. Embrace our common Heart. Pacem.

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem

Dona nobis pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Donna nobis pacem, pacem. Dona nobis pacem.

Resource:

Sometimes this melody for Dona nobis pacem (“Give us peace” from the Agnus Dei) is attributed to Mozart. Often it is designated simply as “traditional.” Enjoy this version sung in a number of languages by people from around the world.

Dona nobis pacem – International Voices Houston

This is a simpler version, with just three voices, making it easier to learn the melody.

Dona Nobis Pacem – Mozart

Listen to this song until its melody becomes familiar and you can sing along. Then try singing it and letting your own prayer emerge, words from your heart falling into the rhythm and melody. The words needn’t be profound. They don’t need to rhyme. Simply give voice to what stirs within.

All photos by Mary van Balen

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Aurora: Using the Right Lens
May 22, 2024 By 2 Comments

Aurora: Using the Right Lens

Who would’ve guessed? Viewing the Aurora Borealis close on the heels of experiencing a total solar eclipse, both from Ohio! Not me. I read about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights much further south than usual and looked forward to the event. But the evening arrived, and after a busy day of running errands, I had forgotten. I settled into my recliner ready for a quiet evening when an urgent shout broke into my reverie:

“Jordan! Jordan!” my neighbor yelled to his friend in the apartment above mine.

An emergency? Someone’s hurt? My phone rang: “Mary, get out here! You can see them!”

Thank goodness for my neighbors. In minutes, six of us lined up in my driveway. Chairs for everyone, but mostly we stood. I put on water for tea (It was chilly.) and called my sister and her husband.

The aurora had arrived, even in the city, and joined a bright crescent moon, planets, and stars in the clear night sky. Despite streetlamps and security lights, swaths of purple, pink, and green danced over apartments and trees.

“Look through your phone,” someone called out, and I remembered an interesting fact from articles giving instructions on when and how to watch. Auroras are the result of streams of charged particles ejected from magnetic storms on the sun and propelled into space. Some reach earth and glow with colored light when they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms as they speed into our upper atmosphere. The rare strength of the solar storms the days before and force with which the large the particle streams were expelled from the sun pushed the aurora south. As amazing as the human eye is, the lenses in cell phones are much better at collecting light, including that emitted by the glowing particles.

Pale purplish pink hues became stunning magenta when viewed through the phones. Greens popped from soft to brilliant. So, there we stood, looking with our eyes then marveling at the sight through our phone lenses. This solar system, our home, has been e What else awaits discovery?

Photo: Janet Souder
Photo: Janet Souder

What else – on our planet, in the universe – emanates beauty simply by being? What windows into truth and mystery surround us? And how can we see them? What lenses might we need? I wondered about this for a few days, and the question came along as I walked along the Scioto River and saw a blue heron, tall and majestic. There he was, a pillar of peace and stillness with mallards fussing and flitting about, chasing one another away with loud honks and flapping wings that splashed in the water. The heron remained focused, and one slow, purposeful step at a time, moved through the water without disturbing its surface.

How did he see his watery world, I wondered. And what about lenses of other creatures and the ones that enhance (or cloud) my own vision?

Sometimes I use a jeweler’s loupe to examine ordinary objects. Sometimes I use lenses on my stereomicroscope to look extremely closely and discover complexity, pattern, and design of ordinary objects invisible to the naked eye.

With the help of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes we can look deeply into the universe and back in time to its beginnings. We see stars being born and galaxies speeding away from one another.

But lenses don’t always make things clearer. They can alter or obscure. Our perception can be distorted when we look with eyes, hearts, and minds clouded by prejudices, fear, and anger. Have you ever shared an experience with others and come away shaking your head when various accounts of what happened are at opposite ends of the spectrum? (Think, January 6.) Different lenes.

How, I wondered, can I “clean my lenses” and be aware of everyday wonders of creation? They needn’t be auroras or solar eclipses to inspire and enchant, revealing the Sacred simply by being. To see divinity dwelling not only in nature and creation around me but also within my own heart? To see that the Incarnation did not start with Jesus of Nazareth, but with the Big Bang—everything infused with the Spirit of the Source.

Seeing through the lens of Grace can be a challenge. A line from the play “Our Town” comes to mind. “Who,” wonders Emily while revisiting a day in her life after she had died, “who realizes the beauty and wonder of ordinary life as it is lived, moment by moment.” The stage manager answers, “The saints and poets, maybe they do some.”

How to develop such an eye? “Be present to the moment,” I think, “wide-eyed and open-hearted.” Nurture curiosity. Befriend quiet and get in touch with one’s deepest center. Cultivate the practices of wonder and awe. Look closely, beyond what we see at first glance – including people as well as the rest of creation. And discover what clouds our vision and do what we can to wipe them from the heart.

What a gift the spectacular cosmic displays have been, reminders of the Glory that surrounds us if we have the eyes and heart to see.

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Solitude’s Gift of Grace
April 21, 2023 By 8 Comments

Solitude’s Gift of Grace

Last week I made an impromptu visit to a state park. My sister and her husband are avid birdwatchers, and while I’m not, they suggested we could enjoy dinners and evenings together after having filled the day with what feeds our souls.

The simple change of scenery lifted my spirits. While the lodge that sat on the edge of Maumee Bay and Lake Erie had no long beach to walk, there was a large body of water. Constant wind off the lake lifted and swayed the graceful branches of weeping willows just beginning to bloom. And though the boardwalk and marshy land around it had changed drastically since my last visit decades ago, it provided a place very different than my suburban neighborhood to walk and observe nature.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d fill my time, so I brought Mary Oliver’s collection of poetry, Thirst, colored pencils and watercolors, a sketch pad and journals, and pastries from my favorite bakery. Even though I live alone, the solitude and quiet offered by this space felt different, more intentional.

In the mornings I sat outside on the small patio sipping coffee and eating a palmier. I read the first half of Mary Oliver’s poems aloud, imagining the wind carrying the words to the dancing willow trees, the Canada Goose on the pond, and skimming them across the water. The words, like Tibetan prayer flags, releasing grace as the wind blew them along.

An arthritic knee kept my walks on the short side, but I took lots of them. White tail deer and I startled one another along the marshy patch where they were wading and nibbling tender sprouts. A muskrat, finding the spring greens irresistible too, pushed aside watery plants, leaving dark trails behind. A black snake slithered from rock into water, smoothly curving its body this way and that and disappeared into leafy growth on the opposite side. Turtles sunned themselves on a log. Ducks hung around in little cove, and birds flitted from branch to branch.

I ended up with some sketches—the bench beneath the willows, my mug of coffee and a palmier resting on a napkin, a small feast I required myself to draw before eating it, and buds of the willow and a tree I’d need leaves to identify—none great art, but I did pay more attention to how the palmier dough was looped into its butterfly shape and how leaves and buds appear in the spring. The process was a mindfulness exercise reminding me of a favorite book, The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation by Frederic Franck.

bench under three willows by lake
pen sketch palmier and mug
sketch of willow and other bud

I read all of Thirst, pondering some lines: “My work is loving the world / …  which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished….” (from “Messenger”); “And they call again, ‘It’s simple’ they say, / ‘and you too have come / into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled / with light and to shine.’” (from “When I Am Among the Trees”)

I ate a delicious walleye dinner and some creamy Easter chocolate from home. My sister, her husband, and I watched the new episode of Ted Lasso and shared walks and conversation in the evenings.

All in all, a lovely time. I didn’t accomplish anything particular. But that was the point. What I needed. To be still with myself and with God, wasting time together with no goal in mind other than being who I am.

Too often these days, I am overwhelmed with sadness and anger and a sense of not being enough. I think many of us struggle with this. It’s easy when we live in a world where so much is broken. Where suffering and injustice surround us, and we feel powerless to change it. Where communication and connection are fraught by deep ideological divisions, both political and religious. And then there is Covid, still hanging around.

When I returned home, I listened to this season’s last podcast of On Being’s with Krista Tippett and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, titled “To Be A Healer.” His words resonated, as if he had known just why I needed that short time away.

Dr. Murthy said he believed our greatest source of strength comes from our ability to give and receive love. He talked about the importance of having a sense of self-worth, of trusting who we are and what we hold inside. Our mental health, he suggests, is the fuel we need to function at our best. We need a “full tank” to be present to ourselves, to one another, to our communities, and to the world.

Sometimes I’m running on fumes.

He suggested four things to help people improve their overall sense of wellbeing and social connection that combat the stress of loneliness and disconnect with ourselves and others. Listen to the podcast to hear them all. The last surprised me: Solitude. It shouldn’t have. Isn’t that what intentional quiet time, quiet prayer, or meditation is? His explanation: “The solitude is important because it’s in moments of solitude, when we allow the noise around us to settle, that we can truly reflect, that we can find moments in our life to be grateful for.”

For me, it’s also a time to be still and open to the Grace always given. A time, as Mary Oliver’s trees suggested, to be filled with light and to shine.

What are your times? Where are your places?

Sources

Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver

Messenger by Mary Oliver

The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation  by Frederic Franck

Vivek Murthy: To Be A Healer   Interview On Being with Krista Tippett

Photos: Mary van Balen

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The Gift of Looking Closely
January 25, 2023 By 14 Comments

The Gift of Looking Closely

Note: Today is the anniversary of my parents’ wedding day. Both deceased, it would have been their eightieth. I’m thankful for their encouragement to engage in the world, to explore and to observe. They provided all kinds of things from a writing desk and microscope to chemistry sets, art supplies, and musical instruments. They afforded opportunities to explore creeks and woods as well as taking me on my first trip to the ocean. Their own faith and curiosity were contagious. They gave generously of their time and supported their children’s (and grandchildren’s) varied interests. I am deeply grateful and think of them as I write this column.

When I was a child, my parents kept a microscope in the kitchen! It was nestled in a wooden box on a shelf in the corner cabinet above the counter. I loved pulling down that box and looking closely at things. Slides in the microscope box provided a few objects to view. A bee’s wing and leg fascinated me. I never tired of looking at them and found other treasures to examine: blades of grass, a dark hair from my head and a blonde one from my sister’s, a piece of string, or a thread from my school sweater. I searched inside and out for specimens that would fit on a slide.

My fascination with looking closely was rekindled years ago when a friend who taught third grade introduced me to the use of a jeweler’s loupe in the classroom, having attended a workshop presented by The Private Eye®. (See more about this company below.) I was hooked and ordered some to use with adult GED students I was teaching at the time. I carried one around when I went to a beach or on a long walk. I gave them as gifts. I put one in a silky little bag in our family’s “wonder basket,” a sweetgrass basket that my children and I filled with interesting things we found: seashells, feathers, fossils, anything that caught our eye and imagination.

Later, as curriculum director for an afterschool program, I approached the director about purchasing loupes, additional materials, and the teacher guide from the Private Eye®. The loupes, simple microscopes, and wooden boxes filled with amazing things to look at were a huge hit. We explored art, language, poetry, and new ways of thinking and seeing.

I’ve used loupes when presenting retreats on journaling into prayer. Starting with looking at our fingerprints, we reflected on the unique creation each one of us is and what bit of the divine we’ve been given to share with the world. Narrowing our vision to what was visible through the loupe helped us center and be still.

Recently, my daughters remembered how much I love looking closely and reflecting on what I see. During a family text chat, one commented that she was feeling “extra science-y” that day because she was using a stereo microscope to examine small bone tools for her work.

“I bet you’d like one, Mom,” she said. “If you have the space for one. They definitely help you slow down and look closely!”

“That would be so cool!” another added.

“I could find room for a microscope!” I replied. The others chimed in, one offering to make it happen if I really would like one.

As the rest of us texted, she did some research and before I knew it, a new stereo microscope with a camera (so I could take pictures for my blog) was on its way.

“I would never say no to a microscope,” I typed.

Today, it sits on the table next to my laptop and monitor. I’ve just begun to explore the possibilities, looking at silver crystals grown by my daughter, seashells, leaves, plant roots, and a sweetgum tree seedpod.

Silver crystals in glass pendant
Welsh Cockle Shell

Sweetgum Tree Seedpod

This column often reflects on cosmic images, especially from the James Webb Space Telescope, but now I can look close in as well as far out! It is easy to be awed by magnificent images of the cosmos, of stars being born, of planets, and galaxies far beyond our own. Who can’t be moved by them? But, as with so much in our lives – the ordinary things, the small things, the routine that fill the day – the quotidian fails to inspire. We walk by pebbles millions of years in the making. A dead fly in the windowsill or broken butterfly wing on the porch are things to sweep away. Intricacies of fabric that we drape over our bodies every morning when we dress are not given a thought. Likely we pick up an apple and take a bite without taking a moment to appreciate its beauty or wonder at how it grew.

A microscope (or loupe) won’t change all that. But it can be a reminder that God’s grandeur is evident in every little thing as well as in the stunning creation that fills our skies and rises from our planet: stars and sunsets, soaring mountains and throbbing oceans, forests and waterfalls. And the creatures that fill them.

… Let me keep company always with those who say / “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, / and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver in poem “Mysteries”

Suzanne Simard, among others, has alerted us to the amazing communities of life that thrive beneath our feet. Indeed, as the psalmist sings, the earth is full of the glories of the Lord. The more aware we become of the wonders it holds, perhaps the more mindfully we’ll live on it. The more passionate we’ll become about saving it. The more willing we’ll be to adjust our lifestyles to help combat the climate change that threatens it.

As time goes by, in this column you’ll be seeing some microscope images and read reflections on what they bring to mind. I hope you’ll enjoy reading and pondering them as much as I will enjoy writing them. Looking closely does indeed slow us down and open our eyes to the beauty and wonder of the creation that surrounds us and open our spirits to the grace it holds.

Ancient Fossil Scallop from James River

© 2023 Mary van Balen

…When it’s over, I want to say: all my life / I was a bride married to amazement. / I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms…

Mary Oliver in poem “When Death Comes”

 Resources:

The Private Eye®

The Private Eye – (5x) Looking / Thinking by Analogy: A Guide to Developing the Interdisciplinary Mind by Kerry Ruef

“Take a Loupe at That!” The Private Eye Loupes in Afterschool Programing  by Mary van Balen

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

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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

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James Webb Space Telescope and “Holy Curiosity”
January 2, 2022 By 4 Comments

James Webb Space Telescope and “Holy Curiosity”

Early Christmas morning, I shut off the alarm and lay in bed, still tired after a late night. My cell phone dinged. Ahh, a daughter checking to see if I were watching NASA’s coverage of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launch. Events like this are a family thing, shared virtually, often with a toast to celebrate success. I texted back, “Just getting up. Turning on the computer.” Too early for wine, tea was my drink of choice.

What a Christmas gift! After three decades of imagination, development, and global teamwork, the deep space telescope designed to give humanity a glimpse back in time to the beginnings of the universe was ready to launch. The European spaceport is in Kourou, French Guiana, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest near the equator. NASA TV provided stunning images: The Arian 5 rocket towering above the trees. A fiery liftoff. And a final a view of the James Webb, separated from the final stage of the rocket and moving past the earth toward deep space.

Humanity’s Last Glimpse of the James Webb Space Telescope
 Credit: Arianespace, ESA, NASA, CSA, CNES

Watching broadcasts of space missions is always emotional for me. In 2017, twenty years after beginning its journey of discovery of around Saturn and its moons, the spacecraft Cassini sent its final images as it dove into the planet’s atmosphere. I stopped preparing dinner and gave full attention to my laptop perched on the microwave, streaming coverage. When the last image disappeared and Cassini burned up like a meteor, I cried.

Watching the JWST launch was no different. The scope and complexity of the mission. The passion to explore the universe. The cooperation of thousands of people and space agencies around the globe. The perseverance to work through setbacks. The vulnerability of broadcasting the event despite possible failure. These things stir the soul.

Imagine, a telescope so big that it was folded like intricate origami to fit into the faring that protected it as it punctured a hole in the atmosphere. Imagine, a giant mirror over 21 feet across and a multi-layered sunshield unfolding like butterflies emerging from their chrysalises.

NASA: Animation by Adriana Manrique Gutierrez

Imagine. Someone did. Lots of people did. Their curiosity, skill, and determination led to the launch of the telescope that won’t stop until it reaches a spot along the sun-earth axis over a million miles away.

Images of the launch and NASA’s informative videos have stayed with me, feeding my sense of wonder. During the past week it drew me to poetry, books, and podcasts that explore in different ways the secrets of the universe, our place in it, and the mystery of faith.

After the launch, I pulled out an old coffee table book, The Home Planet, a collection of magnificent photos and reflections of space explorers who have orbited the Earth. Many wrote of a heightened appreciation of the interconnectedness of all things on earth and the overwhelming beauty of our planet after viewing it against the black emptiness of space. Looking through its pages, I marveled at the evolution of space exploration, culminating in JWST’s million-mile journey. Will its revelations move humanity closer to acknowledging the interdependence of all creation? Will it move those on earth to take better care of the planet? Will this encounter with the inconceivable immensity and complexity of the universe foster humility as well as expand knowledge?

Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, said after the launch, “The promise of Webb is not what we know we will discover; it’s what we don’t yet understand or can’t yet fathom about our universe. I can’t wait to see what it uncovers!”

I wondered, in my own life, how willing I am to admit that I don’t understand? Not only the workings of the universe, but closer to home, realities at work in everyday life. There is much I don’t know or can’t even imagine. For instance, the history and effects of systemic racism and oppression of the marginalized in this country. Am I delving deeper? Educating myself? How willing am I to listen to the truth spoken by those kept on the edges of society? Do I have the humility to hear, to listen with the ear of the heart? To be transformed by it?

Poetry was my next reading stop. Mary Oliver’s “Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?” speaks of looking long and deep:

There are things you can’t reach. But

you can reach out to them, and all day long…

… I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking, I mean not just standing around, but standing around

     as though with your arms open…

I imagined the arms of the JWST open wide, gathering energy of the sun. The giant golden eye of a mirror, looking out, slowly gathering in light from billions of years ago. And I thought of my standing with open arms and open heart, ready to receive the Grace of Divine Presence. It’s often not visible or obvious to me, but God is no less present for my inability to perceive. The important thing is to develop a practice of openness “all day long,” never being done with looking.

When it arrives at its destination almost a month after launch, JWST will be carefully positioned in the second Lagrange point that allows it to orbit the sun while remaining in the shadow of the earth. In this place, JWTS’s sunshield will protect it from heat and light from the sun, earth, moon, and even from itself! This is critical for the collection of faint infrared light, a process easily disrupted by other sources of light or heat.

I often think of a comment made by Michael McGregor, author of Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax. When asked if Lax would want others to emulate his life, McGregor was quick to respond. No. What was important to Lax was that people find a place where grace flows for them and put themselves there often.

Grace flows in different places for everyone. Even in different places at different times in a single individual’s life. Putting oneself there is important. The “place” could be simply silence or meditation. Time in the woods, along a beach, taking long walks, or gazing at the night sky. It could be working at a food pantry or homeless shelter, or having conversation with a good friend. Journaling. Painting. We need to spend time in places that shield us from too much “interference” of all types—even from ourselves. To be free of things that hinder the reception of Love, constantly shared, drenching creation.

Sometimes finding that place is not going somewhere. It’s just a matter of turning the heart.

In a conversation with Krista Tippett, Jeff Chu shared some wisdom from the new book he worked on with Rachel Held Evans and which he finished after her death in 2019. Wholehearted Faith was published last month.  Speaking about the need for more love, tenderness, and fierce advocacy for justice, he said, “… And so many of us just need a little reminder from time to time that love is there. Love is there if you pay attention. Love is there if you turn your hearts just a little bit.”

Standing under the night sky allows me to “turn my heart,” to open to Love.

In his comments after the launch, Bill Nelson recalled the words of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows his handiwork.”

Indeed, God’s splendor is on display in the stars and galaxies and mysterious beauty of the cosmos. The incarnation celebrated during the Christmas season, this embodied Presence, has inspirited creation from the moment the universe began and continues in every person, creature, and bit of matter here or millions of miles in space.

Just as we cannot imagine how the discoveries of the JWST will affect humanity’s science, spirits, or way of living, we cannot imagine the transforming power of the ongoing incarnation.

The human drive to explore the galaxies, using every bit of human knowledge, skill, and talents is fueled by curiosity and wonder.

Searching our hearts and all that is around us. Paying attention. Looking for the Sacred in our midst. This passion is driven by the longing for meaning, for God, and by the desire to know that we are part of a story far bigger than ourselves. One we can never fully comprehend.

As expressed in Wholehearted Faith, “… many of us have found a renewed sense of possibility when we’ve realized how much of God’s beauty remains to be explored — and that the life of faith is also a life of holy curiosity.”

Thank you NASA and its global partners for an extraordinary Christmas gift, one that reminds us to wonder, to search, and to expect the unexpected. Not only in our universe, but also in our experience of God-with-us.

SOURCES AND RESOURCES

Books

The Home Planet: Conceived and edited by Kevin W. Kelley for the Association of Space Explorers

“Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?” in Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver

Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu

Online

OnBeing with Krista Tippet 12/23/21 Jeff Chu: A Life of Holy Curiosity

NASA JWST Sites – Follow links for more information, images, and videos of the JWST

James Webb Space Telescope Homepage

NASA’s Webb Blog where you can keep up with new information

JWST launch:  Official NASA Broadcast on YouTube

James Webb Space Telescope: Goddard Space Flight Center

Where is Webb

About Webb Orbit

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Seeking the Sun
August 20, 2021 By 10 Comments

Seeking the Sun

During the day, I’ve been moving a large pot of flowers from one location to another, seeking out the sun. Why lug around a pot of flowers just so they can soak up a few more rays? First, the pot isn’t that heavy. Second, here’s the back story.

Five years ago, I spent a month in Paris with two of my daughters. One was working in a museum there. The youngest, like me, went to spend time with her sister and to enjoy the adventure of exploring the city. With an Airbnb apartment across from the Jardin des plantes as our base, we ventured out to museums, parks, markets, and other landmarks or wandered the streets, ready to be surprised. We spent time cooking, drawing, painting, and writing in journals. One excursion was particularly exciting: a day trip to Monet’s Garden in Giverny.

View from Monet’s home
Painting in Monet’s Garden

Boats in Monet’s Garden

After reading about Monet and falling in love with his paintings when she was eight, my youngest daughter began saving for her dream trip to his garden. With her first set of oils, she began painting and she invited me out of my warm bed to wrap up in a blanket, sit on the cold concrete porch, and watch the sunrise, like Monet. Finally, decades later, we were on a train heading to Giverny. And that is the beginning of the pot of flowers I move about, following the sun’s path across the sky.

I bought seed packets at the Monet’s Garden gift shop and gave many away as presents. Two packets remained tucked away in the back of a dresser drawer: bachelor buttons and nasturtiums. This spring the seeds were well past the recommended date for planting, but I decided to give them a try anyway.

To my delight, some of them germinated. More bachelor buttons than nasturtiums, but some of each. The tall, leggy bachelor buttons grew faster and bloomed sooner. Then the first bright yellow-orange nasturtiums opened, stunning against their round, green leaves. But nasturtiums love sunlight. You’ve likely seen photos or paintings of them spilling over the trellised walkway leading to Monet’s large pink house.

My little kitchen porch doesn’t get much sun, and I want to nurture those flowers. So sometimes they are on my side porch. Sometimes on the front. Sometimes on the driveway. Soaking up sun and being their amazing, beautiful selves. They transport me back to that month in Paris and visit to Monet’s Garden and flood my heart with blessing and gratitude.

Grace, I’ve found, isn’t limited by time or place. The joy and grace of those Parisian spring days remain and are “freshened” in my soul through memory. Remembering isn’t passive, simply recalling something that is gone. Remembering brings a time or person or experience into the moment, and Grace flows bright and strong again.

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready to break my heart / as the sun rises, / as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers // and they open— …

Mary Oliver from poem “Peonies” in New and Selected Poems: Volume One

Isn’t that what many prayer rituals are about? Why believers from the world’s religious traditions read their holy books? Isn’t that why sharing our stories is transformational for both teller and listener?

I’m currently rereading my friend Neal Loving’s autobiography, Loving’s Love: A Black American’s Experiences in Aviation. He was a pioneer in aviation during times when people of color were not encouraged to enter the world of flight. One of the planes he designed and built has recently been acquired by the Smithsonian. As his stories did when he shared them in person with students and audiences here and abroad, they continue to provide hope and grace to readers today.

I love reading poetry for the same reason. It shares a moment or an insight that touched the poet’s life and now touches mine. Mary Oliver is a master of this, painting vivid pictures of her observations that nudge her readers to connect with their own experiences, allowing them to enrich their lives all over again.

So, besides simply wanting to help these striking flowers grow and flourish and be what they are made to be – glorious bits of beauty that brighten the world – I reposition their pot day after day to savor the memories and drink in the Grace they bring.

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Perseverance, Faith, and Open Hearts
August 17, 2020 By 7 Comments

Perseverance, Faith, and Open Hearts

Painting of a refugee woman holding a small child
Virginia Carvour acrylic on canvas 16 x 20
Columbus Crossing Borders Project

The account in Matthew’s gospel of the conversation between Jesus and a Canaanite woman asking him to cure her daughter provides insight into the transformational power of a genuine encounter with another.

Showing the determination and faith of a mother who was seeking help and the humanity of Jesus who was growing into a deeper understanding of himself and his mission, this story surprises.

One who encounters

Jesus often engaged with people like this woman who was dismissed as unimportant by others, including his disciples.

They didn’t want her hanging around and following them. She was a nuisance as far as they were concerned. To them, she was “other,” like the Samaritan woman at the well, marginalized because she was a woman and because she was a Gentile. They encouraged Jesus to send the troublemaker away.

But Jesus wasn’t about sending away. When crowds followed him, tired as he was, he took time to be with them, sometimes speaking, healing, or sharing food. No, Jesus wasn’t about turning his head when people came to him hurting and in need. He was all about seeing, paying attention, and listening deeply.

One who perseveres

The Canaanite woman was aware of his reputation as healer and an approachable one at that. Still, she needed courage to ask for help. She had to get by his disciples who were intent on protecting him and perhaps themselves from those who could cause problems or divert attention from what they thought was important.

She took the first step, finding and following them. When the time seemed right, she called out, respectfully asking for help, explaining that her daughter was tormented by a demon. After silence, Jesus’s initial response was dismissive: He was sent to the house of Israel, and she didn’t qualify.

Again, she honored him and pleaded for help. Jesus said, “No.” It wasn’t right to throw what was meant for the children of Israel to the dogs (a derogatory name sometimes used for Gentiles).

Despite his rebuke, she persisted. She had no special claim to his power other than being an anguished human speaking in behalf of someone unable to plead for herself. And she had faith that Jesus could help. That was enough.

She took a breath. Even dogs, she reminded Jesus, ate scraps from the table of their masters.

Jesus was listening. And when he looked, he saw her. He recognized her dignity as a child of God who held a spark of the Divine in her soul. He didn’t look past her or see her as his disciples did – an inconvenience.

He heard her pain. Emotionally engaged, he empathized and was moved. And he couldn’t miss the faith she had in him.

Transformation

Looking through her eyes, he saw something new about himself. (Isn’t this what happens when someone truly, deeply engages with another? They learn about themselves, their world, and their place in it.) Jesus wasn’t afraid of seeing something new. He wasn’t afraid to draw his circle even wider.

What he had to give he could give to all, couldn’t he? The One who sent him was limitless Love. There was no shortage to go around. For Jesus, there would be no “others.”

I think of John Lewis when I read about this woman and Jesus. As the late Representative and civil rights activist lived and advised, she “stood up and spoke out” when she saw something that was unjust.

She spoke the truth. Jesus listened and heard with an open heart. And it made all the difference. He healed her daughter and in doing so, the anguished mother’s heart. She healed him of a blind spot, urging him to grow into who he was.

Open hearts

Pray for such grace and courage.

John Lewis’s life witnessed the power of speaking the truth with love, of being willing to suffer for it, and of persevering. His training and belief in non-violence as the path toward change didn’t waver. In interviews he said his heart had no room for bitterness or hate.

Pray for the grace and wisdom to engage in conversations with such an open, humble heart. Listening without an agenda that prompts a quick defensive response or turning away is challenging whatever the situation. But such encounters will help move this country toward healing and becoming a more just society.

© 2020 Mary van Balen

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Sunday Prayer: A Mindful Loaf
April 22, 2020 By 14 Comments

Sunday Prayer: A Mindful Loaf

Sunday, I decided, was the perfect day to use some of my precious yeast and flour to make a single loaf of bread – the day Christians set aside to gather and remember God’s great gift of self, given and shared with all creation. Baking would be my prayer.

Bread baking ingredients sitting on a kitchen counter: olive oil, bag of whole wheat flour, honey, salt, measuring spoon with yeast, a beeswax vigil candle burning.My old Tassajara Bread book’s cover is stained and bent, but its respect for the ingredients and the nourishment of body and spirit as well as its slow, mindful approach was perfect for my prayer – of course it would be. The book’s author was a young Zen student, later Zen priest, at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Edward Espe Brown.

Strains of Holst’s The Planets filled my little kitchen with a sense of the cosmos and my small place in it. I gathered the ingredients and, lighting a beeswax candle, took a few quiet moments to remember that, as always, I was in the presence of the Holy One whose Love and Breath is the Source of all that is. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Begin.

The first step was making the sponge – something Tassajara introduced into my vocabulary. This stage gives yeast time to grow, uninhibited by the salt added later. As the sponge rises, gluten is formed; that makes kneading easier. I poured warm water into a large bowl. Sprinkling yeast on the water, I marveled at the tiny grains that would come to life and make my bread rise. Simply by being itself, the yeast would move a pound or two of heavy, dense dough.

May I be myself, moving the world forward ever so slightly, by giving the gifts and Love entrusted to me to share.

a mixing bowl covered with a damp dishtowel with colorful illustrations of New England Seashells all over itI stirred in a little honey to give the yeast something to feed on, added flour, mixed, and then set it aside to rise for an hour, covering the bowl with a damp towel—carefully chosen—printed with illustrations of shells found along New England beaches. I remembered rhythmic sounds of ocean waves, smells of salty air, the variety of sea creatures, all mingled with my awareness of vast cosmic space. My small kitchen was becoming spacious.

There are times in our lives that are “sponge-times,” blessedly free of experiences that hinder growth. They are respites and retreats. They are moments or hours or days.

I am grateful for the sponge-times that bless my life, from childhood to this uncertain moment of pandemic;  for the people and places and books and words and music and art and night skies and all things that have been doors of such grace for me.

ball of bread dough in bottom of mixing bowl with wooden spoonNext came the folding-in. With gentle, around-the-bowl-and-toward-the-center motion of the wooden spoon, I blended in salt and oil, careful not to tear the tender dough. I folded in more flour until it held together, a ball in the middle of the bowl.

Oh, that we may hold together, this world of people, in these times.

I didn’t use the mixer, but kneaded by hand on the countertop. I felt the dough becoming supple, stretching, not tearing. The gluten was forming, ready to capture bubbles of carbon dioxide made as the yeast grew. Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, passed.

Can I stretch, not break, when life pushes and pulls in different directions?  

Next, more time to rise in the warmed oven. Time to wash dishes, clean the countertop, and put the canister of flour and bottle of oil away. I closed my eyes and listened to the music. I remembered walking on beaches and finding shells and an occasional piece of sea glass.

Lying on the couch, I put my feet up, and wondered: Who tended the bees that made the local honey? Who grew the wheat and ground it into flour? Who delivered the groceries to the store and put them on the shelves? I didn’t think much about these jobs before these days of self-isolation.

I am grateful for the people whose work provides what is needed to make a simple loaf of bread. Scarcity and the need for others to risk their health make me value each ingredient. I am careful not to waste. I am sorry for not always having been so careful.

Next came the punching-down. The yeast and gluten had done their work. The dough had risen high in the bowl. But I made a fist and gently pushed the soft dough  until it was almost flat again. It seemed counterproductive. Why squash air pockets the yeast and gluten had worked together to make? Bakers know. Still, it seemed unfair. I punched anyway, re-covered the bowl, and let it rise again. And it did.

May I rise back up when life punches the breath right out of me. Can I trust that the Spirit living within me won’t be beaten so far down that it won’t be able to rise again? Yes, so far. But there have been times – dark times – when I didn’t.  I’m grateful for people in my life who trusted the spirit in me when I couldn’t.

I gently kneaded the risen dough one last time and put it in the pan. Yes. It had to rise again. Then it was ready for the oven. The aroma of baking bread filled the apartment. I had time to wash dishes again while listening to the music and imagining planets not included in Holst’s suite: planets spinning around other stars in other galaxies.

I began cutting up onions and mincing garlic for soup to have along with fresh bread for dinner.

The oven timer buzzed. The loaf was ready. I had made a small roll, too, for eating while it was still hot, melting a smear of butter.

Bread. Many grains, one loaf. Gift of the earth. Work of human hands. I placed the roll on a small blue plate, gift of a Cistercian monk-friend years ago. Made by potters down the road from the monastery, the plate’s dark blue glaze edged with white misty swirls has always reminded me of the night sky, the Milky Way, or photos taken by the Hubble. It’s my “cosmos plate.”

I poured red wine into the matching chalice and sat quietly. My family and friends, my communities, the city, the world and all its people, the earth and all the “helpers,” the cosmos—all were gathered in, sitting with me in the Presence of the Source of all.

The world is not the same as it was when a tiny virus brought us all into this time of uncertainty. May I have the courage to move forward into a new time with a will to change, to create new ways of being with one another and with our planet. May we all be willing to shed the old “normal,” as comforting as it might seem, and to make something new, kinder, and better, together.

broken whole wheat roll on blue ceramic plate, matching chalice, and burning beeswax vigil candle sitting on counter

“Eucharist” means “thanksgiving.” My Sunday baking liturgy finished, I gave thanks, broke the bread, and ate.  Amen.

 

©2020 Mary van Balen

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Lent: Letting Love Enter In
March 12, 2020 By 2 Comments

Lent: Letting Love Enter In

vigil candle burning with warm glowOn Ash Wednesday I took tentative steps into the Lenten season. I wasn’t sure what disciplines to embrace, but that morning I lit a candle and sat quietly in prayer before going through liturgical readings for the season. I attended a noon service and stood in line to receive ashes on my forehead, remembering that I was dust and someday, to dust would return.

After work I made a few calls checking on a friend who had undergone surgery for a broken hip, chatting with a daughter who was celebrating a birthday, and catching up with someone I hadn’t seen in a while.

Then again, a prayer candle burned as I read through the lectionary one more time. Lent is full of powerful readings.

They include passages that remind us the most important commandment is to love and care for others, especially the least among us. And when we do, Jesus tells us, we are caring for him. Isaiah insists that the sacrifices God wants aren’t the drooping of ash-covered heads or the rending of garments.

That’s not the drama the Holy One desires. No, the desired actions are more along the lines of freeing the oppressed, sharing food, taking care of the marginalized, being civil in speech, and working for justice – all facets of the Love commandment.

There’s the Samaritan woman who’s the first to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. After accepting the truth about her own life and also the love offered to her by Jesus, she hurries back to town, telling everyone that she has met the Messiah, right over there at the community well.

Instructing the people to repent of their wrongdoing, Nineveh’s king showed humility and sincerity that changed God’s mind about destroying the city. Queen Esther beseeches God for help in foiling the enemy’s plan and turning her husband’s heart in order to save her people.

These are just a smattering. But in the midst of the more grand and familiar passages sits a small one from Isaiah, just two verses. They grab my heart. Maybe it’s the simple comparison of the life-bringing fall of rain and snow onto the earth to the transforming entrance of God’s word into the universe:

Just as from the heavens / the rain and snow come down / And do not return there / till they have watered the earth, / making it fertile and fruitful, / Giving seed to the one who sows / and bread to the one who eats, / So shall my word be / that goes forth from my mouth; / It shall not return to me void, / but shall do my will, / achieving the end for which I sent it.

 I’m not sure how that works, but it is hopeful in a time when hope is difficult to find.

This passage reminds me of short poem, Indwelling, by Thomas E Brown, an 19th century scholar, teacher, poet, and theologian born on the Isle of Man.

close up of shell on purple cloth

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

 

If thou could’st empty all thyself of self,

Like to a shell dishabited,

Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,

And say, “This is not dead,”

And fill thee with Himself instead.

 

But thou are all replete with very thou

And hast such shrewd activity,

That when He comes He says, “This is enow

Unto itself – ’twere better let it be,

It is so small and full, there is no room for me.”

… … … 

The connection between the two? Indwelling suggests to me why God’s word does not return without doing what it was sent to do. It is a living Word that dwells within each of us. As Brown writes, the more we empty ourselves of false selves, of cluttering activity, the more Divine Love can fill us and do its work.

We participate in the Word fulfilling mission – as Jesus prays at the Last Supper – to bring all together in love, united with the One who sent him.

Whatever disciplines fill Lent, may they be ones that allow more Love to enter in.

© 2020 Mary van Balen

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