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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“Breath-Praise” – The Simple Prayer of Being
October 5, 2021 By 10 Comments

“Breath-Praise” – The Simple Prayer of Being

I am slowly reading my way through Mary Oliver’s Devotions, a thick book of her poems that she selected for publication in 2017, just two years before her death. I think of Devotions as a parting gift. I’m less than halfway through the 442 pages of brilliance, unveiling life’s glory and grace.

Balckburnian Warbler perched in shrub
Blackburnian Warbler
Photo: Michael Delphia

And so, I found myself, a week after the arrival of Autumn, reading a poem celebrating summer! No matter. Each season has its own gifts as well as those it shares with the other three. In this case, that gift is birdsong. A Meadowlark’s to be specific. The sound broke in to Oliver’s consciousness while she worked on a summer poem. As I read the finished piece,1 a few lines captured my attenition:

“…the faint-pink roses / that have never been improved, but come to bud // open like little soft sighs / under the meadowlark’s whistle, its breath-praise, // its thrill-song, its anthem, its thanks, its // alleluia. Alleluia, oh Lord.”

“… its breath-praise …”

“Breath-praise.”  In.

 “Breath-praise.” Out.

The meadowlark. Me. We both have “breath-praise.” Most often unconscious, its participation in Grace. Immersion in Presence, Breath, Life. A simple prayer of being. When done with awareness, breath-praise is the recognition of a reality larger than oneself, reverencing the creator, the force, of which one is a part.

The time of business is no different from the time of prayer.

Brother Lawrence

Breathing it in. Breathing it out. Brother Lawrence, the 17th century Carmelite, knew this truth. A lowly lay brother in a Parisian monastery, he is best known for his uncomplicated prayer of becoming aware of being in God’s presence throughout the day and carrying on a conversation with God in those moments. Lifting his heart in praise and recognizing the enveloping Sacred Presence in which he moved, Brother Lawrence, like the meadowlark, practiced “breath-praise.” He knew he had work to do (for years, it was in the monastery kitchen, which he did not like) and went about it simply. He didn’t need to be in a chapel or at Mass to pray.

One of his quotes adorned my refrigerator during my childrearing years: “The time of business is no different from the time of prayer. In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, I possess God as tranquilly as if I were upon my knees before the Blessed Sacrament. 2

I sometimes had trouble with the “tranquilly” part, but all in all, his sentiment was a great reminder of the holiness of life’s quotidian tasks.

Photos: Mary van Balen
red and yellow autum leaves against the sky
trees in yellow wood

In New Seeds of Contemplation,3 the great monk, mystic, and author, Thomas Merton wrote:

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying God. It “consents,” so to speak, to God’s creative love … Therefore each particular being, in its individuality … gives glory to God by being precisely what God wants it to be here and now … Their inscape is their sanctity. It is the imprint of God’s wisdom and God’s reality in them.

Human beings, on the other hand, complicate things, including simply being the self God created each one to be. It’s difficult when voices from all kinds of places – the past, the media, culture, significant people in our lives – have their say and cloud the perception of just what “being oneself” means.

I often confuse what I have (or, more often, have not) accomplished with who I am. For example, the books I haven’t written overshadow the self that is given through countless meals prepared, laundry done, letters written, and the simple ways of living and loving that, as Merton wrote, are the “imprint of God” in me.

Writing is part of who I am (thus years and years of columns, posts, articles, and books), but not the whole of it. The temptation in our culture is to focus on major things. On “doing” not “being.”  One of these approaches cannot exist without the other. Life is a both/and endeavor. Br. Lawrence spent his monastic career doing his chores and in the simplicity of his tasks, he was being his true self. His prayer practice contributed to his sanctity, and sharing it provided inspiration for countless others across centuries.

Their inscape is their sanctity. It is the imprint of God’s wisdom and God’s reality in them.

Thomas Merton

Merton knew that being faithful to the God-spark within was all we need do. That looks different for each of person. For him, it included lots of writing: books, poetry, correspondence, articles. Also being a novice master. And, later, living alone in his hermitage.

Mary Oliver is a saint of attentiveness and gratitude. She noticed. She wandered and wondered through the natural world.  She loved. And she wrote.

What imago Dei resides in your center? What bit of the Sacred do you bring to every task you do and to every moment you are at rest? What song of gratitude might you add to the universe as you stand at the kitchen sink or the washing machine? When you weep for the world or rejoice with a child or friend? When you work? When you play? When you have no idea where you are going or when you are filled with enthusiasm for the next step?

October is a beautiful month to notice and be inspired by the unconscious praise that rises from the natural world. Opening our eyes, ears, and hearts to the wordless chant of praise that arises every day from every created thing, we can join in their prayer. Recognizing their holiness may stir our hearts with the desire to grow in willingness to be, like them, exactly as God has made us to be. Then our “Amen” will rise with theirs, not from our lips, but like the meadowlark, from our being.

Sources:

  1. Mary Oliver, “While I Am Writing a Poem to Celebrate Summer, the Meadowlark Begins to Sing,” Devotions (2017):203.
  2. Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (1985): 145.
  3. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, (1972): 29-30.
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Seeking the Sun
August 20, 2021 By 10 Comments

Seeking the Sun

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

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

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

Boats in Monet’s Garden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Easter Liturgies: Beyond Memorial or Reenactment
April 5, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Easter Liturgies: Beyond Memorial or Reenactment

Book of Mary Olive poetry, "Devotions," open to page showing poem "On Meditating, Sort Of."
from book Devotions
Photo: Mary van Balen

This year, the Thursday before Easter, Holy Thursday, began for me in quiet prayer with a Zoom group and continued with what became the deeper prayer of the day. I sat in my chair by the window, reading Mary Oliver and feeling my face warmed by the intense morning sun. Bright light flooding through the mini-blinds played across the book’s pages and my hands.

My cobalt glass vases glimmered on the buffet, painting the shells around them with bits of luminous blue – an altar bathed in glory of Creator and creation. As Oliver writes in her poem “On Meditating, Sort Of,” while some find times of meditation in prescribed practices and postures, she often found hers lounging against a tree.

Surely, Mary Oliver had her practices – writing itself can be a demanding spiritual practice! – Attentiveness was one. Notebook in hand, she greeted each day, noticing the world around her. Being present. That’s how the day began for me.

Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday as it is known in some religious traditions, has always been my favorite of the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. It’s the intimacy of a meal shared with family and friends. (Can you doubt that his mother and others in addition to the twelve apostles, including women, were there?) It’s the hope and prayer for unity and the example of self-sacrificing love.

John’s gospel doesn’t put the sharing of bread and wine center stage but rather Jesus’s washing his followers’ feet and the long discourse and prayer that follow. “I give you a new commandment,” he says. “Love one another as I have loved you.” And he showed them how it looked in real life that evening and the following day.

Close-up of cobalt blue vase, filtering bright sunlight and casting blue hue on sea shells and fabric runner on top of buffet
Small, crusty, round roll of white bread, broken, sitting on blue plate

Years ago, a dear friend invited me and a few other women into her home to celebrate Holy Thursday with a simple meal before the parish services would begin. Unknown to us, she invited her guests to acknowledge their service to the community, to God’s people – what Jesus modeled at the Last Supper. When her intention became clear, I was a bit embarrassed. What had I done to be recognized by this amazing woman who has personified service her entire life?

She went around the table: one had been a lifelong educator, the first Black principal in the diocesan school system. One, volunteer director of religious education for her poor parish for close to twenty years, had just returned from leading a diverse group of teenagers to a youth convention out of state. When she got to me, our friend pointed out my decades of writing books, columns, and articles.

We enjoyed a meal and conversation. We broke bread and shared a cup of wine. We passed a pitcher of water and a bowl around the table, washing one another’s hands. We prayed. A community of women, following as best we could Jesus’s new commandments: to love and to serve.

People must not only hear about the kingdom of God but must see it in actual operation, on a small scale perhaps, but a real demonstration nevertheless.

Pandita Ramabai

This past celebration came to mind when I virtually attended a simple Holy Thursday liturgy with members of a nearby Episcopalian church. Mike Gecan, friend of the rector, longtime community organizer, and author joined us from New York to offer a meditation.

As I often do – whether pre-pandemic, physically in a church, or currently in Zoom services – when moved by a phrase or thought, I pulled out my notebook and jotted down a few things:

  • Beyond reenactment
  • Not simply a memorial
  • A call to action
  • How do we imagine what comes next, after the reenactment, after the memorial, after one action is completed?

As the night ended, these questions lingered along with images of Jesus on his knees, towel in hand, washing dirty feet, or standing on his own, imploring those gathered with him to serve others with humility. To love one another as he loves them. To become one as he and the One who sent him were one. And praying for the Grace he knew they would need – that we need today – to follow his lead.

These words, these images, follow me into Easter Week – these days of celebrating the Resurrection and the promise that Love, not death, will have the last word.

I remember the Servant-God who makes this promise and invites us to participate the transformation of death into life, here and now.  

© 2021 Mary van Balen

Read more about Pandita Ramabai

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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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Morning Prayer in Trosly
May 14, 2016 By 5 Comments

Morning Prayer in Trosly

After breakfast of toast—a treat since our apartment does not have a toaster—butter, jam, and coffee, my friend Rick went to morning prayer in the chapel at La Ferme de Trosly. I went upstairs and straightened my bedroom: Sheets and towels were dropped into the laundry basket in the hallway. Bedspreads and pillows were smoothed and clothes packed into the always handy Longchamp bag. I draped a trench coat and sweater over my arm and took the spiral steps down to the welcome desk. Leaving my things with Benedicta, I opened the door into a misty morning for a walk.

Prayer and Attentiveness

close up of tiny flowers growing on a mossy, rock wall in Trosly, France.

Tiny flowers on old stone wall, Trosly-Breuil, France. Photo: Mary van Balen

Praying

by Mary Oliver

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.”

close up of a tangle of roots and a snail shell on old mossy stone wall in Trosly, France

Tangle or roots, flowers, and a snail shell on old stone wall, Trosly-Breuil, France. Photo: Mary van Balen

 

View on a misty morning on Rue des Croisettes, Trosly, France.

Rue des Criosettes, Trosly-Breuil, France
Photo: Mary van Balen

 

Close up of Horse Chestnut tree blooms, Trosly, France.

Horse Chestnut blooms, Trosly-Breuil, France
Photo: Mary van Balen

 

close up of dew beads clinging to edge of red leaf

Dew beads, Trosly-Breuil, France Photo: Mary van Balen

 

Close up of purple and white lilacs

Lilacs, Trosly-Breuil, France Photo: Mary van Balen

 

The Val Fleuri, Trosly, France Photo: Mary van Balen

The Val Fleuri, Trosly-Breuil, France Photo: Mary van Balen

 

Close up of green weeds and plants covered with dew beside the road, Trosly, France

Beside the road, Trosly-Breuil, France Photo: Mary van Balen

 

Amen.

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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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Poetry and Prayer without Pews
March 13, 2016 By 2 Comments

Poetry and Prayer without Pews

Two books of Mary Oliver's poetry: "New and Selected Poems" and "Felicity."My day was off to a confused start. It was the time change. Usually, the clock by my bed adjusts for moving into or out of daylight savings time, but not this morning. Or maybe I just read it wrong. I hurried, washed my hair, and drove to church. No one was there. That’s when I realized: Daylight savings time was back. Sigh. Not a fan.

I decided to drive across town and retrieve my “Lorem Ipsum” scarf from the back seat of a friend’s car and to leave some of my columns for her. Took the wrong freeway. Circled back to catch the correct Interstate which I did, but in the wrong direction. Another circle and finally I was was headed east.

At home, I sat sipping coffee and chuckling at myself and the morning when the phone rang. It was my daughter. I gave her the rundown of the morning’s adventures before she could ask her question: What was the poem I had referenced in a text I sent to her last night. Something about what you’d do with your one wild and precious life.

Ah, the morning was wonderful again. “Mary Oliver’s ‘Summer Day’,” I said. Walking around the house, I found the book and began what became a poetry reading: “Summer Day,” “Roses,” “When Death Comes,” “Don’t Worry.”  Verse interspersed with my descriptions of Mary Oliver, the poet of attentiveness, prayer as attention, and then another poem.

I couldn’t stop, and my daughter was patient. I think she enjoyed it, actually. And when I hung up, I felt like I had been to church after all.

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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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