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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Sinking Into the Heart
August 31, 2023 By 10 Comments

Sinking Into the Heart

Anyone else have problems being present to the moment? It’s the mantra of contemplatives and mystics across the ages, of all faith traditions and of none. Sounds simple, but it’s not.

Three months have passed since I last published a column. That was the time frame I gave myself before returning to “regular” life routines after having knee-replacement surgery.

During the early days of recovery, I lay on the couch feeling completely useless, dependent on my daughters for just about everything from getting up and down, making it to the bathroom, and walking around the house to fixing food, doing exercises, and icing the knee. Not surprising for the first week or two. But as weeks passed, I became impatient with myself, aware mostly of all the stuff I wasn’t doing.

No Zoom groups: London Writers’ Salon, Lectio, book club. No writing: journaling, columns, book project. No reading despite having a stack of Donna Leon mysteries sitting on the bookcase. I couldn’t sit long enough to get through a chapter. All the stuff that made me feel like I was accomplishing something. Connecting with people. Being a worthwhile human being. I could do none of it.

I dreaded nighttime. Sleep was elusive and when it came, it came in short spurts – an hour or two now and again. Depression inched its way into my psyche.

The challenge was to live what I write about: the grace of being open to the present moment. Easier said (or written) than done.

Woman standing on banks of York River looking at the Supermoon on the horizon
Supermoon over the York River

This topic recently came up during lunch with a good friend. Sipping hot coffee on a surprisingly cool morning at an outdoor café, I shared my struggle. She reflected on the role of surrender in prayer. “Surrender” is a word often found in contemplative literature. It’s not one I use. It feels old and uncomfortable to me, conjuring images of failure, domination, militarism, and patriarchy. Someone wins and someone loses. In my experience, God doesn’t require surrender but receptivity. I prefer something like “letting go,” or “opening up,” but understand the intended meaning here. It says “Sorry, but you’re not in control.” And don’t people mostly want to feel like they are in control?

I certainly did. I was faithful with all prescribed exercises and prompt for PT sessions. My daughter who cared for me during the first ten days created a chart to make sure medications were taken on time. The second daughter did the same for at home exercises. I didn’t miss a pill or a rep. I would be back to “normal,” whatever that is, soon, soon, soon!

Not so much.

My memory may be less than accurate, but surely, I recovered more rapidly after my first knee replacement. My daughter said, “no.” OK. With a nod to the physical changes that occur over a decade, I conceded that my older body needed a bit more time. But not too much more. Not with me in control, doing all the right things at the right times.

Be still and know I am God

Psalm 46:10

Eventually, reality wore me down until all I could do was what my friend named over salad and soup: sinking into the Presence within. Like theologian Howard Thurman’s “centering down.” Or 17th century Carmelite, Brother Lawrence’s admonition to “practice the Presence.”  It wasn’t so much a giving up of control as it was a recognition that I never had it in the first place. At least not of everything. We can decide how to respond in our immediate situations, but things happen that we have no power to change. I still did all my exercises, took medications on time, and went to PT. But I began to open to the grace of the moment and embrace some truths I knew but forgot:

– I needn’t be constantly productive to be worthwhile. Simply being is enough.

– My “work” for the moment was to heal, not to write the next column or book.

– Good, loving people filled my life, especially my daughters, family, friends, and medical staff.

– I am a human being with a body that is sometimes broken and that is always getting older.

– Life is a series of letting go and receiving.

– I can savor the life I have, the things I can do that bring me joy.

Orange Day Lily with sparkling drops of dew
Day Lily on a Morning Walk

And the one truth that encompasses all others: I exist, along with everyone and everything else, in the Mystery of Being, the Source, the Connector of all that is. It’s good to sink into that knowing, to lift my heart to Holy Presence all around and to find it within, no matter the name I give to it, content with being held and loved by Love itself.

Photos by Mary van Balen

References

London Writers’ Salon

Howard Thurman in Meditations of the Heart

Br. Lawrence Practice of the Presence trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher

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Open-Hearted Presence
January 27, 2022 By 10 Comments

Open-Hearted Presence

And I always say, if there’s one thing you want to do as an adult to become a better listener, take a preschooler — someone who hasn’t gone to school and been taught how to listen by focusing attention, which is actually controlled impairment, but a preschooler who’s still taking in the whole world — hoist them onto your shoulders, and go for a night walk. They’ll tell you everything you need to know about becoming a better listener.

And if you have the good fortune of going for a walk up a nature trail with a child, the younger they are, the more pointless it seems to go any further, because the miracles are right here. Let’s just sit down, don’t worry about the exercise or the goals … Gordon Hempton*

Being the mother of three, now adult children as well as being an educator, listening to Hempton’s description of encountering the world with very young children elicited many wonderful memories of similar experiences. Days after hearing the podcast, I participated in a small Zoom book club meeting with friends who have been exploring topics of contemplative prayer and mysticism. During the conversation about what being a contemplative means, how one might “pray always,” and how to nurture the desire for God above all else, some offered images of hermits and cloistered nuns. Of Buddhists who can sit for hours at a time in meditation. Some expressed the impossibility of letting go “all things earthly” or emptying themselves completely.

These images made me restless. Not that there was no truth in them, but that they seemed to suggest contemplative prayer involved compete withdrawal from the world. The contemplative souls I have known, read, or studied did not fit those descriptions. Gordon Hempton’s description of a young child experiencing the world did.

Just as a child is schooled in listening by “focusing attention,” many of us have been “schooled” in praying by adopting prescribed practices, following rituals, or learning particular prayers. In elementary school, teachers told me that prayers came in three main varieties: petitionary prayers (help), intercessory prayers (help someone else or some larger cause), and prayers of praise (adoring God for being God). Of course, the church has a rich tradition of contemplative prayer, but other than the true but rather nebulous (to a nine-year-old anyway ) definition offered by the old Baltimore Catechism—prayer is lifting the mind and heart to God—what I remember being taught is the list.

Why didn’t I hear “God’s your friend who cares about you. Talk to God about anything you want.” Thich Naht Hanh wrote that the heart of Buddhist teaching is “I am here for you.” That’s the kind of God I experienced as a child. It’s where I was then. And by some grace, that’s where I’ve stayed. Of course, one’s prayer deepens and matures as one grows, but the basic truth remains: Prayer is relationship with God who cares. It is connection with the Holy One. With Love manifest in others and in all creation.

Being taught to narrowly focus attention, whether in experiencing nature or in prayer, is important at some point, but not at the expense of the wide, open-hearted approach to both. That’s what I loved about Hempton’s description of the young child in nature. Complete openness. Forgetting self and letting it all in. Drowning in the glory of it all.

The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the present moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh in You Are Here

Hempton’s observation that once on a walk, a very young child needn’t take another step “… because the miracles are right here” is another way of expressing the truth of the ever-presence of the Sacred in our lives. Grace is in the moment. Not tomorrow. Not even 15 minutes ago. Now.

And while I often imagine that God is more easily met on a slow walk along the ocean’s coast than in my apartment or neighborhood, the truth is that God is met not somewhere else, but HERE, wherever “here” is at the moment.  

Mystics and contemplatives of all ages and faiths know this. As Thornton Wilder reminds his readers, poets and saints recognize the beauty and mystery of every ordinary moment. I made a vow to myself in high school English class, the first time I read Our Town, that one way or another, I would be a saint or a poet. I would not let the glory of the moment slip by.

Decades later, I confess to not living up to that promise every day. But I do remember it, honor it as best I can, and when I fall short, remember that besides being a sacrament of encounter, life is also a journey. Step at a time.

May we learn from the youngest among us and not make it more complicated than it is!

PHOTOS: Mary van Balen

SOURCE: Gordon Hempton in conversation with Krista Tippett on OnBeing podcast: Silence and the Presence of Everything.

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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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Tea, Haiku, and a Walk in the Woods
March 20, 2019 By 11 Comments

Tea, Haiku, and a Walk in the Woods

To celebrate this first day of Spring, the Vernal Equinox, I gave myself the gift of a slow morning and filled it with tea, haiku, and a walk in the woods.

First, I poured myself a cup of tea, brewed from fresh ginger root and soft, sweet Medjool dates, as my Korean friend had taught me. Then, I opened a slim, old book of poetry, Haiku Harvest. I bought it when I was in high school and quickly fell in love with the old haiku masters’ elegant simplicity of word and wisdom. Finally, having nourished body and soul, I set out for a walk, stopping first at a patch of snowdrops and slightly spent winter aconite and then making my way to a small nearby woods.

A patch of snowdrops and winter aconite

Snowdrops and winter aconite PHOTOS: Mary van Balen

 

Small green sprout pushing up through last years brown leaves

A small bit of green pushing up through last years leaves

 

HE IS UNKNOWN

THE POET WHO SINGS

THIS  GREATEST

OF ALL SONGS — SPRING!

Shiki

 

HONKING WILD GEESE COME

SCRAWLING DELIGHT

IN SPRING’S COLD

PALE MORNING SUNLIGHT

So-In

 

I didn’t hear any honking geese this morning, but the woods were filled with chickadees flitting form tree to tree, dipping and singing spring songs. The woodpeckers remained hidden, but I could hear their calls and hollow drumming on dead tree trunks.

 

a piece of weathered and hollowed out tree roots in the woods

 

IN MY HOUSE THIS SPRING

TRUE, THERE IS NOTHING,

THAT IS,

THERE IS EVERYTHING!

Sodo

 

 

 

In the woods, tiny green leaves appear sprouting from last year's growth.

Spring greening

 

OUT OF ONE WINTERY

TWIG, ONE BUD,

ONE BLOSSOM’S WORTH

OF WARMTH AT LONG LAST!

Ransetsu

 

UNDER A SPRING MIST,

ICE AND WATER

FORGETTING

THEIR OLD DIFFERENCE…

 

A dirt path though brown, fallen leaves, trees on either side

MY HORSE CLIP-CLOPPING

OVER A FIELD…

OH HO!

I’M PART OF THE PICTURE!

Basho

 

And so we are…

Happy Spring!

 

 

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Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Grace
August 9, 2018 By 10 Comments

Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Grace

Oil painting of wood and stone cabin in clearing in Autumn woods by Marvin Triguba, 1986

Painting of Koinia, oil on canvas, by Marvin Triguba, 1986

Sometimes an ordinary event becomes an extraordinary grace. That happened to me last week, and I’m grateful. Horrible headlines, day after day, overwhelm. I couldn’t finish reading an article about the violence and abuse that drove Honduran families to risk everything and take a chance on making it to the United States. Some did, only to be turned away. Pope Francis’s declaring the death penalty inadmissible in all cases and changing the Catholic Catechism to reflect that teaching was hopeful. Still, I felt worn out as I sat down to write.

I’d just spent a couple of weeks mentally residing in December, researching Scripture and writing a homily to be published for the second week in Advent. Pulling myself back into August, I read through the week’s liturgical texts for inspiration to write. Lots of feasts and interesting saints, but sometimes your spirit is too tired to do much, even with an embarrassment of riches.

I looked out the window, thinking about nothing in particular when suddenly, the image of a beautiful oil painting came to mind, and I smiled. It changed everything. Here’s the story.

Last week, I had the pleasure of delivering that painting to a couple, Mike and Patty, my friends since I was a college student. It wasn’t just any painting. It was created by a mutual friend and artist Marvin Triguba, a master at capturing the essence of his subject—in this case, a small wood and stone building sitting in the woods near Ohio’s Hocking Hills. We called it “the lodge” but it was really a repurposed cement block garage.

For decades, this building and the surrounding land had been the gathering place for a small community – including Marvin, Mike, and Patty – and their friends. We shared potluck dinners, singalongs, bonfires, and late-into-the-night conversations about God, belief, and what being faithful looked like in our world and in our lives.

The painting had belonged to yet another friend and community member, Fr. Mario Serraglio, who died just a few months ago. It needed a home, and I could think of none better than with Mike and Patty. Before taking the painting to them, I spent time contemplating it and remembering.

It wasn’t just the community gatherings that stirred my spirit. There were times I came alone to pay attention wild flowers or to play guitar and sing my prayer. There were snowy days when I skipped classes at the university and drove down to walk through the woods and along the pipeline that ran over the hills. In the early days, a ramshackle house stood on the property too, and that’s where I stayed. After my walks I slid a chair close to an old gas heater that struggled to warm the house. I read poetry and wrote in my journal, sipping tea until sunset. Some nights the stars took my breath away.

Years later, I shared the place with my family, spending birthday weekends in October and February there. Two of my daughters used flint and steel to light a fire in the lodge’s large stone fireplace and banked it each night, keeping it going for days. We roasted apples, took walks, read books, played Ping-Pong, and enjoyed one another’s company. No TV, phone, or radio.

Detail of oil painting of cabin in an Autumn woods, by Marvin Triguba, 1986

Detail of painting by Marvin Triguba, 1986

The longer I looked at the painting, the more memories floated into consciousness. Ordinary things: autumn leaves falling while woodpeckers hammered away at hollow trees; white trillium announcing the coming of spring; my first taste of oxtail vegetable soup; tall weeds heavy with dew sparkling in the morning light.

Marvin had an amazing way of painting light. He once said that was just how he saw everything and wondered aloud if everyone didn’t see that same way. I don’t think we do. Or we don’t slow down enough to really notice. Just like we don’t always recognize and reverence the Divine Presence in ordinary life. In people. In creation.

But it’s always there, the sacrament of encounter that feeds the soul and brings hope when it’s hard to find. Like the disheartened Elijah wakened by an angel and instructed to eat the divinely supplied hearth cake and water that would provide energy for his long journey, we are invited to waken and be nourished by Holy Grace offered always and everywhere if we have the heart to see it and the courage to take it in.

The words of Brother Lawrence, the 17th century Carmelite come to mind: “In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, I possess God as tranquilly as if I were upon my knees before the Blessed Sacrament.”

Amen.

© 2018 Mary van Balen

This is a slightly edited version of the original published in the Catholic Times, August 12, 2018

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Easter is More than History
April 5, 2018 By 2 Comments

Easter is More than History

Bouquet of bright flowers and cobalt blue glass water jug on table

Photo: Mary van Balen

Originally published in The Catholic Times, April 8, 2018

After the Resurrection, Jesus appeared over and over again to those who were closest to him. The gospel readings this week and through Sunday tell the stories. The women were the first to see him.

In Matthew’s gospel Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and John walked in the early morning to the tomb. They were the brave ones who watched the angel appear like lightening, roll back the stone, and sit on it, frightening the Roman guards into a death-like stupor. They listened to the angel and hurried to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard. On their way, Jesus appeared to them, calmed their fears, and told them to instruct the disciples to meet him in Galilee.

In Luke’s gospel, the women were again the first at the tomb. They saw it was empty and spoke to the messengers of God about what had happened. The women told Simon and John who thought their story was nonsense, though Peter went to check it out and saw the empty tomb just as the women had reported.

In John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene walked to the tomb alone, and seeing it was empty hurried to tell Peter and John. They ran to the tomb and saw it was as Mary had described. John noticed the neatly folded cloth that had covered Jesus’ face and believed. The men returned home, but Mary remained, weeping in her grief. She entered the tomb, spoke with the angels who appeared to her, and then turned around. She saw Jesus, though she didn’t recognize him until he called her name. He instructed her to tell the others that she had seen him and to share what he had said to her. Mary was the first entrusted with the Good news of the resurrection. The first to proclaim it to the others.

Jesus continued to appear to his disciples. He walked with two travelers on the road to Emmaus who didn’t recognize him until they broke bread together.

He appeared on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias where some of his disciples had been fishing all night, to no avail. His instructions led them to an extravagant catch, and they shared breakfast on the beach. Jesus moved through locked doors where his followers were gathered in fear and confusion. He blessed them with peace and breathed the Spirit into them with his own breath. He ate with them, showed them his wounds, and later invited Thomas to put his fingers into them so he would believe.

Who do you identify with as you ponder these different accounts? Mary Magdalene who recognized Jesus when he called her name? The brave women, fearful yet persistent as they watched the angels and then met Jesus while on their way to tell the others? Or are you more a skeptical Peter and John? Disciples who just couldn’t fathom the truth of what was being said? Would you recognize the risen Jesus or think he was a ghost? Or maybe you’d be a Thomas who needed physical proof before he’d believe.

We have the advantage of hindsight. I’d like to imagine I’d be like the brave women, bearing the light of angels, listening through my fear, and proclaiming the resurrection. I’m not so sure. I would more likely have been found behind locked doors worrying about what was next.

Reflecting on these readings and placing ourselves in the scenes can be a good meditation but pondering where we encounter the suffering and the risen Christ today in our world is also important. Do we recognize the Divine in others? What opens our eyes? Do we see the wounds of Jesus in the wounds of others? In ourselves? When we do see, how do we respond?

What we celebrate is not simply history. Easter is not only an event. It is a way of living. It is Divine activity that reverberates through time and space and all creation. And we are part of it.

We are called to follow Jesus’s example in our world. To stand with the suffering. To embrace hurt and woundedness in others and in ourselves with God’s transforming love.

Jesus was murdered because he was faithful to being the Love of God on a planet that just couldn’t handle it. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Love is dangerous. It is hard. But in the end, it prevails!

Blessed Eastering!

© 2018 Mary van Balen

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Snowy Morning Prayer
April 4, 2018 By 4 Comments

Snowy Morning Prayer

Spring snow flocking trees and lawnYes, as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, spring snow covering small green plant

Magnolia buds under spring snowmaking it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating,small peony shoot with ice crystal

snow on top of black iron railing

so the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty,

tall tree with branches covered in snowwithout carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.  Isaiah 55, 10-11

Amen!

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Thankful for the Gift of Presence
November 10, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Thankful for the Gift of Presence

Originally published in The Catholic Times November 12, 2017

November 9 is the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, the official church of the Pope. The Mass readings for that day, not surprisingly, have to do with temples of one sort or another. The first reading is from Ezekiel 47, but let’s start a bit earlier in the book.

Rendering of Ezekiel's temple by Henery Sulley (1845-1940)

Ezekiel’s temple by Henery Sulley (1845-1940) Public Domain

In chapters 40-48 of Ezekiel, the prophet describes a vision where God transports him to a high mountain in Israel, and an angel gives him a tour of a new city. The vision is long and full of details: precise measurements of walls, inner courts, outer courts, door jambs, and Temple outbuildings, as well as the new Temple itself. Ezekiel witnesses the glory of God returning to fill the Temple, and God tells him that it again will be the Divine dwelling place in the midst of the people.

In addition to seeing the physical structures, Ezekiel learns the rules for those who serve in the Temple, how land is to be appropriated, how feasts are to be observed, and a list of protocols and procedures for Temple worship and sacrifices and that would make a Royal event planner’s head spin.

As I read these verses, I was glad it was Ezekiel and not me who had been instructed to remember every detail so he could share them with the exiled Israelites when he returned to them in Babylon. They had pretty much lost hope. Jerusalem had fallen, and despite the prophet’s valiant efforts to help them recognize that its destruction was imminent, many had clung to the illusion that Jerusalem would survive and they would go back home, resuming life as usual. I can identify. It’s a human tendency to ignore signs that portend the coming of something calamitous or the slow creep of something bad.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Next comes the description of the spring in the Temple. That’s the first reading for November 9. It’s abbreviated in the lectionary (To get the full effect, I suggest reading all the first twelve verses.), but it’s still a magnificent image.  A stream begins in the Temple, runs under the threshold, and flows to the Dead sea, swelling into a river too deep for anyone to cross.

When it reaches the sea, it makes the salt water fresh, teeming with all kinds of fish and water creatures. People flock there with nets. Wherever the river flows, it brings life and healing. Trees along its bank produce new, delicious fruit every month. Even their leaves are medicinal.  All this because it is God’s life flowing from the sanctuary.

When I read these words, I wanted to jump in! I wanted to splash through the river and sink beneath the water, let it do its healing, and then burst up through the surface full of hope, energy, and joy, free of the worries and concerns that fill my heart. Perhaps that’s how the Israelites felt when they listened to Ezekiel recount the story.

The good news is that God doesn’t dwell in temples or churches. Paul writes to the Corinthians, and to us, that we are the temples of God. (1 Cor 3, 16-17) The Spirit lives in each of us, neighbor and stranger alike. The glorious, healing, life-giving Presence that Ezekiel sees coming from the Temple, flows in and through all, gracing the people and places it touches. We don’t have to look for that river streaming down from the city on a hill; that “river” is everywhere. We can sink into Holy Presence wherever we are. Incarnation means God has entered into the matter of creation. We are immersed in that Presence whether we realize it or not. Open to it, Grace transforms us and all it touches. We can move into our deepest center and meet God there.

God is truly with us: strength in our struggles, joy in our celebrations, hope when we are tempted to despair. God walks with us when we are afraid, offers rest when we have worn ourselves out, waits when we are too busy to notice, fills what is empty, mourns with us in our grief, and sits with us when we don’t know what else to do.

The last words in Ezekiel, naming the new city, sum up this wondrous reality: “The name of the City shall henceforth be ‘The Lord is here.’” (48, 35)

© 2017 Mary van Balen

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Farewell Cassini, Thank you NASA
September 23, 2017 By 2 Comments

Farewell Cassini, Thank you NASA

Cassini’s trajectory into Saturn

Even though it was a day off, I woke at 6:45, pulled on my old black t-shirt with the solar system silkscreened half on the front, half on the back. It’s seen eclipses and meteor showers. It would bid farewell to the Cassini spacecraft on Friday morning, September 15.

In the kitchen, I began preparing food for a daughter’s visit while watching NASA TV’s coverage of the final half-hour of the Cassini mission.

Ligeia Mare – Sea on Titan (False color)

I listened to scientists sharing their thoughts as Cassini sped towards its fiery end in Saturn’s atmosphere. My iPad, sitting on top of the microwave, streamed live interviews with project scientists and engineers, some of whom had spent entire careers working on the Cassini mission. There were images of Saturn and its largest moon, Titan, with methane-rich lakes and rivers. Computer-generated graphics showed Cassini’s 22 dives into the dark space between Saturn and its rings as well as how the spacecraft would meet its end by entering the atmosphere and burning up.

Cassini’s Grand Finale orbits

I was glad making chili didn’t require much attention because mine was on the screen. The images were mesmerizing. (NASA has made an eBook of some of those images and it’s available to download here.)

While chopping onions and green peppers, I learned more about the unexpected length and scientific bounty of this mission as well as the team’s ability to make changes in orbits and trajectories to take advantage of surprise discoveries almost 900 million miles away.

Narrow jets of gas and vapor from Saturn’s moon Enceladus

For example, when geysers of vapor were found spewing out of the south pole of Saturn’s tiny moon, Enceladus, the spacecraft actually flew through them and analyzed the composition, finding ice particles, water vapor and organic chemicals. Cassini also determined that beneath the moon’s icy surface sloshes an ocean of salty water.

For the last ten minutes of the broadcast, I turned my full attention to the screen. Even from my kitchen, I wanted to be one of the thousands, maybe millions around the world, waiting for that last signal from Cassini.

Where Cassini entered Saturn’s atmosphere

Through the commentary of those who had worked most closely with it from the beginning, the spacecraft had taken on an anthropomorphic quality, doing everything it had been asked to do, right down to the last images sent as it struggled against Saturn’s atmosphere.

The vastness and variety of creation overwhelmed me as the final signals faded. In my kitchen, chili was simmering. On Titan, methane rivers flowed. Saturn’s majestic rings, better understood, still grace our night skies.

Human imagination and wonder have paired with knowledge and skill to give us an extraordinary window into the universe. From ancient times, human beings have marveled at the night sky. Never before have we had such a view.

Saturn from Cassini spacecraftMy response is gratitude for those who have worked so long and hard to provide it. And to bend my knee before the One who creates it. I join with the ancient psalmist in prayer: The heavens proclaim the glory of God/and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands./Day unto day takes up the story/and night unto night makes know the message./ No speech, no word, no voice is heard/yet their span goes forth through all the earth,/their words to the utmost bounds of the world.

 

All images are from NASA

 

Cassini 12 Years at Saturn

The Cassini-Huygens mission was a joint effort of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana. Many other countries were involved in the manufacturing of components.

What’s NASA doing next? Read this NYT article for some tantalizing descriptions of missions already on the calendar.

NASA Cassini at Saturn 

 

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