To the Face of Evil, Bring Love
June 13, 2016 By 4 Comments

To the Face of Evil, Bring Love

Old Man in Sorrow - Vincent van Gogh 1890

Old Man in Sorrow – Vincent van Gogh 1890

Before heading out to work this morning, I’m heading to church. Drawn there by grief and not knowing what else to do. The hate and fear that could move one human being to massacre innocent people is unfathomable to me. As is often the case in the face of such horror, I feel helpless.

The temptation is to hate back. But if we do, hate wins.

Facebook is full of quotes and suggestions. One counseled kindness. Be especially kind today at work and as you go about your day. You have no idea who may be “suffering quietly” after Sunday’s massacre. Good advice at any time, but particularly today. How often do those in the LGBTQ community and those who love them  suffer quietly, their pain and struggle held close and out of sight?

Today I will try to love and live in a way that fosters peace. They will be small ways. I’m not a celebrity whose words will be quoted. I’m not in a position of power to make laws or change the ones we have. At least not quickly. Most of us are not.

modern painting circle of five people in an embrace

Painting by Richard Duarte Brown

But we can refuse to hate, as difficult as that can be at times like this. We can refuse to blame entire religions (Some would like to point fingers at Islam, others at Christianity.). We can offer comfort, listen, pray. We can grieve with those who have lost family and friends, who have lost any sense of safety. We can make our voices heard by speaking up and communicating with those who are political and religious leaders.

But I think, most of all, we can live our ordinary lives with love and compassion. We can walk forward calling on the power of infinite Love in the face of evil. And have hope. What else is there to do?

 

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Art: Awakening Us to Everyday Wonders
May 10, 2016 By 5 Comments

Art: Awakening Us to Everyday Wonders

Large, ornate gold and white clock in Musee d'Orsay Paris France

Photo: Mary van Balen

Kathryn and I successfully navigated the Metro this morning and made our way to the Musée d’Orsay. Originally it was a railway station that included a hotel and reception room, but as train transportation changed, the station was gradually abandoned. In 1977 the French government decided to transform the buildings into a museum, and by 1986 it was opened to the public. With huge clocks and vaulted ceilings, the building itself is breathtaking. And then, of course, there is the magnificent  collection it holds.

Once there, we quickly made our way up to the 5th floor that houses works by the Impressionists. I immediately recognized some of the paintings, and my eyes filled with tears. Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Pissaro, Sisley… The emotional connection was immediate.

Series of five paintings of the Cathedral of Rouen each done at a different time of day by Claude Monet.

Series La Cathedrale de Rouen Claude Monet Photo: Mary van Balen

Standing in front of Monet’s series of paintings of the Cathedral of Rouen, I imagined the man, coming to the church day after day, at different times, to capture the light. What sight he had. I was reminded of a conversation with artist Marvin Triguba, years ago:

“Marvin,” I asked, “how do you paint the light that makes everything so alive, so real?” “It’s how I see,” he answered. “I see everything like that. Doesn’t everyone see that way?”

The paintings draw crowds of people from around the world. Some stand and gaze for a long while. Others take quick photos and move on. All, for a moment, experience the world through the artist’s eyes and heart.

L'Englise d'Auvers-sur-Oise van Gogh Photo; Mary van Balen

L’Englise d’Auvers-sur-Oise van Gogh
Photo; Mary van Balen

As I walked through the rooms there and in the Neo-Impressionism wing, I wondered at the subject matter—so ordinary and yet, as the artist reveals, extraordinarily beautiful and transcendent. There was one of snow on Paris rooftops, a yard full of white turkeys, a haystack, a vase of flowers, a picnic, a train station, a woman with a parasol, a table set for tea. Someone hurrying down a lane past a church, and a starry night.

 

close up photo of cut up kiwi and nectarine in white bowl

Photo: Mary van Balen

 

Everyday sights. I thought about the kiwi and nectarines Kathryn cut up and placed in a white bowl for breakfast this morning. Baguette broken and buttered. Grey clouds threatening rain hanging over the the city.

View of Sacré-Cœur from Musée d’Orsay

View of Sacré-Cœur from Musée d’Orsay

 

 

 

 

 

 

The couple van Gogh painted walking beneath the dark blue sky studded with brilliant stars, did they notice what glory hung above their heads? Did the woman hurrying around the cathedral notice the sunlight on the roof or the grass along the road?

 

Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh Photo: Mary van Balen

Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh
Photo: Mary van Balen

If, as Emily in “Our Town” did when she returned to relive one day, we appreciated the beauty of life at every moment, how could we do anything but appreciate? How could we do anything other than respond as our gifts dictated: paint, dance, write, draw, play music, pray? Or, simply stand still and open every pore to the Grace that constantly overflows around us, in us, and through us?

The painting "Roses and Anemones" by Vincent van Gogh

Roses and Anemones by Vincent van Gogh
Photo: Mary van Balen

 

Today, I gave thanks for artists who have reminded us of the Sacred present in our midst. Thanks for those who recognize the value of their work, collect it, preserve it, and make places where we can come to see and be reminded that we move through wonder every day.

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This Business of Being
April 7, 2016 By 1 Comment

This Business of Being

yellow wild flowers and a rock near bay on Whidbey Island

PHOTO: Mary van Balen Whidbey Island

Originally published in The Catholic Times

A few weeks ago in Barnes & Noble, while browsing through the bookstore looking for an old book they didn’t have, I wandered into the poetry section and picked up a slim, hardback volume with “Felicity” and “Mary Oliver” writ large in white across the soft gray sky on the cover.

I stood and read a poem about St. Augustine. “Take heart,” it said to me. Augustine didn’t become himself overnight. There was one about a cricket, finding its way into a house in the fall.

I’ve been on a Mary Oliver jag ever since, pulling out books I already own, ordering Felicity and the second volume of “New and Selected Poems.” She’s a master of attention and mindful living. Her poems are prayer, savoring the Sacred in our midst, perhaps in an armful of peonies or a heron’s flight. “I want to make poems while thinking of/the bread of heaven and the/cup of astonishment… (from “Everything” in New and Selected Poems – Volume Two).

There is something about the grace of her poetry that anchors me when reports of violence, hatred, and fear threaten to overwhelm. The news we hear most often is bad, and while my daughter assures me that we live in a world with less, not more, violence than in centuries past (We just hear about more of it, she says), some days this planet seems a dangerous place careening towards disaster.

Yet, in this same time and place there is hope. There is goodness and love that refuse to give in to despair. There is mercy and forgiveness. There are people who, little by little, replace darkness with light by simply living as best they can, showing kindness and compassion along the way. They speak the truth they know and go about the ordinary tasks of life. There is Spirit, shared with each of us, who draws us to goodness if we allow, and empower us to make life’s journey as partners with the One who is transforming the world.

Poets express in words (and the spaces between them) something of this mystery and their experience of it, inviting readers to participate. I suppose, now and again, a line or two, or even a complete poem moves quickly and effortlessly from heart to word, but that is a rare mercy—the inbreaking of Spirit to a practiced soul, aware and open to such things.

Poets I’ve known and my attempts at writing verse, have taught me that writing poetry is work. Ted Kooser, U.S. poet laureate 2004-06, once surprised my adult GED students by sharing his writerly routine (up early every morning for fifty years, writing an hour and a half before leaving the house) and the revelation that he had revised one of their favorite, very short poems 50 times.

The same daughter who assures me the human condition is actually improving can’t imagine why anyone would want to write—for her, it’s agony. But, as poet Maya Angelou’s quote on a postage stamp states, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

Poets write because that is what is they are made to do, and they are faithful. A poem in “Felicity” moved me to remember that we all are made to be a particular reflection of God in the world and that we, the world, and the cosmos are better off when we’re faithful to it. Jesus is the perfect example of such authentic living: He is God’s own life, and he shares it with us.

Wld rose bush with pink bloomsThe poem is “Roses.” Oliver writes of the quest to answer life’s “big questions” and decides to ask the wild roses if they know the answers and might share them with her. They don’t seem to have time for that. As they say, “…we are just now entirely busy being roses.”

How glorious if all humanity could know themselves as honestly and be themselves as genuinely as those roses. But we are wounded, and there is evil, and taking time to be still and listen to the Spirit within is difficult in the busyness of daily life.

The universe suffers from this disconnect. We see that in the eyes of the poor, marginalized, and war-weary. We see it in eyes reflecting anger, hatred, and fear that fuel violence. We hear it in the groaning of our planet with melting icecaps and water and air that poison its creatures

April is national poetry month. What better time to listen to the poets among us, past and present, who speak their truth and encourage us to do the same.

© 2016 Mary van Balen

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God’s Mercy, Me, and the Fig Tree
February 28, 2016 By Leave a Comment

God’s Mercy, Me, and the Fig Tree

green fig on tree branch

PHOTO: Lynn Greyling Public Domain

“Things take the time they take,” Mary Oliver writes in her poem, Don’t Worry (found in her latest book of poetry, “Felicity“). That’s good news. So was the gardner’s attitude in today’s gospel reading. A person had a fig tree planted in his orchard and was ticked that, after three years, it still wasn’t bearing fruit. He’d had it. His attitude was basically, “What’s the point?” To him that tree was a waste of  soil, space, and effort. Just cut it down and burn it up.

But the gardner had a different perspective. He wasn’t ready to give up on the tree. “Leave it in the ground and let me cultivate the ground around it, fertilize it. Who knows, it may bear fruit after all.” Then, as a nod to the irate owner, the gardner adds, “OK. If it still doesn’t produce some figs, then you can cut it down.”

God is even more patient and gives second chances. Well, actually, third, fourth, fifth, and on and on. There’s no end to the chances we get. It’s the mercy Pope Francis talks about. God has mercy on the fig tree, and on me.

As I said, it’s a good thing. Lent is half over, and I’m not doing so well. Still eating too much and spending more time than is healthy watching Netflix or videos. I haven’t been able to make myself delete spider solitaire from my iPad and it’s close to hand in the evenings. Three more weeks to go. Don’t give up.  God hasn’t.

Mary Oliver’s poem ends wondering how many roads St. Augustine took till he became St. Augustine.

I’m guessing lots.

 

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Praying Presence at the Roosevelt
February 25, 2016 By 4 Comments

Praying Presence at the Roosevelt

white teacup filled with dark tea on deep green and white saucerBright sun was a welcome change from the grey overcast days we’d been having. I hurried along the sidewalk, passing upscale condos along the street adjacent to the downtown parking lot where my car waits everyday while I’m at work. The brown sandstone cathedral sits just across the street. I thought about dropping in, but opted for the church of buildings and people, cars and cracked sidewalks instead. The cathedral would be locked anyway.

I moved quickly, wanting to make the most of my break: Arrive at the Roosevelt Coffeehouse, order tea, and have time to read. After walking a  block to avoid construction, I turned left. There was a policeman walking in front of me and a man in front of him–an unsteady man whose black leather jacket hung oddly, drooping off the right side of his slight body. He had something slung over his shoulder. But what I noticed most was his stumbling gait and regular brushing against buildings’ old bricks.

I slowed, a participant in this odd, short parade, then turned down an alley, whispering a prayer for the man and for the policeman who followed him. Taking long strides and stretching my legs felt as good as the cool air and sunlight. When I turned left again and crossed the street, there was the man in the drooping black jacket. He must have walked faster, too. The policeman, no longer following, had stopped on the corner to chat with a security guard on a bicycle. Parade over.

Slipping into Roosevelts, my new favorite place to spend a break, I smiled at the barista and looked over the day’s menu of coffee and teas. How could I not order an oolong fig peach tea? I found a table by a window, pulled a book from my purse and settled in. Music comes from a turntable and donated records at this place, and the soundtrack from “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” was playing. I remembered singing a variation of one song a cappella with my sister and my ex, years ago in tight, smooth harmony. My foot was tapping.

“Oh brother, lets go down, come on down, don’t you wanna go down? Oh sister, lets go down, down in the valley to pray.”

The tea arrived, lovely in a large white cup sitting on a saucer glazed with deep green. Steam rose like incense, and holding cupped hands above it, I savored the fragrance and warmth. I don’t remember when I stopped reading and started paying attention instead, but that’s what I did.

Aromas of freshly ground coffee beans and spicy teas were thick enough to taste. My tea rested on a table made of a repurposed bowling lane, its light wood encased in enough polyurethane to make it shine. All the tables and counters were made of the same luminous stuff.

People had gathered midday at this little place. There was a man in a flannel shirt engaged in lively discussion with two women. Between them was a scatter of papers covered with colored pie charts and notes. They were planning a meeting and exchanging phone numbers. Five or six people worked on laptops and three guys sat on stools at the counter, laughing and talking about music. One young woman, shutting it all out, or at least trying to, was studying.

I was paying attention. Watching bits of dust and steam lit up by sunlight coming in the window. Marveling at how different people are from one another, what different lives we have: the policeman, the jacket man, the people in this place, my coworkers just a few blocks away.

The congregation of the church outside the cathedral. The prayer, paying attention.  Simone Weil famously said, “Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” The ancient prayer of attentiveness, of being present to the moment, runs through the great traditions. Mary Oliver, a poet of attentiveness, writes:

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Draining the last bit of tea from the cup, I packed up my book, said goodbye, and walked from the doorway of one church into the expanse of another.

 

 

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Lent: Come As You Are
February 12, 2016 By 3 Comments

Lent: Come As You Are

small table with purple cloth, candle, cross, shells, feather, for Lent

Photo: Mary van Balen

Lent comes quickly this year. “That’s why I’m not ready,” I tell myself as I sit quietly and ponder this column. I wanted to be more centered. I wanted my office to be straightened up, desk uncluttered to better concentrate. I wanted to have prayed more, read more, been still more. But, here I am, on the brink of Lent, behind in lots of things, and not prepared for the season at all.

Or maybe, that’s how we are meant to greet this liturgical season: No big preparations. No cultural hoopla like the marketing blitz that accompanies the coming of Christmas. This is a “come-as-you-are” event, and usually, this is how I am.

I’m pulled in many directions, full of good intentions and forgotten resolutions. Jesus has words for me in this Saturday’s gospel. When the Pharisees ask him why he’s hanging out with the sinners and riff-raff, he seems a bit surprised. Why wouldn’t he? After all, he says, those who are healthy don’t need a physician; the sick do.

So as Lent approaches, I console myself with the thought that I fit right in. Jesus isn’t expecting my office table to be clear of papers, bills, and books. He knows me too well. I think he’d feel right at home at my dining room table. It hasn’t had a tablecloth on it since Christmas. Instead, it’s been home to my daughter’s 3-D printer that arrived during her stay as she recuperated from a broken foot.

And he wouldn’t mind eating leftovers or a hastily prepared meal after I return from a long day at work. No, as I read through the Mass readings before and after Ash Wednesday, I began to relax. If I’m willing to slow down and sit with Jesus at my table and in my heart, no matter the mess, then I’m ready for Lent.

Last week, a group of friends and I shared dinner, conversation, and prayer. One woman played a song, Pilgrim, by Enya, and this line caught my attention: “All days come from one day/That much you must know/You cannot change what’s over/But only where you go.”

All days come from one day. “That day is this day,” I thought. The present day, the only one we have. Paul says something like that in Ash Wednesday’s second reading: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Now, this moment, is the acceptable time. This day. And then the day that follows. And the day that follows that. One day at a time is the day of salvation. The anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing puts it this way: “Therefore, be attentive to time and the way you spend it. Nothing is more precious…God gives only the present, moment by moment…”

The thing is, I’m often not there. Not following Enya’s wisdom, I’m tempted to rethink the past, allowing regrets and sorrow from yesterday’s pain to capture my attention. Or I can spend time speculating about future scenarios for family, friends, and our world.

What grace to have this liturgical season to remind us how important it is to embrace each day along with its joys and sorrows; to trust that “this day” has something good for us, or at least that some opportunity to grow, something good can come from it.

What blessing to have the wisdom of those who have gone before us. It’s a mixed-up crowd we walk with, this “communion of saints,” canonized or not, living or dead, who recommend ancient disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving for our journey through Lent.

There are as many ways to observe these directives as there are people who follow them. One may do well to abstain from food, another from “screen time.” One may need to give herself permission to celebrate who she is, while focusing on others might be the call for someone else. Maybe we give time, money, or talents. Perhaps the grace is in receiving what is offered.

But, what it comes down to is spending these forty-days shedding what gets in the way of attending to God-with-us. It’s about nurturing ways of being that help us listen to the Holy One within and believe the amazing truth that God loves us, calls us to share Love in this world, and will help us do it. It’s about choosing to live as fully as we can, trusting that all days will come from the one day lived well.

© 2016 Mary van Balen

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Demonstrations in Physics – and Prayer
January 19, 2016 By 2 Comments

Demonstrations in Physics – and Prayer

Dr Julius Sumner Miller“My name is Julius Sumner Miller, and physics is my business.” That’s how he opened every show. Physics was his business. So was wonder.

A longtime friend who attended school with my daughters and was a frequent visitor to our house, still keeps in touch though he lives most of the time in Southeast Asia. His email today included a link to a show he had rediscovered: Professor Julius Sumner Miller’s “Demonstrations in Physics.

I smiled as I watched the lesson on air pressure, a 14-minute delight of knowledge and unabashed enthusiasm. Dr. Miller’s show aired on PBS and was a staple in our house. We didn’t have cable, so my parents taped it for us. We all enjoyed them, but my oldest daughter, now a physicist herself, was the most faithful viewer.

Dr. Miller loved sharing the wonders of physics in the everyday world from air pressure, to heat conduction, to, one of our favorites, Bernoulli’s principle. His joy was contagious. For years, after my daughter disappeared into the basement to build and conduct her own experiments, she would call me down to demonstrate them and echoed two of Dr. Miller’s frequent expressions: “That’s beautiful. Let’s do it again” (and he and she would). If it didn’t go as planned, “Oh well, an experiment never fails. You just learn something you didn’t expect to learn.”

Those memories flooded back as I watched the episode this morning. Something else came to mind as well: What a gift to retain the wonder and abandon that are natural for children as we become adults. In addition to adding “enchantment to the soul,” as Miller said, it also opens the soul to receive Grace. We can’t see the extraordinary all around us if we aren’t present where we are, looking with open eyes and heart. Children are good at this.

In his book, Growing Young, anthropologist Ashley Montagu listed these qualities among others in the childlike nature: “…curiosity, inquisitiveness, thirst for knowledge, the need to learn, imagination, creativity, open-mindedness, experimental-mindedness, spontaneity, enthusiasm…joy…”

Along life’s path, many of us lose that childlike amazement at the world around us. Scientists like Montagu and Miller are not the only ones to understand the importance of such presence. Like Thornton Wilder said in “Our Town,” saints and poets do, some.

Watching Dr. Miller delight in how things work reminded me of Sts. Francis and Bonaventure extolling God’s presence in the “book of nature.” For Bonaventure, God is “fountain fullness,” spilling out of and over everything, in all life, outer as well as inner.

Most religious traditions see the Holy One reflected in creation, and creation as a way to encounter that Sacred. Rumi, the 13th century mystical poet of Islam wrote: “The beauty and grandeur of God belong to Him; the beauty and grandeur of the world of creation are borrowed from Him.”

For me, Dr. Miller’s physics was a call to prayer, a joyful time to marvel at some small part of creation and to soak up the Goodness flowing through it all.

Take a few minutes to feed the child within; watch an episode or two of Demonstrations in Physics. No matter what you believe, or not, about prayer, Presence, and creation, you’ll be delighted.

 

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Advent in a World of Turmoil
December 10, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Advent in a World of Turmoil

Starry night sky over pines

PHOTO: Jennifer Stephens

Originally published in The Catholic Times, December 13, 2015

 

“What does keeping Advent mean for us now, today?” I asked myself after reading a couple newspaper articles about mass shootings and escalating fear and anger at terrorist attacks. I was still pondering while making a quick stop at a mall. Lights and hype along with an unending string of Christmas music bombarded the senses, and on the drive home, Pope Francis’s reference to this year’s Christmas trappings being a charade came to mind.

Checking the text, I discovered that he opened his homily with “Jesus wept,” adding later “…because Jerusalem did not know the way of peace and chose the hostility of hatred, of war.” With Christmas coming, the pope said “…there will be lights, there will be celebrations, trees lit up, even nativity scenes…all decorated: the world continues to wage war…The world has not comprehended the way of peace.” The entire world is at war, piecemeal, and the cost is great—A somber message for the coming season of joy and hope.

While terrorism and wars are in the news around the world, they are not the only form of violence. There’s also violence against the poor and marginalized when funding for safety-net programs are cut. Civil rights for all are a continuing issue, as is adequate care for those suffering from mental illness. (Many mass shooters suffer from it.)

The earth itself suffers at the hands of human beings, yet some choose to dismiss the issue of global warming and the investment in new technologies needed to address it. (Did you see the pope’s shoes, sitting along with 20,000 others in a public square in Paris during the climate talks there—A quiet “march” to support those working to find ways for governments to respond to this threat?)

The pope is right: The world has not embraced the way of peace. How do we do that? How do we find hope in a dark world?

A friend sent a poem she has been using for Advent reflection: “Annunciation” by Denise Levertov. “Aren’t there annunciations/of one sort or another/in most lives?” the poet asks before pondering how we do or do not accept the annunciations that come to us. She writes of Mary, a young girl like other young girls, but called to a “destiny more momentous that any in all of Time;” she didn’t hesitate to embrace it.

Levertov concludes that whatever we have to offer is enough. “The blessing is not in the treasure/But in the letting go.” We are called to give what we have, not to hold it close, but to generously pour onto the world. We are called to lavish Love on the marginalized who need our care and nurture, much as Jesus needed protection within the womb as he grew.

Levertov’s poem reminds me of the loaves and fishes story. The young boy freely gave what he had, and Jesus made it enough.

Maybe that’s what’s Advent’s quiet and waiting is about. Avoiding the distractions of orchestrating a “perfect Christmas” and instead giving ourselves time to pay attention to what Grace has been placed in our hearts, not turning from the challenges of sharing it in a dark and often hostile world. Like Mary, we’re called to say, “Yes, I’ll give all that I am.”

A poem by Jessica Powers, considers the Incarnation. “In Too Much Light,” she sees the Magi following one star and laments her difficulty finding one to follow. Her revelation?

Faith cries out ‘til her voice fails, proclaiming that in every spot and time, “…there is not any place/ when the sought Word is not.”

That’s where our hope lies this Advent, when even our pope laments the darkness and choices for war over peace.

It is within, given when the Holiest of Mysteries became one of us, sharing Love and trusting us to share it in our times and places. The hope is discovering that light, not outside us, but in our deepest center. Being selfless with it, giving it away, is embracing the way of peace.

When we discover the divine light within ourselves and within all others in this world, the wounded, the suffering, the marinalized, the fearful, the violent, then we’ll have found the God we prepare to celebrate during Advent.

Jessica again: “Behold, all places which have light in them/truly are Bethlehem.”

 

© 2015 Mary van Balen

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A Gratitude Attitude
November 5, 2015 By 2 Comments

A Gratitude Attitude

Blessing Journal

First Published in The Catholic Times, November 8, 2015

 

“If the only prayer you said was ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.” Meister Eckhart

The morning’s darkness surprised me as I drove to work. Maybe it was the overcast sky threatening rain that simply blocked out morning sun. Or maybe it was the changing season, moving into winter when sun shines slant onto the earth. Either way, November was poised to replace my beloved October days of blue skies and crisp air.

October was full of friends’ birthdays (and my own), family visits, and trees flaming along the streets. I walked the beach and drove home from Virginia this October as turning leaves reached peak color. The past weeks have prompted many moments of gratitude. I Just wasn’t expecting the gray morning and dark drive home after work.

Rather than anticipating clear air and bright moons of the previous month, I now expect rainy, damp days and nights when brilliant leaves become a mess along roadsides. I once wrote a song celebrating October after a jubilant bicycle ride around my neighborhood. I’ve never written a song about November.

It is the month of our Thanksgiving holiday, though, and this year I’ve decided to spend the days leading up to it being faithful to a spiritual practice that’s been an on again off again part of my prayer life: keeping a gratitude journal.

I have the perfect journal. A gift from my daughter, its brown leather cover is hand-laced with leather both for decoration and for attaching the handmade paper signatures to the binding. A golden cat’s-eye stone graces the front. When she gave it to me, I thought for a week or two about what to write in it, settling on “Blessings.”

That was five years ago. Last year she saw it and said, “That must be filled up by now!” It wasn’t. Not by far. Like other “special” journals, it goes in and out of season. But this November, I’m pulling it off the shelf intending to write down each day’s gifts for which I am grateful.

A friend of mine inspired this. She is an adjunct theology professor and a hospital chaplain who barely makes ends meet. She works long hours and loves both her jobs, though neither pays her a fair wage.

“How ya doing?” I asked when we spoke over the phone a few weeks ago.

“I’m great,” she said. “Still barely squeaking by, but I started keeping a gratitude journal and I have to say, I have so much to be thankful for. Thinking about my day every evening and writing down good things that have filled it has changed my attitude.”

That makes sense. Being grateful requires awareness and being present to the moment—both disciplines that can grow and deepen. You have to notice things before you can be grateful for them: people, opportunities, beauty of leaves glazed with rain, kindness, a warm home, the moon high in a morning sky.

When times are difficult and painful, gratitude is hard-won. It may require long thought. Blessings might not be evident. But, sitting with the hurt or disappointment provide an opportunity to sit with God in it. Maybe we learn to let go of expectations and comparisons. Maybe we silence the critic within who’s saying we’re not good enough. Not always a “feel good” moment, these times invite us to focus on the greatest blessing: Sacred Presence.

So, this year, I hope to arrive at Thanksgiving Day with a more spacious heart, emptied of some of the clutter and ego that keep me from recognizing the Goodness and Presence within.

That will be a challenge. Life if full of violence and poverty. It can be ugly as well as beautiful. Can we find in our hearts something for which to be grateful when life is not pretty? When it’s difficult and challenging?

I don’t know what my blessings journal will contain by the time Thanksgiving arrives. Whatever it is, I hope it the practice will deepen my heart and develop the ability to be present, to notice, to open my eyes and to expect something good, in the midst of struggle as well as in times joy. To get up on rainy gray winter mornings and recognize something to love.

© 2015 Mary van Balen

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Surprised by Pope Francis: Day and Merton
October 8, 2015 By 1 Comment

Surprised by Pope Francis: Day and Merton

Close up of Dorothy Day

First published in The Catholic Times, October 11, 2015 issue

 

I stayed home from work the morning that Pope Francis spoke to the United States Congress. I wanted to watch his face and the faces of those gathered to hear him: A congress mired in partisan politics, hopelessly polarized. What would Pope Francis say to them? To the country? How would our elected officials receive his words? It was a moment I wanted to witness as it unfolded.

The pope did not disappoint. Just a couple of weeks ago, at a gathering of citizens concerned about issues of social justice and a stalled political system, a gentleman expressed dismay that the concept of the common good was no longer a topic in public discourse. Pope Francis took care of that.

He had barely spoken a hundred words when he directed attention to our solemn responsibility for the common good. “You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens,” he said to the lawmakers, “in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics.”

By now, most who read this column will have read (or heard) various commentaries on the address and what the pope did and did not say. But, what surprised me was how he said it: He used the example of four great Americans who gave their lives to service and to the betterment of society. Two, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., often serve as inspirational examples, fittingly so.

The other two are the ones I didn’t expect: Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. In my late teens I read a number of their books. They influenced my faith and spirituality. Still, I wondered, how many of the government officials sitting in the room knew those names? How many watching and listening around the country wondered who they were and searched for them on mobile phones and tablets?

They’d find Dorothy Day, born in 1897, was a radical who advocated for women’s suffrage, a pacifist who opposed all wars, and a tireless worker for social justice who saw the need not only to serve the poor she encountered in daily life, but also to change the system that created such poverty and injustice. She was a writer and journalist who gave voice to marginalized people and causes.

A convert to the Catholic faith that fed and sustained her, Dorothy attended daily Mass, read scripture, and wove prayer throughout her days. As a friend who once heard her speak said, “She was prayer.

Dorothy, along with close friend Peter Maurin, founded “The Catholic Worker” newspaper and the movement of the same name. Catholic Worker Houses continue to welcome the poor and are places where the corporal works of mercy are lived out. As Pope Francis encourages, they are places of encounter.

The pope spoke a second name that I didn’t expect to hear: Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk at the monastery of Gethsemani, in Kentucky. We celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth this year. Pope Francis singled him out for his openness to dialog with others of all faiths, seeing them as pilgrims on the same search for ultimate truth. His last journey was to Bangkok where he attended an international conference on monasticism, organized by Buddhist monks. Like Day, he calls us to deep encounter with those unlike ourselves.

Thomas Merton standing outside Pope Francis also recommended Merton’s openness to God in a contemplative style of prayer. Merton in the midst of a world immersed in “noise” of all types—digital, visual, aural—pouring out of players, electronics, out of the depths of our souls, calls us to quiet presence. For those who fill up every moment with activity and distraction, he says, “Be still. Listen.”

Like Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton was a writer and a convert. His books addressed spirituality and political topics. He was an outspoken critic of the Viet Nam War and the arms race.

Two people of deep faith and prayer: One active in the world, the other a monk responding to world issues with his pen; both social activists who pointedly challenged the status quo and whose words speak to us today. Immigration, poverty, climate change, racism, and violence require bold responses from all of us, not only governments.

If you’re not familiar with Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, consider reading some of their work or finding out more about their lives and spiritual journeys. Pope Francis’ choices challenge us all.

© 2015 Mary van Balen

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