The Mug and Me
February 25, 2017 By 16 Comments

The Mug and Me

Close up photo of a cracked coffee cup sitting on office desk

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I fell in love with a coffee mug. Let me explain. It happened on Friday morning at work. I came in as usual, put my lunch in the refrigerator, walked to my desk, lowered my purse into the drawer, and returned to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. Then, back to my cubicle.

After signing in and switching IM and phone from offline to “I’m here” mode, I reached for the coffee and took a sip. That’s when I saw them—the dark lines of old cracks. Starting at the pitted rim, they formed a cross whose long vertical disappeared into the coffee.

Immediately, a physical feeling of kinship with the mug overwhelmed me. I’m not in the habit of falling in love with coffee mugs or other inanimate objects, but I couldn’t deny the strong bond I felt with this piece of ceramics. It wasn’t even a particularly attractive piece, just the generic, workplace mug, white with the company logo on one side and a sponsoring company’s logo on the other. Don’t get me wrong. I’m eternally grateful that my place of work provides not only free coffee all day long, but also real mugs to drink it out of; no Styrofoam or paper cups for us.

Still, compared to the collection of mugs that fill my kitchen cupboard, this one was plain. It wasn’t handmade, wood-fired, or a memento from a special place. But, it had my heart.

It was the cracks. The mug and I, we’ve been places and have the scars to prove it. We have imperfections. Weakness in glazes and materials, perhaps there from the beginning, that make us vulnerable. I can’t speak for the mug, but my journey has delivered some significant hits. I’ve taken them, some more gracefully than others, and moved on.

A level of comfort and acceptance connected the mug and me. I had no desire to return to the kitchen and find a newer, unblemished version. It was content to sit on my desk for the day, holding refills and steeping my tea.

Relieved of the desire for perfection, we were two wounded travelers with no need to hide cracks or gray hairs. We were simply taking the day as it came, just as we were.

© 2017 Mary van Balen

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A Time for Stories
February 9, 2017 By 4 Comments

A Time for Stories

Close up of springerle cookies

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Originally published in The Catholic Times, February 12, 2017

On my way to work, I stopped at the Cambridge Tea House to buy a currant scone. The crusty outside is just sweet enough and surrounds a tender center filled with currants. No jam needed. I prefer mine just as they come out of the oven, and when I’m early, they’re still warm.

Waiting for the young woman at the counter to ring up the purchase, I noticed small packages of intricately stamped springerele cookies resting on a glass plate. My daughter and I bake a few hundred each Christmas. Ours are anise flavored and decorated with bells and angels, but these were smaller, almond flavored, and covered with flowers and hearts for Valentine’s Day.

“They’re beautiful,” I said as the tea house owner and baker emerged from the kitchen.

“A local woman makes them,” she volunteered. I picked up one of the clear bags for a closer look. “The recipe’s 150 years old.”

I wondered aloud if she used baker’s ammonia or some other leavening.

“What’s baker’s ammonia? the younger woman asked.

So began the story. I told them about baking springereles using an old family recipe from a friend of my mother. “Baker’s ammonia is used in many old recipes. I used to buy it at pharmacies, but it’s more difficult to find now. You can order it online.” I described our technique that evolved from using a traditional wooden board carved with designs that we pressed into the dough to our current biscuit cutter/cookie stamp routine.

“After we cut and stamp the cookies, we spread them over the counter to dry overnight. Baker’s ammonia is heat activated, so they form a crusty top that keeps the stamped impression crisp when it bakes.”

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

As the story unwound, the three of us stood still, caught up not only in my story, but in the personal stories it evoked in each of us. Images from deep heart-places, rising to the surface, pulling along sights, sounds, smells, and emotion as they broke into consciousness. In silence, we breathed stories.

We recognized them in each other’s eyes, memories both unique and the same: delight in the preparation and sharing of special foods with loved ones, anguish faced over steaming cups of tea and coffee, or reverence before moments of grace when the veil of ordinariness slipped away revealing the extraordinary that’s always present.

modern painting circle of five people in an embrace

Painting by Richard Duarte Brown

Motionless, we paused, heartened by our connection. There we were, members of one family, God’s beloved community.

We should give thanks for the humble story, for the telling that reminds us of the basic connection of all human beings. It isn’t “them and us” as some would have us believe. “Other” is a fiction. Really, at the core, we are much the same. How to remember this in times of division?

Sharing story is one way, the ancient sacrament as old as humanity. Sometimes the details are unfamiliar: Details of lives lived as a part of the minority or of the privileged majority; details of living in poverty or in wealth; details of raising children or living as a single person; details of enjoying good health or suffering physical or mental illness. The list is endless.

But, if we listen to the stories of people who at first glance are “not like us,” we recognize common threads: Courage. Fear. Love and need for it. Desire to care for our children. To have enough to eat. The search for meaning and self-expression, acceptance and reverence.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen Rev. Robert Graetz telling his story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and current civil rights issues to a class of adult learners in the Even Start Program and their guests

PHOTO: Mary van Balen
Rev. Robert Graetz telling his story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and current civil rights issues to a class of adult learners in the Even Start Program and their guests

There are many stories we need to hear today from people both within and outside our usual circles: stories of people who think like us and those who don’t. People dealing with uncertainties of jobs and homes. There are stories of refugees, undocumented immigrants, ethnic and racial minorities, indigenous people, LGBT people, those who are abused.

Their stories cry out to be heard. Sometimes stories are told in books like “Hidden Figures” and film like the movie “Lion.” An Oscar nominated documentary on James Baldwin, “I Am Not Your Negro,” was released last week, and from reviews I’ve read, it’s filled with stories that can help us better understand race in our country.

Jesus used the power of story, moving his listeners to open their hearts to the stranger, to follow his example, to love. Story has the power to break barriers, to unite, to give heart, to change history. Or, less lofty, to shine the warm light of common humanity on an ordinary morning trek to work.

©2017 Mary van Balen

 

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

God’s Mercy, Me, and the Fig Tree

green fig on tree branch

PHOTO: Lynn Greyling Public Domain

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

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

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

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

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

I’m guessing lots.

 

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

Surprised by Pope Francis: Day and Merton

Close up of Dorothy Day

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2015 Mary van Balen

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September 25, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Pope Francis and the Common Good

Close up of Pope Francis addressing US Congress 9 24 2015

 

 

 

 

 

This past Sunday, while spending an evening with the Nuns on the Bus, I heard one man say that the words “the common good” had all but disappeared from public discourse. Today, Pope Francis put it back—front and center. He stood before Congress and in the first minutes of his speech, reminded those legislators: “You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics.”

I hope they were listening.

The organization of the Pope’s speech was masterful. He reminded us of values and struggles for liberty, freedom for all, social justice, and openness to dialogue and prayer by holding up four Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Many of his listeners may not have heard of Dorothy Day or Thomas Merton. Their lives and writings were integral to the development of my own values and spirituality in my late teens and early twenties. Thomas Merton’s books have a place in my study, and his quote from his theophany at Walnut and 42nd in Louisville, Kentucky hangs on my wall.

Pope Francis highlighted the need to address poverty and climate change. To welcome refugees and those seeking a better life. He warned against reducing complex issues of violence done in the name of religion to labels of “righteous” and “sinners.”  When speaking of the need to  respect life in all its stages, he called for an international ban on the death penalty. Throughout the fifty-some minutes that he spoke, he emphasized the imperative of working not for wealth or personal power, but for the good of all.

And, in a place where it has been tragically lacking, he called for cooperation:  “We must move forward

together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good. The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States.”

Pope Francis in front of assembled US Congress.

Pope Francis addressing US Congress 9 24 2015

Life the man himself, Pope Francis’s speech was also full of hope and optimisim. Of joy and love.

And then, when he finished, he left the halls of Congress and the assembly of rich and powerful to share lunch with homeless of Washington.

 

 

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President Obama and Pope Francis: Words to Ponder
September 24, 2015 By Leave a Comment

President Obama and Pope Francis: Words to Ponder

A picture of a smiling President Obama welcoming Pope Francis, also smiling, to the Whitehouse

PHOTO: THe Atlantic

I drove one of my daughters downtown to catch the Mega Bus. It pulled out just in time for me to begin listening to President Obama welcome the Pope to the United States. Eloquent and moving, his words, spoken as a man of faith, addressed the Pope saying “You shake our conscience from slumber; you call on us to rejoice in Good News, and give us confidence that we can come together, in humility and service, and pursue a world that is more loving, more just, and more free. Here at home and around the world, may our generation heed your call to “never remain on the sidelines of this march of living hope!”

The Pope’s address, delivered in English, challenged us to address issues of poverty, inclusion of those on the margins, and global warming. Referring to the urgency of dealing with climate change, he quoted Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, saying “…that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it.”

Pope Francis doesn’t avoid difficult topics. I’m looking forward to hearing his address to Congress tomorrow morning. And, just as much, to his sharing lunch with the homeless rather than with the congressional elite.  I love this pope!

Text of both speeches

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Encountering the Other
September 12, 2015 By Leave a Comment

Encountering the Other

modern painting circle of five people in an embrace

Painting by Richard Duarte Brown

Originally published in the Catholic Times, 9. 1315

A few days ago, while driving to work, I heard a story on NPR about the thousands of immigrants arriving on the small Greek island of Lesbos, refugees fleeing war and oppression in Syria, looking for a place to live. They risked a dangerous journey leaving everything behind and set off toward an unknown future. Husbands and wives, parents and children, friends and relatives, all willing to trust their lives to people and places they do not know.

Listening to reporters interviewing newly arrived refugees, I marveled at the joy in their voices. Thrilled to have survived the journey and to be standing on solid ground in a place free of war and the atrocities that accompany it, they spoke with such hope, such faith in God, or if not in God, in fellow human beings.

I wanted to rejoice with them, but concern tempered my delight as I wondered what the road ahead would bring for them: Mounds of paperwork and bureaucracy from governments hesitant to welcome so many people needing work and aid. Hostility and resistance from those who will feel threatened by their presence, by their “otherness.” Soon, frustration will replace the euphoria of the refugees’ first taste of freedom from constant fear and suffering.

Tragedy already darkens Syrian refugees’ arrival. The United Nations refugee agency reports that over 2,500 people have died this year trying to make the dangerous ocean crossing.

Driving home from work that same day, I heard an inspiring story of Icelanders who had formed a Facebook group, “Syria is Calling,” and is pressuring their government to take in more than the 50 refugees it had offered to accept—a lot more, 5,000. While the large number of people the group is proposing to welcome is impressive, it was the outpouring of individuals’ willingness to help that stirred my heart.

People offered to open up extra bedrooms in their homes and provide food, money, and house wares to help new arrivals settle in. This personal response is more demanding than putting a check in the mail, which is my plan. It means living with people who have different beliefs and values. In some cases, like sharing one’s home with strangers or welcoming them into your city, such action means daily encountering the “other” with openness and reverence for their personhood. It means, in the midst of serious complexities, maintaining the belief that we are more alike than different.

This post from “Syria is Calling” eloquently proclaims this truth: “Refugees are our future spouses, best friends, our next soul mate, the drummer in our children’s band, our next colleague, Miss Iceland 2022, the carpenter who finally fixes our bathroom, the chef in the cafeteria, the fireman, the hacker and the television host. People who we’ll never be able to say to: ‘Your life is worth less than mine.’”

These words challenge all of us around the globe to examine our own attitude toward the “other,” not only the Syrian refugees, but the marginalized people who live in our own cities and neighborhoods.

The Letter of Saint James, included in this Sunday’s readings, speaks forcefully about the responsibility of Christians to put their faith into action: “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Fear of those who are not like us is no excuse; it is a human failing that must be confronted and transformed by love, a process that can take a lifetime. It is a process that requires encounter.

But suffering and injustice can’t wait for lifetimes. Our faith, our humanity, requires action before we are comfortable. We must respond with love despite our fear, and incrementally, our hearts will change. As Jesus said, love will cast out fear. We are all other to someone. Encounter will transform us: those in position to give and those who receive, privileged with voice and marginalized with none.

© 2015 Mary van Balen

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A Weary Prophet
August 20, 2015 By Leave a Comment

A Weary Prophet

Elijah being touched by an angel with yellow wings

Marc Chagall, Elijah Touched by an Angel, from the Bible suite, 1958. Image source: The Jewish Museum, New York

First published in the Catholic Times, newspaper of the Catholic diocese of Columbus, OH August 16, 2015

 

This Sunday’s reading tells the story of a prophet who is worn out and discouraged. He has served God, trying to bring people back to Yahweh, trying to change the hearts of King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel who was a follower of Baal. She had many of Israel’s prophets killed. In an effort to call them all back to the Lord, Elijah spoke to the people and set up a spectacular contest. Hundreds gathered on Mount Carmel. He instructed the 450 prophets of Baal to pick a bull, cut it up, and place it on wood stacked for a fire, but not lit. That would be Baal’s job. Elijah would do the same when they had finished, calling on Yahweh to set his sacrifice ablaze.

The prophets went to work, but no amount of chanting or dancing could raise a response from Baal. When they gave up, Elijah built an altar of stone, arranged the wood, and placed the sacrifice on it. He dug a deep trench around the altar, and ordered water poured over the bull, wood, and earth. Three times he instructed them to do so until everything was soaked and the trench full.

Then, he prayed, simply. Yahweh’s power exploded in flame, consuming the bull, wood, parching the earth, and drying the trench. The people were convinced and helped Elijah slaughter all the prophets of Baal. On hearing of the contest and slaughter of the prophets, Jezebel vowed to take Elijah’s life before another day passed.

That is where we meet Elijah in Sunday’s reading. He has fled into the wilderness to save his life. Exhausted, he sits under a broom tree and prays the prayer of the despondent. He had had enough, blamed himself, and was ready to die. “Take my life,” he says. “I’m done.” He had tried his best, failed, and was alone.

Haven’t most of us, at one time or another, had similar feelings? Life sometimes brings tragedy, chronic illness, or emotional pain. Many in our world live in poverty or daily encounter discrimination and oppression. Some wake in the morning not sure where they will find the day’s food. Through it all, we try to be faithful. To trust God with us.

But sometimes, like Elijah, we are worn out. Maybe our struggle is not dramatic. It can be a nagging discontent. A doubt about what is ahead. Whatever it is, large or small, sometimes it wears us out. We are tired and discouraged, and God doesn’t seem to be around.

The prophet’s story, at one time or another, is our own. Worn out, he utters his prayer and falls asleep. I’m not sure what he expected, but I doubt it was the angel’s touch, waking him and providing food and drink. He does, then falls back to sleep. The angel comes again and orders him to eat “…else the journey will be too long for you!”

Despite the sternness of the angel’s directions, the scene has gentleness about it. God knows what Elijah needs: Sleep, food, and drink. The angel’s demands aren’t harsh, but are like those of a mother who knows what her child needs even when he doesn’t. So she tells him: Eat. Turn out the light and go to bed.

Elijah did as he was told. The rest and food gave him strength to make a long journey. I wonder what he thought as he put one foot in front of the other for days. How he prayed, if he recognized God walking with him as he went along. Sometimes we work things out in our own minds, and sometimes, we just keep going and they work out themselves. Sometimes we pray and sometimes God prays for us. I imagine both things happened to the Elijah.

Then, when he arrived at Mount Horeb, the prophet received something else he needed: an experience of God, not in storms, earthquakes, or fire, but in a quiet whisper of a voice.

This isn’t the whole story. It’s a great one to read from beginning to end, not just the bit we hear on Sunday. As I read I was moved by God’s tenderness and care for this weary prophet. and remembered an African saying, shared by a friend years ago: The strength of the fish is in the water.

For the fish, water is everything. For Elijah, when he knew it and when he didn’t…for us, our strength is in God. For us, God is everything.

© 2015 Mary van Balen

 

 

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A Mindful Day
May 8, 2015 By Leave a Comment

A Mindful Day

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like God is in hiding. Sometimes that sense of absence lasts a long time. One day, while thinking about that, I decided to take a “Mindful” day, borrowing the term from the Buddhist practice of “mindfulness.”

“Perhaps this disconnect has something to do with my lack of being present to the moment,” I thought. Ironic, since that is what I often write about in this column. “Easier said than done,” or “Easier written than done,” in my case.

I started the day with mass at St. Thomas. A little late, but rush hour traffic tied me up on the trip across town. Despite frustration with lanes of slow moving cars, I managed to take a deep breath and relax. I noticed the sky, battled the wind buffeting my little Civic, and sat through four turns of the traffic light at 5th and Cassady before walking into church.

Next was a drive down Route 33 for allergy shots. I resisted the temptation to use the drive as an opportunity to catch up with one of my daughters and instead, paid attention to the countryside stretching out on either side of the highway.

The morning light was spectacular. Spring’s greens included a wide spectrum of color. I thought of the debated claim that Inuit people of Northern Canada have fifty or more words to refer to snow (Anthropologist, Franz Boas’s study in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s has been debated ever since.)

“We should have more words for ‘green’,” I thought. I suppose we do if you count adjective descriptors like “sap green” (a favorite water color hue), “Kelly green,” “olive green,” and “forest green.”

What about the green that seems to have sucked up sunlight through the plant’s roots, appearing to glow green from inside out? Or the green that calls us to “watch this space,” with leaves shining with emerging life, changing from hour to hour?

The entire day was like that. I recognized courage and perseverance in the gait of an older man struggling up the slight incline from parking lot to sidewalk in front of a doctor’s office. Appreciation for his effort stirred in my heart, and I stood respectfully by, telling him not to hurry despite his blocking my car door. Like an honor guard for a returning soldier, I stood straight as he moved slowly by. Life is difficult and he was “keeping on,” as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie said.

One by one, experience by experience, the day nurtured my soul as I paid attention to where I was, turning away from the temptation to fret over the past, worry about the future, or multi-task while eating by reading email or New York Times headline articles. (To all the mothers out there who survive by multi-tasking at home and at work, mindfulness can be like a drink of cool water on a hot day.) I savored tastes and ate slowly, an accomplishment for one who chews a few times and then swallows.

By the end of the day, which I celebrated with a call from my youngest daughter then candles and Rumi at bedtime, I felt full, fuller in spirit than I had been for quite a while.

Mindfulness isn’t a miracle cure for spiritual emptiness or feeling distant from the One we long for. Still, being truly present to the moment helped me recognize the beauty of nature and of souls, and the wonder and Mystery bursting life at its seams. That’s the conventional wisdom, isn’t it? You don’t meet God in the past or future, but in the present. I was able to ponder the possibility that the Divine truly is reaching out from every direction, including from within, to connect with us. (This is much more difficult to do if one is watching reruns of The West Wing or Frazier on Netflix in order to distract from uncomfortable chatter in one’s mind.)

“You sound great,” my daughter observed during our phone conversation.

I shared my “mindful day” with her and heard myself saying, “ This day nourished me.” And when I finally closed my eyes, I had the smallest sense that God was right there with me.

© 2015 Mary van Balen

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Mercy and a Fresh Start
March 23, 2015 By 2 Comments

Mercy and a Fresh Start

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Here I am, at the beginning of three days off. I began well enough, attending morning mass with a handful of other parishioners, most of whom are regulars in the mornings. I’m not. My friend, Fr. Denis, greeted me with his dazzling smile and a hug. “What a good surprise to have you here. Maybe today’s readings will provide you with a story for your work.”

As Denis said in his homily, he read the short version of the account from Daniel, figuring we could fill in the other few pages that read like modern soap operas. Nothing changes. In the Old Testament reading, two old men with egos smarting after a beautiful young woman spurned their sexual advances, accused her of adultery. They couldn’t get their stories straight when questioned by Daniel, and instead of condemning the woman, Daniel pronounced a gruesome punishment for her accusers: being split in two by sword-wielding angels.

The New Testament reading featured adultery as well. This time the woman had been caught in the act. They guy as well, I presume, since it takes two, but he slipped away unscathed, leaving the woman to face the righteous crowd eager to stone her to death. Enter Jesus. He bends down and draws something in the sand, then instructs the one who has not sinned to throw the first stone. Well, that pretty well doused their enthusiasm, and they walked away, forced to reflect on their own sins. Jesus didn’t condemn anyone; he simply instructed the woman to go and sin no more.

Forgiveness and mercy. Encouragement. And a dose of reality: None of us is without failings. Maybe that’s why it’s easier to focus on the sin outside of us rather than what’s closer to home. It’s the old story of getting all worked up over the speck in your neighbor’s eye while ignoring the log in your own.

The story I took away from mass wasn’t the ever-present struggle with weakness and the propensity to do what we know isn’t good for us or for the world. Like letting water run when you brush your teeth. Or pouring pesticides that kill bees on your garden. Or wasting time or food. Or  letting anger and anxiety get the best of you instead of “being peace.” Or ranting about the sorry state of Congress.

No. I walked out of there grateful that Jesus didn’t call down avenging angels or condemn anyone, but instead invited them to reflection and a fresh start.

I drove home and indulged in celebration of my three days off by making and sharing blueberry pancakes and bacon with my daughter. Someone once told me that we should seize every opportunity to celebrate, and I follow that advice as often as possible.

Then, instead of getting right to work on all the things I hoped to accomplish in the next seventy-two hours, I succumbed to distractions like buying a coffee while shopping for a few groceries, cleaning the kitchen, and checking email. Not bad. Then I played two games of spider solitaire. Talk about wasting time. It takes awhile because when it becomes obvious that the game is bound to end with a low score, I don’t finish it, but start over, hoping for better cards.

Flipping the cover down over my iPad, I lit my prayer candle and finally settled into work on a book project and readings for a class, counting on Jesus’ mercy and a fresh start.

© 2015 Mary van Balen

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