Grace Finds a Way
December 10, 2023 By 14 Comments

Grace Finds a Way

Who knew that a tiny moth larva could turn my house upside down?  Emptying, scrubbing, and bleaching that one, packed closet and reevaluating which items I wanted to keep took all day. Rearranging what remained led me to take a closer look at other closets, cupboards, and storage bins in the basement. More cleaning, trips to donation centers, and filled trash bags.

A couple of days before Advent, my house was still a disaster. I began the morning with quiet time, determined to make mental and physical space for the simple practice. There I was, sitting in my favorite meditation space, unable to stop thinking about what cleaning task to tackle next. Of course, thoughts always bounce around in one’s head during quiet prayer time. The practice is not about keeping all thoughts out but in acknowledging them and letting them go. That morning each thought came with an irresistible hook, and before I knew it, five or ten minutes filled with imagined schedules and jobs had passed.

No surprise, then, that Advent arrived with no room on my table for an Advent wreath. “Surely,” I thought, “if I work hard enough, the table will be clean by day’s end.” Not so much. My choice: wait for another day, or two, or three, until the table was straightened up and ready or push enough stuff around to place the wreath in the center.

So, when evening arrived, there it sat, in the middle of the mess

As I watched the first of four candles flickering in the handblown glass, the appropriateness of the setting suddenly became apparent. If Advent is a season of waiting and watching, it is of waiting, watching in the middle of a mess. Isn’t that where I encounter the Holy One anyway. From right where I am?  

I can imagine myself organized. (Well, that is a stretch!) “Doing” the social action stuff that calls out for people to be involved. Writing all the letters. Making all the calls. Someday I’ll be on track, reading the books on my list of important reads. I’ll paint more. Write more. Eat healthier. Never miss a day of exercise. I can imagine… But really? Maybe one at a time. But all at once? Not likely.

If I had to wait until everything was just right, from my house (spiritual and physical) to the world order, I’d never be open to the Sacred. I’d miss out on the transformative encounters that offer themselves every day, every place, every minute. Isn’t that the meaning of the Incarnation? The Holy One meeting us right where we are?

Persistent Love trusts that eventually, there will be moments when I’m particularly receptive to the gift of Divine Self always being given. Even when I’m not aware, Grace seeps through cracks in the shell of busyness, fear, and doubt that often encase my heart. The Holy One finds a way to be with, as promised … always.

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NASA: Streaming Wonder
September 30, 2023 By 2 Comments

NASA: Streaming Wonder

Wonder has been hard to come by lately. For me anyway. Sometimes I’m more tuned in, open and attentive. But with national and global news, I’ve been overwhelmed, and dullness settled in. On a morning walk I did see a hairy-capped acorn that drew me to stop and look closely. I stuck it in my pocket to send to a great-nephew with whom I share such things.

Still, all in all, I’ve been moving through days focused on a writing project, completing a couple leg exercise sets daily, and walking enough laps around the neighborhood to meet my step goal.

Last Sunday started out much the same when a cell phone “ding” alerted me to a short text on the family thread: “Happy OSIRIS-REx Return Day!!!!,” followed by a NASA link.

What was “OSIRIS-REx” and where was it returning from? I followed the link and forgave myself for not recognizing the mission: It began in 2016! A lot has happened on earth in the past seven years. After a quick read through the article, I clicked on NASA TV and virtually joined my family in watching the drama unfold.

Once again, NASA and the teams that work with them streamed a sense of wonder, joy, and hope into my living room.

Wonder

Wonder at how their engineers design such a craft

It traveled for a year to orbit the sun, then returned close to Earth, using its gravity to bend its trajectory, lining up with the asteroid Bennu’s orbit and continuing the journey. In 2018 it began mapping the surface of Bennu looking for a good place to collect samples. When it did in late in October 2020, the collection was what what a NASA commentator called a “pogo stick” operation – A quick contact of the robotic arm with the soft, rocky surface to collect bits of the asteroid’s pebbles and dust, then a pull back.

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
Robotic arm briefly touched asteroid
 

In 2021 OSIRIS-REx (sometimes referred to by NASA experts as “O-REx.” You’ve gotta love their way with endearing nicknames) started home.

Then, September 24, 2023 the craft flew close enough to earth to release the sample-bearing capsule that streaked toward Earth at 27,000 mph, eventually slowed to 11 mph by the bright parachute that deployed without a hitch, and then landed where expected! Remarkable.

Wonder at how scientists will tease information about the origin of our planet from those bits of asteroid

They are hopeful that O-REx’s cache will provide new insights into the vast cosmos and it’s beginning. Whatever we learn, it will expand our knowledge and experience of the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope continues to give us stunning glimpses of deep space. Even the “closeup” bits we can see with our own eyes, like a Super Moon shining through a break in clouds, make my heart beat faster.  

PHOTO: Jarred Keener

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that we meet God in matter. That has been my spiritual experience since childhood and seemed evident despite dualist teachings to the contrary.

Ilia Delio writes that for Teilhard, “matter is the incarnating presence of divinity; God is present in matter and not merely to matter.”

Teilhard also wrote that nothing is profane if one had eyes to see. How significantly the current space exploration and scientific advances have expanded what we can “see.”

Scientist and theologian Judy Cannato wrote of the challenge this presents: “The new cosmology can upset our old truths as it challenges us to adopt a novel vision of life. Taking a look at a new paradigm will always expose our illusions and bring about a confrontation with our fears … like Einstein, we can choose to fudge our own equations, living in one world while praying in another. Or we can endeavor to reconcile science and faith within ourselves allowing them not only a peaceful coexistence but a mutual resonance that permits us to live a life filled with radical amazement.”

It’s a call to wonder!

Joy

Joy in effort, beauty, and being

Joy and enthusiasm emanated from Jim Garvins, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s chief scientist, who was in Utah for the capsule’s landing. Throughout the broadcast his smile and enthusiasm were contagious. Smiles covered the faces of those in Mission Control as they watched the successful conclusion to OSIRIS-REx’s journey. The face of the correspondent beamed as she covered the return from just a few miles away. Everyone involved was jubilant. Local elementary and high school students were thrilled to have something so momentous happening in their backyard.

In his book, Awe, Dacher Keltner writes of things that move us to tears including beauty of all types and  “awareness of vast things that unite us with others.” Those familiar with this column may remember columns about other NASA missions that moved me to tears: Cassini’s final descent into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending images until its final moment. Perseverance’s landing on Mars. The successful launch and final unfolding of the James Webb telescope.

Tears welled in my eyes again as I watched not only the landing of OSIRIS-REx’s capsule, but of the careful transfer to the temporary clean room.

Hope

Hope in the ability of human beings to cooperate and accomplish extraordinary things together

NASA and worldwide space agencies are good at this. The James Webb is one example. So is O-REx. The mission brought together numerous organizations including the University of Arizona, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, and the Utah Test and Training Range.

Hope for a future of respect for all people

The highly visible role women played in the recovery of the capsule recalled NASA’s ongoing commitment to creating an inclusive culture in the organization. It strives to celebrate and support diversity, recognizing that every person brings gifts to be shared. In these days, when fear-mongering and the violence it engenders is on the rise, NASA’s efforts to expose the lies of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other “isms” and “phobias” that plague the world are welcome. They provide an example of how humankind can move forward together.

Hope for commitment to the common good

NASA will not horde the precious asteroid samples for its scientists but will distribute up to 30% to scientists around the globe. The remainder will be kept at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (and White Sands) for other scientists and for future generations of scientists who will have different questions and more advanced technologies to help answer them. (I think this cooperative spirit and the consideration of future needs is common among scientists. It’s why archaeologists, with their long view, excavate only a section of a site.)

 Gratitude

Just as the hairy bur oak acorn broke into my imagination during an otherwise “inattentive” walk, the return of OSIRIS-REx’s capsule full of asteroid bits pushed aside dullness and filled my heart with joy, wonder, and hope. Then, without another word, OSIRIS-REx changed course and headed off on a journey deep into space. (It is now called OSIRIS-APEX or Osiris-Apophis Explorer, after the asteroid it will encounter next: Apophis) We will hear back from it in 2029.

Meanwhile, for expanding my horizons. For reminding me of creation’s wonders near at hand and far away. For uncovering the connectedness of everything. For these gifts, I again say “Thank you” to NASA and all its partners.

Bur Oak Acorn

Cosmic-Cliffs-Carina-Nebula-NIRCam-Image-NASA-ESA-CSA-STScI

Feature photo provided by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Photos by Mary van Balen unless otherwise credited

Resources

To Bennu and Back: Journey’s End Short video NASA Goddard

OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return (Official 4K NASA Broadcast)

OSIRIS-REx Mission Page

The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey by Ilia Delio pp 54-55

Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons from Back Holes, Supernovas, and other Wonders of the Universe by Judy Cannato p 36

Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner pp 44-48

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

Celebrating the Incarnation: A Way of Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

Sources:

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu

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

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Getting Up Again
October 30, 2022 By 20 Comments

Getting Up Again

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

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

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

All in all, I felt a mess.

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

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

“True.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Always, we begin again.

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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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Christmas: Within and Without
December 25, 2021 By 14 Comments

Christmas: Within and Without

Like my wreath, this year’s Advent rituals have been non-traditional.

The Advent wreath sits on the dining room table tonight with four candles burning, one for each week of this season, their flames speaking into the darkness that the wait for Christmas and its twelve-day celebration is soon over. 

The wreath reminds me of things liturgical that had long been part of my life: communal services and prayers, singing hymns and carols in churches decked with candles and poinsettias, and enjoying coffee, cookies, and conversation after Mass. One year our young family made a wreath and took it to Mass on the first Sunday of Advent where the priest put it on the altar and blessed it. (Full disclosure: He also blessed a lantern battery and two glow-in-the-dark rosaries that my daughters brought along after our impromptu exchange – moments before we had to leave the house – about why Fr. Mario would bless our wreath. But that’s another story.)

This year there are no official liturgical rituals for me. No attending church. No prayers with an in-person community or belting out carols, though I’ll break out my guitar and do some singing. 

Virtual gatherings with a couple of groups have become my way of sharing communal prayer. But all in all, my spirit has been directed to more individual contemplative practices. And, when you think of it, rooted in ancient times across cultures and faiths, those practices certainly are traditional: quiet prayer, Lectio Divina, spiritual reading, writing, and most of all, trying to be awake to the Divine Presence that permeates all creation, including us. 

The ongoing incarnation—what we celebrate at Christmas—means that whatever we do, wherever we are can be a meaningful encounter with the Sacred.

This isn’t a time to dwell on missing former ways of observing the season that are not possible in pandemic times, but a time to recognize “holy rituals” embedded in the quotidian that can pass unnoticed, untapped for the grace they hold: baking cookies to share; chatting with a cashier, neighbor, or friend; thanking the one who is delivering mail during this stressful season. We can strive to reverence Emmanuel who dwells in all we meet as St. Benedict instructs in his rule: Welcome the stranger as Christ. 

The eyes of our hearts can be opened to see Christ among us not only by people we meet, but also by surprising events that break into our lives. That happened for me just as Advent was beginning. An unexpected health issue upended my routine and replaced it with tests and doctor appointments. Instead of Lectio or reading, my primary Advent practice became gratitude: Every morning appreciation for the gift of another day opened my heart. Gratitude for the healing hands and skills of medical staff, gratitude for family who cared for me and friends who supported me. 

Once begun, the gratitude practice heightened my attentiveness to the myriad of Good that pours over the world, troubled as it is. Gratitude opens the heart, tenders it. It focuses on good that is life-giving instead of what threatens to diminish it and encourages us to do our part of sharing God’s transforming Love.

No matter the state of the world, Christmas and its season proclaim that God dwells within our hearts and in creation. The universe is always singing praise. Christmas reminds us that our call is not only to draw hope and strength and courage from the incarnate God we encounter in the world, but also to participate in that ongoing incarnation by birthing God into the spaces around us. Into our circle of family and friends. Into our towns and cities. Birthing the healing and loving God into a world reeling from the lack of it. 

Tonight, as I sit with Advent wreath candlelight, I am grateful for a God who chooses to live intimately with us, in our hearts, in every bit of creation from atoms to galaxies. I’m grateful for those present and those who have gone before who have shone the bit of Divinity they knew into the world. And, inspired by Howard Thurman’s poem “The Work of Christmas,” I am grateful for being part of the never-ending Christmas story of God-with-us.

The Work of Christmas

By Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and the princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart. 

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Love, Not Atonement: Reflections on the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery
March 25, 2021 By 10 Comments

Love, Not Atonement: Reflections on the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery

This year, the feast of the Annunciation falls just a few days before Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. The proximity of the two feasts brings to mind the connection between the Incarnation and the Paschal mystery, and these questions: Why did Jesus come into the world and what is the meaning of his death on the cross? Big Questions. Impossible to answer but not to ponder.

Growing up, I couldn’t believe God, who created everything and who loved us all, needed Jesus to be tortured and crucified to make up for the sin of Adam and Eve and the rest of us. I attended Catholic schools and my share of Lenten services, including the Stations of the Cross. Church rituals and liturgies spoke to me, but the Stations of the Cross left me sad and confused.

God loved us and made the earth and everything on it, my teachers said. The stars. The planets. Whatever else was out there. And God was born to be with us always. That’s what Emanuel meant: God-with-us. That image of God didn’t fit with a vengeful Deity who demanded Jesus suffer and die because people sinned.

As I grew, thought the disconnect remained unresolved, it didn’t claim my time or attention. Let theologians hash it out if they must. I ignored the claims of a vindictive God and trusted my experience of a merciful one. I knew there were consequences for sin and that my own contributed to the corruption of the world and to the suffering of the Christ who dwells in all. I knew it affected the planet I live on and that I needed forgiveness and a deep transformation of heart.

But I never believed that God demanded a horrible death to put things right.

Later I learned there were names for theories like this: substitutionary atonement, for example, and that it was not the only theory. There had been and are other ways of understanding what Scripture has to say about the Incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Of course, God is God with wisdom beyond human imagining. Being “right” isn’t the goal. Yet, human beings look for meaning.

During my studies for an MA in theology, a professor introduced me to the medieval, Franciscan theologian, John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308), who did not agree with interpretations that held the Incarnation was necessary because of human sin or that Jesus’s crucifixion was the sacrifice required to pay a debt. The incarnation wasn’t a rescue plan. It was always the plan. Jesus came to reveal the face of Divine Love and to show how it looked to live that out as a human being. Then he asked us to do the same.

Close up of two hands clasped in support. One hand is dark. The other light.
Photo: Mary van Balen

Citing John Duns Scotus and the Franciscan “alternative orthodoxy” that he espoused, Richard Rohr, OFM, connects Christmas and Easter: “… Christmas is already Easter because in becoming a human being, God already shows that it’s good to be human, to be flesh. The problem is already somehow solved. Flesh does not need to be redeemed by any sacrificial atonement theory.”

The incarnation led to crucifixion because of the state of the world, not because of God’s demands. Jesus stretched his arms out on the cross because a sinful world could not deal with his radical Love. He stood with the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. His life and teaching were threatening to those in power, both political and religious, who kept these people on the fringes. The requirements of Love to forgive, to serve, to embrace the other, to reverence the Divine within every person and treat them with the respect and care all deserve, to love enemies – it was too much to ask. And so, the broken world executed the one who was Love.

And God wept.

This Holy Week, I will remember the Incarnation and the call to participate in Love. I will ponder how my living contributes to it and how it undermines it. I will ask forgiveness. But more than that, I will pray for courage to open my heart and change my ways, to contribute to Love and not to intolerance, hatred, fear, or violence.

The Incarnation says I am with you. The crucifixion says accepting the invitation to follow Jesus’s example of being Love has consequences. The Resurrection says that in the end, Love is what lasts. Always.  

Featured image: Photo taken by author in Saint Johns University Alcuin Library, Collegeville, MN, 2009.

Sculptor: Paul Granlund

©2021 Mary  van Balen

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Annunciations – Mary’s and Ours
December 18, 2020 By 14 Comments

Annunciations – Mary’s and Ours

What image comes to mind when you think of the annunciation? A painting by Bellini or Da Vinci? A woman kneeling on ornate pillows? My friend and poet, Fr. Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B., wrote a poem, “In the Kitchen,” that offers a different view. “Bellini has it wrong,” it begins, as Mary gives her account. She wasn’t kneeling on a satin pillow. She was bent down, wiping up water spilled on the kitchen floor when she noticed a light on the wall “as though someone had opened/the door to the sun.”

Kilian’s Mary is down-to-earth. A young Jewish girl living in an occupied country, she would not have been surrounded by luxury when the angel came. She’d have been busy with everyday chores like drawing water from the well and getting food on the table.

Dorothy Day knew the danger in naming someone a saint. The title separates, making those great witnesses too easy to dismiss. They’re not like us. They’ re different. Their circumstances are far removed from our own. But as Kilian reminds us, neither is true: Saints aren’t a different breed, and all people are called to holiness.

Photo: Mary van Balen

It does take practice. Mary needed to be awake, tuned in to God’s Presence in ordinary life. For many on this planet, everyday life is a harsh battle to survive. For others, daily chores and choices are not matters of life-and-death but are so repetitive they can be done without thinking. How does one stay attentive to grace in the moment – to annunciations – when the moments are so fraught? Or so predictable?

We might think that ignoring an angel or bright light or voice from heaven would be impossible, no matter how one lived their life. But maybe not. In her poem “In the World I Live In,” Mary Oliver says that “… only if there are angels in your head will you/ever, possibly, see one.”

Throughout her young life, Mary of Nazareth was listening, expecting God to be present. God had a long history of working in the lives of her people and in hers as well. So, when the message arrived, she was ready to hear it.

Sometimes, Presence breaking into life is spectacular. Perhaps not an angel, brilliant light, or vision (though it could be – it’s happened before). But inbreaking can be jolting: a dreaded medical diagnosis, the loss of job, or an unexpected opportunity, all life changing. Inbreaking can be the realization that a wonderful relationship is blossoming or that one is dying and beyond repair.

Photo: Mary van Balen

Whether annunciations come through the ordinary or spectacular, one must be awake to recognize them. Once perceived, they present a choice: to let them in or not. Mary had a choice. The Creator of all that is waited for her answer. She could have said “no.”

Besides being awake to God’s presence, Mary was open and empty, like a monk’s begging bowl. She wasn’t full of herself and her plans but had room to receive what was offered. She could have thought, “Joseph and I are going to be married. No thanks. I’m happy with how things are going.”

Mary was humble. She had plans, but was willing to consider that God had others. She listened. When she was puzzled about the when’s and how’s, she accepted that reality is sometimes beyond understanding.  

Mary had courage. She didn’t know what lay ahead if she embraced God’s call. But if she was needed, she’d give herself to something bigger.

We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.

Meister Eckhart

Mary had hope. Not knowing what her “yes” would bring, she trusted it would be good: not easy, neat, or predictable, but good because she knew God was good. She knew God’s track record in her life and the lives of her people. Even in their suffering, God was present.

Her birthing of Jesus introduced the world to God as it had never known God before. We, too, are called to birth Christ into the world.

When annunciations come, opening new ways to birth Love into the world, we will be better able to say “yes” if we’ve practiced. If we’ve been awake and listening. If we’ve worked to open our hearts and empty them to receive. We will be better able to do our part if we are humble and recognize that we can’t see the big picture, that there is something much bigger than what we can imagine. To trust God will not leave us stranded to face suffering and struggle alone.

 And to have hope. Because God is good. And God is coming. Has always been coming. And indeed, is already here.

©2020 Mary van Balen

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Now Is the Acceptable Time
March 8, 2019 By 6 Comments

Now Is the Acceptable Time

Woods and fir trees on Whidbey Island

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

While reading some reflections by Richard Rohr on the presence of Christ in creation from the beginning, I was struck by the phrase “Christ-soaked world.” It brought to mind two Scripture readings from Paul used for the beginning of Lent: one from 2Corinthians and the other from Romans. In both, he draws from Hebrew Scriptures, and in both, reminds us of the immediacy of God’s presence.

“In an acceptable time I heard you / and on the day of salvation I helped you…” (Isaiah 49) “Now is an acceptable time,” Paul writes is 2Corinthians. “Now is the day of salvation.” Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Now. This moment. Every moment. Because God has always “heard” and has always “helped.” From before time. That is who God is. Presence. Love. Always given. We didn’t miss it. We don’t have to wait for it. It is always poured out in and through us and creation.

In Romans Paul reminds us: “What does Scripture say? /The word is near you, / in your mouth and in your heart.” (Deuteronomy 30) God assures those listening that what is commanded is not a mystery or far away. “It is not in up in the sky, that you should say, ‘Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’” It isn’t across the sea either. “No, it is something very near to you already in your mouths and in your hearts. You have only to carry it out.”

 We may forget this. The Pharisees did. They didn’t recognize God in Jesus let alone the tax collectors and “riffraff” he hung out with. They expected to find God in “holier” places. The temple. The people who kept all the laws. People like themselves. Jesus confounded them with his insistence of spending time with the poor and marginalized, with his talk of God’s care for sparrows and stories of rejoicing over finding a lost coin or wandering sheep. Surely the Holy One was more discriminating than that!

No, not really. God is constantly giving Godself away because that’s what Love does. The incarnation in Jesus didn’t happen because people had made such a mess of things that only the sacrifice of his life could appease an angry God. No. As the thirteenth century Franciscan theologian, John Duns Scotus taught, Christ was always the plan.

Jesus showed us to what lengths Love would go, not to atone for sins or to be a scapegoat, but to be Love’s heart and human face on this planet. “See, this is how much I love you,” he said with arms outstretched on the cross.

These readings, reminders that God lives not far away but in the depths of our hearts at this very moment, set the tone for the Lenten journey. It’s not necessarily about giving up favorite foods or candy (though I wouldn’t mind losing a few pounds) or reading more Scripture, though it could be.

Lenten practice, whatever we choose, is about helping us grow in our trust that divine Love truly does live within us—not somewhere in the sky or across the sea. Lent is a time to listen. To discover what helps us deepen our relationship with God and to do it.

The focus is not personal salvation. It never was. It’s about becoming an uncluttered conduit of love and care for others and all creation. Jesus shows us that we are part of Christ and the work of “soaking the earth” with Love and Presence. As Isaiah tells us, the fast God wants is freeing the oppressed and unjustly bound, sharing our bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and homeless, taking care of the other. (Isaiah 58)

This is the work Lent prepares us to do by reminding us to deepen our relationship with the Holy One who dwells within. Trusting it. Drawing our strength and hope from Love so we can be faithful to our part of Love’s transforming the earth.

This season invites us to take a breath, to nurture our spirits, mind, and body for this work. Now is the acceptable time.

Jesus’ life and eventual death attest to the struggle and danger of being radical love in a world that isn’t ready for it. But, as part of the Christ, that is our call.

© 2019 Mary van Balen

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Drawing All into the Circle of Love
December 8, 2016 By 8 Comments

Drawing All into the Circle of Love

Advent wreath with taper and glass candelabra surroounded by shells, arrowhead, driftwood, and a feather.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

 

Originally published in The Catholic Times  December 11,2016

After a lovely and unusual Thanksgiving weekend spent with my two sisters and their husbands, I was caught unawares by Advent. Oh, in a vague sort of way I knew it was coming, but I was busy with work, publishing a book, and cleaning the house for my company.

When they left on Saturday afternoon, I ran errands and fell asleep, stretched out on the couch. Then suddenly it was Sunday, and I had not prepared a wreath. Resisting the urge to run out and buy candles, I decided to use what was already around the house.

Over the years, my wreath has evolved into something decidedly untraditional. Forty years ago, inspired by Black Elk (a Lakota holy man who, I later learned, became a Catholic catechist), I sewed and beaded four tiny red leather pouches filled with a mixture of sage and sweet grass symbolic of kinnikinnick used by some Native Americans in their great peace pipes and in other rituals.

The pouches rested on four direction points of the wreath: North, East, South, and West. A feather, shells, and a small buffalo cut from leather also decorated the pine boughs, a reminder that God is the Creator of all things, and that all things are made holy by the Incarnation.

Eventually, allergies and bronchitis set off by aromatic resin and the mold that clung to the freshly cut pine necessitated its removal. I thought about artificial greenery but decided against it.

four vigil candles arranged on linen surrounded by tiny read leather pouches, feeather, shell, and other items for Advent wreathit

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Instead, I used beeswax vigil candles arranged on a round linen doily or tray covered with a deep blue napkin. The little pouches, feather, shells, and buffalo remained. A stone from the shores of the Sea of Galilee, gift of a friend, became a regular addition. Once I added a bird’s nest and soft, dried pampas grass plumes. Everything belongs in this circle. We stand on holy ground.

This year, I found tucked in a drawer some beeswax candles from Burton Parish, the colonial Episcopalian church in Williamsburg, VA. The tapers would just fit into the two simple glass candelabra that my parents had used to decorate the table at their wedding reception.

I washed and dried the candle holders, remembering an old photo of my parents, their families, and friends gathered around a long table in Dad’s family home for the celebration. The candelabra would gather my family and the human family into the circle of my “wreath.”

Along with the usual items, a wooden frog from Thailand, a fossil scallop picked up along the York River under Super Moon’s shine, a smooth piece of chert from a Paris walkway, and an arrowhead found on a Cape Cod beach joined the circle.

All the earth sits with me as I light the candles and remember the mystery of Jesus walking with us. Each night my parents and ancestors sit with me as do the people who were here first and who struggle still to protect the land and water that sustain us all. I am reminded of the ages and ages of this earth, of the creatures that filled it. The plants and animals, the birds and the sea creatures. We are a small part of an unimaginably huge cosmos. God loves it all and entered into our little corner to show us just how much.

The words of Isaiah that appear throughout our Advent liturgies overflow with images of nature. Crooked paths made straight. Parched land exulting. Steppes rejoicing and blooming with abundant flowers. Enemies, the lion and the lamb, lying down together. An old stump that looks dead sprouts a green shoot. Things are not always what they appear to be.

Isaiah says God will not judge by appearance. God stands with the poor and stands for justice.

Glorious words.

Four beeswax vigil candles in glass holders, surrounded by birds nest and other natural objects used as an Advent wreath

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I sit at my dining room table, looking at my “wreath” and longing for such a time. Advent tells me that time is already here. We celebrate Emanuel, God-with-us. Jesus draws the circle that encompasses all and invites us to join the work. He showed us how to live our lives, a part of God’s own, so the circle continues to grow in our time and place.

I sit at my dining room table, watching candle flames push away early morning darkness, and I have hope.

© 2016 Mary van Balen

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