Holding Both Grief and Hope
December 5, 2024 By 12 Comments

Holding Both Grief and Hope

This column is more political than my usual offerings. I can’t talk about spirituality as if it exists in a vacuum. Many of my readers will resonate with my thoughts and feelings. Others may not. But I must do what is mine to do.

I began writing this column in September, when I woke up thinking “hope.” Feeling hope. While that may not seem surprising, it was for me. In the middle of election season, I had been living with dread and fear about the future. No matter how deep it’s pushed down or how purposely ignored, fear sucks hope right out of a person. That was me.  

What allowed me to throw fear out and embrace hope instead? The Democratic National Convention. Instead of the vengeful rhetoric espoused by some Republican candidates aimed at stirring up fear and keeping us down and apart, there was hope. There was a positive view of the future that included everyone. No hateful misinformation about the transgender community. No disparaging remarks about immigrants or calling for mass deportation. No whitewashing the part race and slavery played (and plays) in U.S. history.

When the cameras scanned the crowd, diversity was everywhere. It was celebrated by those who spoke and in what they said. It seemed possible that this country could embrace compassion and love of neighbor. It seemed possible that we could, together, move in a more positive way through the challenges and tragedies of our world. Perhaps we could believe that we are, indeed, more alike than we are different.

When I woke up on November 6, fear and anger again had replaced my hope, and dread for the future was taking over. The vision of inclusion, respect and moving forward together was replaced by one of negativity, revenge, and disrespect of “other.” The highjacking of “Christianity,” putting it into service of an approach that seems anything but Christian, continues to sweep the country. Efforts to enshrine Evangelical White Christian Nationalism as the official religion of the U.S. is grossly un-American.

I wasn’t alone in my “morning after” despair.  Many concerned with climate change heard “Drill, baby drill,” with disbelief. Many concerned with women’s rights heard “Your body, my choice,” with dismay. And basic human rights? Democratic institutions?

Struggling with all this, I listen to many wisdom voices, past and present: my faith and spiritual/wisdom teachers of many traditions; civil rights leaders; psychologists and counselors; poets; good friends. In addition to eating well and incorporating exercise into the day, here are thoughts on getting through these difficult times:

Grieve Alone and Together

Recognize feelings and emotions. Experience them. Feel sorrow, anger, fear, and despair. Weep. Rant. Vent. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with friends who can hold your tears and love you when you’re a mess. Find communities where you can share your grief. When one member has no hope, someone there will. Remember, grief isn’t once and done.

Who are the people, the communities that can hold you, support you, love you? Who are those who share your sorrow? Who are those with whom you can both grieve and find hope?

Find a Place Where Grace Flows

The week after the election found me on Chincoteague Island with my daughter. The ocean draws me into a contemplative space, opening my soul to release emotions – joy, gratitude, grief, sorrow – as well as to receive grace of healing, wonder, and gratitude.

My salty tears mingled with salty air. I rejoiced at the birds’ antics and wondered at shells at my feet. I laughed, prayed, and sang into to the pounding of wave after wave on the sand. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with my daughter. Together we watched the Supermoon rise, the king tide flood the marshlands, and herons wait patiently along the banks until the water receded and they could resume their mindful-walking fishing practice.

My ocean visits are few and precious. I have other Grace places: a small, neighborhood woods; a local café where I go to write; art museums; a friend’s kitchen table; my favorite chair flanked with a handmade table that holds a mug of tea and a stack of books.

What are your ordinary as well as extraordinary places where Grace flows? As Robert Lax would advise, go there often.

Establish a Grounding Practice

page of nature journal painting of shell litter people walking beach wrirtint
Nature Journal page

Take time for spirit-nourishing practices.

At the beach condo, my daughter set up a long table filled with art and journaling supplies. Every day we showed up there, like pilgrims to a holy place. She painted. I created page after page in my nature journal: mosaics of small drawings, paintings, and words.

Journaling/Art

For some, journaling and creative arts are prayerful, centering activities. While on Chincoteague I didn’t work on my current book project. I didn’t write this long overdue column. Now, back home, those projects call for my attention along with piles of laundry, dishes, and routine chores. While I can’t give hours every day to nature journaling, I’ll try for one day a week. And I can be faithful to my regular journaling practice.

Quiet Time/Prayer

During information overload, refrain from too much news consumption and social media scrolling. Make time for quiet. I’m reestablishing a morning routine of sipping tea, twenty minutes of quiet prayer, and reading.Throughout the day I take a few moments, breathe deeply and remember that I live and move in the Presence of the Sacred, no matter what I’m doing.

Quiet walks around the neighborhood or in a park can provide mental and spiritual spaciousness.

Give yourself the gift of time to engage in practices that help ground you and sink deep into your center. Encounter the Sacred that dwells there. The Goodness that cannot be overcome.

Move Forward

In a New York Times opinion piece “How Not to Fall Into Despair,” Brad Stulberg quotes Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl and uses his term “tragic optimism.” It involves acknowledging pain and hardship and in the face of it, moving forward in a positive way.

It’s the “both/and” stance central to many religions, including Christianity. Jesus lived acknowledging and confronting the evils of his day while still finding room in his heart to hold love, forgiveness, and hope.

He lived compassionate engagement, hanging out with the marginalized and calling his followers to care for the poor, widows, and orphans. Love God and your neighbor as yourself, he said. He didn’t list exclusions. He didn’t ignore the oppressors in power but didn’t let fear paralyze him.

What is mine to do?

One friend said she was taking the “left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot” approach. Not looking into the future but being present to the moment and to what she could do where she was, to put kindness and compassion into the world. Another is concentrating on volunteering for organizations that serve others in her city. Both are claiming agency rather than helplessness.

It involves what Stulberg calls “wise hope and wise action.” Not hope born of denial, thinking that if we just wait long enough, things will get better, but seeing things for what they are and still taking action.

In his final written message published in the New York Times after his death, the great civil rights activist John Lewis charged us to do that. To stand up and speak out when we see something that isn’t right. “Democracy is not a state.” He said. “It is an act.”

I am overwhelmed by what is happening. I feel helpless. But I’m not. I can do what I can do where I am. I can write. I can be kind to strangers and the marginalized. I can donate to organizations that support causes I believe in, especially those that serve targeted populations threatened by the wave of “othering” spreading across the country. I can stay informed, write to Congressional representatives. I can speak up to representatives in my state government when they propose and pass legislation that demonizes and oppresses monitories.

Darkness doesn’t have to win in the long run. Not when enough people inject the light of love and compassion into the night.

What is yours to do? How can you claim agency and move forward?

The Long View

looking out over ocean. Dark cloudy day with sun peeking through

Recently I stood with a woman on the beach, both of us looking across the ocean. “Stay connected to nature,” she said. “It will help with the long view. It will give you strength. It endures.”

Sitting in the National Gallery of Art in front of two van Gogh masterpieces I remembered that people suffering in all kinds of ways throughout history have been able to see beauty and hope through their grief and found ways to share it with the world.

In dark times, I find it difficult to believe that the moral arch indeed bends toward justice. But Viktor Frankl, John Lewis, and countless others, known and unknown, did. And they knew the truth of that saying depends on individual action. They lived holding both grief and hope in their hearts and found courage to move on.

Jesus did. Those who strive to imitate his life, to follow his Way, will too. It’s not a “Christianity” that storms the Capitol with violence when things don’t go your way. It’s not a “Christianity” that sees some people as expendable and deserving of disrespect. It strives to serve the common good. It’s a both/and faith. It’s a grief/hope faith. It doesn’t deny pain, oppression, and suffering. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. But he kept on going, living with compassion.

May it be so.

Sources

Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation by John Lewis

How Not to Fall Into Despair by Brad Stulberg

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With Gratitude for Mary Oliver
September 19, 2024 By 6 Comments

With Gratitude for Mary Oliver

September 10 was Mary Oliver’s birthday. It would have been her 89th. I thought of her that morning as I walked into my living room. The sun poured through the window over the buffet, flooding the plants, shells, and other treasures that live there with light.

Hello, sun in my face
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crochety—...

I recited her poem “Why I Wake Early.” It has become my morning prayer whenever the sun greets me by spreading its light over the chair and couch, painting the hardwood floor with yellow stripes reaching to the dining table at the other end of the room.

Mary Oliver is part of my morning reading, and in her honor, I treated myself with a few favorites. Years ago, when I first read it, “At the River Clarion” won my heart with the opening line: I don’t know who God is exactly. Yes. After years of listening, searching, and studying, I still say the same thing. Attention to creation provided hints to the poet. The river splashing across the stone where she sat. The stone itself. The mosses under the water. They spoke to her of holiness and the part of it all things are. Not a message quickly heard, she said, but one understood by being present to the moment, day by day by day.

In the poem, she wonders how one gets “to suspect such an idea,” being a tiny piece of God. Perhaps it’s as 20th century theologian Karl Rahner articulated: God’s enlivening presence within all from the start creates a desire for something beyond ourselves and enables a response to the Divine.

I remember in my high school years, corresponding with a friend’s cousin who was a lay brother at the Dominical House of Prayer in Washington, D.C. I treasured our letters and wrote that we are all part of the wholeness of God. All holding some bit of God, like a puzzle piece, deep within. And when all things finally gathered together, God would be wholly present. What planted that sense in my teenage heart? If Rahner was right, it was there from the start, calling for openness to Mystery and attention.

As Mary Oliver so clearly understood, we are called to notice. Seeking is unnecessary since God is already here. But attentiveness and quiet have something to do with deepening the relationship with the Holy within and without.

Recently, I spent a day with two friends I have known since we were in our late teens. Like beautiful threads, we weave in and out of one another’s life tapestries. Sharing our spiritual journeys is always part of the conversation. Nestled in the woods on the edge of the Hocking Hills, their home is simple yet adorned with beautiful bits of nature and art (many pieces made by friends). Chairs and couches are arranged in a cozy circle good for talking, and the kitchen, complete with a long table, welcomes family and friends.

We shared memories of past gatherings and coming adventures, titles of books we’re currently reading as well as ones that are staples of our lives. We read poetry, caught up on our families, and ate delicious homemade soup and bread while sipping iced tea.

On our walk, light filtered by trees on our right made beautiful patterns across the road and the tree trunks on our left. Nuthatches and chickadees had their lunch at the large feeder and woodpeckers’ drumming announced they were finding theirs elsewhere.

And while I spoke of my soul’s longing to spend days with the ocean, the woody beauty called out for attention. When given to the place where I was at that moment, attention revealed Mystery and Love waiting there.

Oliver’s poem “Praying” begins by pointing out that an encounter with Holy Presence need not be occasioned by something particularly stunning. She says it doesn’t have to be a blue iris. I’d say it doesn’t have to be the ocean.

ocean shore
dandelion and weeds
fossil rocks, snail shells leaves

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.

Mary Oliver generously shared the fruit of her attention and journey with us in volumes of poetry. I give thanks. And while I’m still hoping for a week or two at a beach before the year is out, I will try to heed her admonition in “Messenger,” that “My work is loving the world…” and that despite having old boots, a torn coat, and arriving at mid-seventies “…still not half perfect …” I will focus on what is mine to do. She sums it up in her poem “Sometimes”:

“Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it… “

Thank you, Mary Oliver.

Sources:

“Why I Wake Early” by Mary Oliver   Published in Why I Wake Early  (2004) p. 3

“At the River Clarion” by Mary Oliver   Published in Evidence (2000)

“Praying”  by Mary Oliver  Published in Thirst ( 2006) p. 37

“Messenger” by Mary Oliver   Published in Thirst (2006) p. 1

“Sometimes” by Mary Oliver   Published in Red Bird (2008) p. 35-38

All these poems and many more, have been published in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (2019). She arranged these poems herself from her books published from 1963 to 2015! If you love Mary Oliver, this is a book to own!

You can purchase it online from Bookshop.org and support independent bookstores across the country. if you have a favorite, you can even choose the bookstore you would like to support. Mine is Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio

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Aurora: Using the Right Lens
May 22, 2024 By 2 Comments

Aurora: Using the Right Lens

Who would’ve guessed? Viewing the Aurora Borealis close on the heels of experiencing a total solar eclipse, both from Ohio! Not me. I read about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights much further south than usual and looked forward to the event. But the evening arrived, and after a busy day of running errands, I had forgotten. I settled into my recliner ready for a quiet evening when an urgent shout broke into my reverie:

“Jordan! Jordan!” my neighbor yelled to his friend in the apartment above mine.

An emergency? Someone’s hurt? My phone rang: “Mary, get out here! You can see them!”

Thank goodness for my neighbors. In minutes, six of us lined up in my driveway. Chairs for everyone, but mostly we stood. I put on water for tea (It was chilly.) and called my sister and her husband.

The aurora had arrived, even in the city, and joined a bright crescent moon, planets, and stars in the clear night sky. Despite streetlamps and security lights, swaths of purple, pink, and green danced over apartments and trees.

“Look through your phone,” someone called out, and I remembered an interesting fact from articles giving instructions on when and how to watch. Auroras are the result of streams of charged particles ejected from magnetic storms on the sun and propelled into space. Some reach earth and glow with colored light when they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms as they speed into our upper atmosphere. The rare strength of the solar storms the days before and force with which the large the particle streams were expelled from the sun pushed the aurora south. As amazing as the human eye is, the lenses in cell phones are much better at collecting light, including that emitted by the glowing particles.

Pale purplish pink hues became stunning magenta when viewed through the phones. Greens popped from soft to brilliant. So, there we stood, looking with our eyes then marveling at the sight through our phone lenses. This solar system, our home, has been e What else awaits discovery?

Photo: Janet Souder
Photo: Janet Souder

What else – on our planet, in the universe – emanates beauty simply by being? What windows into truth and mystery surround us? And how can we see them? What lenses might we need? I wondered about this for a few days, and the question came along as I walked along the Scioto River and saw a blue heron, tall and majestic. There he was, a pillar of peace and stillness with mallards fussing and flitting about, chasing one another away with loud honks and flapping wings that splashed in the water. The heron remained focused, and one slow, purposeful step at a time, moved through the water without disturbing its surface.

How did he see his watery world, I wondered. And what about lenses of other creatures and the ones that enhance (or cloud) my own vision?

Sometimes I use a jeweler’s loupe to examine ordinary objects. Sometimes I use lenses on my stereomicroscope to look extremely closely and discover complexity, pattern, and design of ordinary objects invisible to the naked eye.

With the help of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes we can look deeply into the universe and back in time to its beginnings. We see stars being born and galaxies speeding away from one another.

But lenses don’t always make things clearer. They can alter or obscure. Our perception can be distorted when we look with eyes, hearts, and minds clouded by prejudices, fear, and anger. Have you ever shared an experience with others and come away shaking your head when various accounts of what happened are at opposite ends of the spectrum? (Think, January 6.) Different lenes.

How, I wondered, can I “clean my lenses” and be aware of everyday wonders of creation? They needn’t be auroras or solar eclipses to inspire and enchant, revealing the Sacred simply by being. To see divinity dwelling not only in nature and creation around me but also within my own heart? To see that the Incarnation did not start with Jesus of Nazareth, but with the Big Bang—everything infused with the Spirit of the Source.

Seeing through the lens of Grace can be a challenge. A line from the play “Our Town” comes to mind. “Who,” wonders Emily while revisiting a day in her life after she had died, “who realizes the beauty and wonder of ordinary life as it is lived, moment by moment.” The stage manager answers, “The saints and poets, maybe they do some.”

How to develop such an eye? “Be present to the moment,” I think, “wide-eyed and open-hearted.” Nurture curiosity. Befriend quiet and get in touch with one’s deepest center. Cultivate the practices of wonder and awe. Look closely, beyond what we see at first glance – including people as well as the rest of creation. And discover what clouds our vision and do what we can to wipe them from the heart.

What a gift the spectacular cosmic displays have been, reminders of the Glory that surrounds us if we have the eyes and heart to see.

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Morning Prayer at the Café
August 15, 2022 By 16 Comments

Morning Prayer at the Café

I’m spending more time outside this summer than I have in years, mostly walking but sometimes reading poetry and sipping tea on the porch.  Or, as now, enjoying time at a small French Bakery and Bistro before the afternoon heat arrives.

I arrived early to meet a friend and spent twenty minutes walking around the neighborhood then returned to La Chatelaine and waited. When my friend didn’t appear, I texted: “What a beautiful morning for coffee and a chat! I’m here.” He responded: “Oh no! Not this Wednesday. Next Wednesday. So sorry for the misunderstanding.” He was right. His text had clearly stated next week as a good time to meet.

Not to squander the opportunity to sit outside at the lovely café, I bought a coffee and pastry, borrowed a pen from the young woman at the counter (Couldn’t believe I didn’t have a pen along with the notebook in my cavernous purse!), and returned outside to the cool morning.

Traffic picked up, and several people went into the Bistro and emerged carrying coffees or breakfasts to go. An ambulance sped by; its sirens blaring. A quiet Hail Mary sprang to my lips, an enduring practice ingrained by the nuns in Catholic elementary school. A siren meant someone was in trouble, unexpectedly sick, or had been in an accident. They were in need, and when we heard one, we stopped our work and prayed for them.

Sixty years later I still do, though not always a Hail Mary. More often I utter something simple like “Help them. Love, be with them.” Or maybe I hold them silently in my heart as I am mindful of the Holy One, the healer and comforter, present to them in the moment.

I don’t hesitate to whisper into the Sacred ear a reminder to hold the suffering person a bit closer and to fill the hearts of those caring for them with compassion. I figure even the Holy One can use a reminder. “Don’t forget this one,” I say. It’s the mom in me. I know she’ll understand.

Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

The ambulance passed, and I turned to my notebook. I love coming to this place. Perhaps because it’s not the inside of my modest apartment or because it reminds me of time spent in Parisian cafes. Or maybe because it is what it is: A charming space on a busy American street that offers amazing French pastries and an outside area to sit around tables under big canvas umbrellas, a shady canopy so like the green ones in Parisian parks.

I savored the last bit of flaky palmier that tasted like the creme horns I devoured as a child when mom gave us a few quarters to spend at the bakery as she shopped at the grocery next door.

Palmiers have no filling nor the cloying sweetness of the thick, sticky cream that filled my childhood treats, but the flavor is similar enough to bring back memories with each bite. I push the empty plate away, an offering for the sparrows that scavenge on the patio and tables to feast on crumbs patrons leave behind.

“How lucky to be able to do this,” I thought. “To sit. Feel cool air. Watch traffic. Sip coffee and write in my notebook.” It’s the life I imagine that I want and then am sometimes surprised to discover I already have. While not near the ocean, the perennial pull for me, it is in a place of relative peace. There are no bombs dropping. No war at my doorstep. I can enjoy the sounds of friends meeting for breakfast or indulge in conversation with a guy who walked from his office to work outside.

Following the sparrows, my eyes moved to their perches on gnarly branches that spread from two, low-growing trees bordering the patio. The twisted lines, the mottled bark of browns and greys begged to be sketched or painted. They reminded me of trees in some of van Gogh’s work or Monet’s. I took a few photos, thinking I might give it a try.  

Overwhelmed by the moment, I moved into quiet prayer, filled with wonder and gratitude for Divine Life stirring within, swirling without. Freely given. The simple but transforming experience that pulls us all into the circle of mystics: experiencing communion with Holy Mystery right where we are. Eventually I opened my notebook, clicked my borrowed pen, and guided it over the pages. Words and more words. They helped me unpack the morning’s glory. They are my prayer of thanksgiving.

Watercolor sketch Mary van Balen 10.2021
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Dreams, Hope, and “Making Do”
February 27, 2022 By 6 Comments

Dreams, Hope, and “Making Do”

During February, Black History month, I read work by Black authors, poets, and theologians. As the month ends and world events take an even darker turn with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a section of book Love Is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times keeps surfacing in my thoughts. According to its author, Bishop Michael Curry, his grandmother and aunts knew how to hold on to hope despite “… the titanic power of death, hatred, violence, bigotry, injustice, cruelty, and indifference.” They sank their roots into ancestral wisdom accumulated through centuries of unspeakable horrors. They not only survived, he would say, but they thrived. They found joy.

My heart thirsts for such wisdom. For hope when the world seems to be falling apart. It’s not only the latest flagrant violation of human rights and international law instigated by Russia’s strongman president that anguishes my heart, though that’s top of mind now. It’s also the lack of collective will to deal with climate change. It’s the eagerness of many lawmakers in this country to legislate ignorance of its history and obfuscation of the truth because the dark chapters cause discomfort (as they should). Requiring teachers to wear microphones to monitor what they teach has been proposed in Florida’s state legislature. Remember “Big Brother” anyone? Republican legislators speaking at White nationalist gatherings. Attacks on transgender youth and their parents. Evil seems to be winning.

So, what did Curry’s grandma know that might help me hold on to hope? She knew how to “make do.” In the kitchen, that meant taking cheap cuts of meat and vegetable scraps, whatever they could afford, and turning them into delicious feasts of soul food for family and friends. “Making do” extended beyond the kitchen.

It meant taking the reality of the present, imagining possibilities, and making something new. Curry cites St. Paul, “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” That’s “making do.” It sounds pie-in-the-sky. Naïve. Impossible. But the way of love is the only way to combat hate.

Painting by Gaye Reissland of diverse group of people with hands held high forming a heart shape with their fingers while approaching the Statue of Liberty.
Gaye Reissland acrylic on canvas 26″ x 12″ Painted for the Columbus Crossing Borders Project

Curry highlights three ingredients of “making do.”

Ancestral Wisdom

The first is a deep dive into one’s tradition that’s more than rituals or surface observances. Delve into the wisdom of your ancestors and find the truths that enabled them to contend with the evils and challenges they encountered. He writes from the perspective of a Black man in America, looking to those who faced slavery, violence, and oppression yet still had hope for the future.

Besides finding inspiration from his stories, this call to draw from ancestral wisdom pulled me to stories of my Dutch relatives who participated in resistance movements during World War II. Of my father and so many of his generation who joined the battle against Hitler and Nazism. Of my grandmother, Becky, who made soup with a beet tossed to my mother by a vegetable vendor during the depression. Becky welcomed into her home a young woman who needed refuge from an unhealthy family situation. She lived with my grandmother and mom until she married.

Painting of heart with a green plant sinking its roots into the center
Watercolor: Mary van Balen

I find wisdom and support in the faith tradition of my roots: incarnational theology, social justice teachings, spiritual mentors like saints Benedict and Francis, like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

Heroes like John Lewis, who never lost hope, left us his hard-won wisdom and a call to embrace the path of non-violence and love in the face of evil. It’s a long road requiring deep faith and immense courage, but it’s the only way that eventually brings true reconciliation and peace.

Imagination

Imagination is the second ingredient of “making do.”  While faced with grim realities, some people imagine possibilities. They hang on to dreams of what the world could be; dreams that often are considered unrealistic. But think of movements and people who have changed the world. They all imagined something better, held on to their dreams, and worked courageously to make them happen. As Curry pointed out in his book, after his “bush-side” chat with God, Moses dreamed of a world without slavery.

Civil Rights leaders from Gandhi to Mandela to Martin Luther King Jr. all had dreams that ordinary people standing up to corruption and evil could change the world. The dream of Paul Farmer, the doctor, humanitarian, and medical anthropologist who died unexpectedly on February 21, was to bring state-of-the-art healthcare to the world’s poor. To most in that field, his vision seemed impossible. But along with a few friends and colleagues, he co-founded Partners in Health and changed the trajectory of global health efforts. Movements like “Black Lives Matter” and “MeToo” were begun by people who imagined a world without systemic racism or socially accepted abuse of women.

Today, Ukraine’s president Zelensky and the Ukrainian people clutch the dream that they can stand together, overcome ruthless Russian aggression, and remain a democracy. With support from the rest of the world, I pray they do.

It’s not foolish to hold on to a dream of a better world. It’s essential. Harlem Renaissance writer and poet Langston Hughes expressed their importance in his poem, “Dreams.” He called his readers to “Hold fast to dreams,” and wrote that when dreams die, “Life is a broken-winged bird/That cannot fly.”

God

The third ingredient Curry lists is God. Just as altering or adding a variable in an equation changes the outcome, Curry says, “When God—that loving benevolence behind creation, whose judgement supersedes all else—is factored into the reality of life and living, something changes for the good…Another possibility emerges.”

I don’t pretend to know how that works, how prayer makes a difference, but I believe it does. Perhaps when one is open to sacred Presence of Love and Goodness, that transforming Love flows through them freely into the world. Even a little bit. I believe Love let loose in the universe changes things for the better.

I also know that when facing fear and difficulties in my life, experiencing that Presence within provided the courage I needed to move forward. Courage to make decisions that brought love into the small part of the world I inhabit. I am not alone in the mess of life. No one is. The Holy One is within and is shared through those around us and through creation.

If evil and hate, spewed into life by a few or many, changes reality (the situation in Ukraine, for example), then infusion of goodness and love must also make a difference.

Photo of beach at dawn
Dawn at the beach PHOTO: Kathryn Holt

Finding hope

I’m still not awash in hope but I have dipped the fingers of my soul in it. I feel it in the courage and resolve of those around the world holding on to dreams in these days of crisis and anguish. I see evidence of it in lives of those who endured such times and worse in days gone by. People who have persevered in hope and who have made a difference. And I have experienced the Holy One within and seen that Love in others.

Hope, like prayer, is a communal thing. When I have none, I can draw on the hope of others. And when others find their hope buried beneath the days’ anguish and somehow, that day, if hope lives in my soul, they can draw on mine. It is through each of us that God is present. Individual acts of love seem small and ineffective in the face of overwhelming evil, but, in the end, they can and will, transform the world into what it was created to be: a place of life and light for all, for the Beloved Community.

The new dawn balloons as we free it. / For there is always light, / if only we’re brave enough to see it, /if only we’re brave enough to be it.

Amanda Gorman : “The Hill We Climb”

© 2022 Mary van Balen

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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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Seeing with Eyes of the Heart
May 23, 2021 By 4 Comments

Seeing with Eyes of the Heart

Sometimes life delivers a reminder of the Glory it holds, like this week while I meandered through a small park running along the west bank of the Scioto River. The park was empty except for a few walkers and two knots of birders gazing up into the trees. They carried a variety of cameras and binoculars, some with lenses long and heavy enough to require extra support. It was migration season. Non-resident birds and ducks were traveling through. I’m a casual bird watcher with a life-list begun decades ago where, if I remember, I check off a bird when I see it for the first time. My list is a record of what I’ve been graced to see, not a guide for what I have left to find.

“Hi. What are you looking at?” I asked good-naturedly, observing six feet of social distance.

“Nothing!” an irritated woman spat out. “Nothing! There is nothing to see here.”

I looked around at the surroundings, brimming with spring flowers and trees in various stages of leafing out. The river reflected the sun, and an occasional heron sailed by the white clouds.

“Really? Nothing? My sister and her husband saw a black -billed and a yellow-billed cuckoo here yesterday,” I said, trying to sound like I knew a little about the hobby. I was thinking “you just never know what will show up,” and thought I delivered the comment in a hopeful kind of way.

“Yesterday. Figures. The thing is, they were here yesterday. I wasn’t!”

No, she wasn’t. The problem, as I saw it, was that likely she wasn’t present in the morning’s moment either. Not really. Her experience was constricted by an agenda, and the park wasn’t delivering. I continued my walk, and despite the disgruntled woman’s claim that there was nothing worth seeing, I found plenty. Actually, her outburst, uncharacteristic of birders in general, heightened my openness to the surroundings.

First to catch my eye were dandelions, some sunny yellow and others holding delicate silver globes of parachuted seeds, waiting for a breeze to send them flying. They mingled with fuzzy, thick- stemmed plants sending up shoots topped with a clenched cluster of buds. I leaned in for a closer look. The spotted early earth-hugging leaves gave it way: waterleaf.

The scene reminded me of a pastel drawing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: “Dandelions,” by Jean-François Millet. His detailed drawings highlighted the flowers’ beauty and caught my attention immediately upon my entering the exhibit. “A kindred spirit,” I’d thought. I’m not an accomplished artist, but when I draw, I work small and focus on common treasures.

"Dandelions" a pastel on tan wove paper byJean-François Millet, French artist. Drawing of dandelions, yellow as well as gone to seed,
Dandelions, 1867-68
Pastel on tan wove paper
Jean-François Millet
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

There were lots of other things to see in the park. Oak, sycamore, maple, locust, and hickory trees. White honeysuckle blooms wet with nectar. The small stream, last week singing with water splashing over its rocky bed, diminished by hot, dry days.

I followed the lichen covered stone wall reminiscent of those crisscrossing fields in New England and the Robert Frost poem that made them famous. In a patch of wildflowers and grasses left to grow wild, bluebells were fading and ground-hugging violets stole the show.

The path stopped at the river. Mallards were gliding past, and farther out, a ruddy duck disappeared under the water again and again. I stood a while, soaking in the scene and then turned to walk back to my car.

The birdwatchers were still gathered in the same place, but this time cameras were clicking.

“What’d you find?” I asked.

“A Blackburnian warbler,” a gentleman replied and guided my eyes upward to a small silhouette perched on slender tree-top branches. Lifting my binoculars, I found the bird, stunning with black, white, and orange markings. Closer to my car, a Baltimore oriole flamed bright on a tree branch. An embarrassment of riches.

I was reminded of my morning walk a few days later while reflecting on the feast of Pentecost by reading poetry of Jessica Powers (1905-1998) an American Carmelite nun. In “Ruah-Elohim,” she writes that “Spirit” in Hebrew is feminine and that the Holy Spirt is tender Love, come to mother us. In “To Live with the Spirit'” she reminds us that the one who walks as the Spirit-wind blows “turns like a wandering weather-vane toward love.”

But it was her description of the Apostles in “The First Pentecost” that caught my breath. They looked at one another. “…words curled in fire through the returning gloom. / Something had changed and colored all the room. / The beauty of the Galilean mother/ took the breath from them for a little space. / Even a cup, a chair or a brown dress/ could draw their tears with the great loveliness/ that wrote tremendous secrets every place….”

I ache to see with such Spirit-opened eyes, our world and one another. Could wars and hatred, violence and earth-abuse continue among human beings with eyes so wide and seeing? Would eyes of the heart see past the false constructs of “them” and “us” to the “we” that shared Spirit makes us? Ah, for such eyes!

Along with this tired planet, with the weary, war-torn beings that live on it, I join my voice to the urgent prayer:

Come, Spirit come! We need the sight you bring.

© 2021 Mary van Balen

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Jesus, Servant-King
November 29, 2020 By 2 Comments

Jesus, Servant-King

Even with my usual activity restricted by an ever-worsening pandemic, time has passed quickly for me. The liturgical year is drawing to a close this Sunday with the Feast of Christ the King. Then the new year begins with Advent.  

I’ve never warmed up to the image of Christ the King. “King” has too many political overtones. Images of a stern king enthroned and bedecked in robes and a gleaming crown, maybe with one hand grasping a scepter, a symbol of power, have put me off. It seems an odd segue into the celebration of the ongoing Incarnation and the remembrance of Jesus’s birth in poverty.

Kings and kingship have a long history, including the Judeo/Christian tradition. Samuel resisted the people’s desire to have a king. Their reasoning – because everyone else has one – seemed shaky. But a king they got, for a while.

I suppose there have been genuinely good kings (and queens) over the centuries, but the associated trappings of power and wealth are hard to overlook. And they do tend to corrupt.

In his lifetime, Jesus resisted the title of king, and when people clamored to make him one, he made himself scarce. Of course, the “kingdom of God” is central to his message. But it is a kingdom unlike any earthly kingdom: there is room for all. It isn’t observable. It’s a work in progress, and the progress depends on the people.

It isn’t about exteriority but what’s in the heart, for that is where the kingdom resides, where the Word is spoken and takes root and grows. The signs of the kingdom are love, service, joy, peace, willingness to suffer for the good of others. God sows this Word-seed in human hearts. It has power to grow and transform every person and, through them, works to transform the world.

In our particular time and place in a world ravaged by pandemic and political turmoil, the call is to follow this Servant-King. The power to be wielded is that of Love, prayer, and service.

The kingdom is both/and. Already here and yet to come. “Already here” because the Holy One has placed a bit of Divinity in everyone. “Yet to come” because it must grow with cooperation and surrender.

The kingdom is Presence and Possibility. All creation exists in the embrace of the Christ – “The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.” (St. Catherine of Siena) All creation, including human beings, is becoming – “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

It is a servant-king that Jesus modeled. He didn’t sit on a throne or live in opulence or control with commands or hang out with those in power. He didn’t have a place to rest his head. He led by example. The poor and marginalized where his companions.

Jesus was a man of both action and prayer. He preached, healed, fed, walked, and sat with others. And when he prayed, he didn’t sit in a privileged place but more likely on a rock in the wilderness.

In our particular time and place in a world ravaged by pandemic and political turmoil, the call is to follow this Servant-King. The power to be wielded is that of Love, prayer, and service. Jesus provides the job description in Sunday’s gospel. When he does “sit on his glorious throne,” the criteria for judgement is love in service. Did you feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty? Did you clothe the naked and visit the prisoners? What did you do to open yourself to Love and then give it away?

If I were asked to create an image of Christ the King, it would be of a person busy taking care of others. Ordinary attire would replace robes and crowns. The scepter would be gone, and if a hand was free at all, it would hold a shepherd’s staff or maybe food to be given away, a stethoscope, a cooking pot, seeds, a pen, a book, a brush. Whatever one needs to be who they are created to be. To do their work in bringing the kingdom.

Papier-mache mask
Artist: Laurie VanBalen

©2020 Mary van Balen

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The Challenge of this Special Time
September 24, 2020 By 10 Comments

The Challenge of this Special Time

Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Photo: Mary van Balen

In a recent letter, a Trappist monk who has been my friend for decades, wrote this to me: “It is a special time to be living and praying…” This simple phrase immediately went to my heart. It seemed true, with a depth of meaning I would lean into in the days ahead.

My friend is right. These are difficult times with crises on multiple fronts: coronavirus, political upheaval, racism laid bare, climate change, anger, fear, distrust, hatred.

He could have written that these are terrible times to be living through, dangerous and scary—also true. But he didn’t. He said they were special times to be living and praying. The power of that phrase lies in its implication of responsibility. We are living now, in the midst of national and global turmoil and a once in a century pandemic. And because we are here, we are the ones who must do something about it. Living and praying deeply.

The author of Ecclesiastes writes that all is vanity. That there is nothing new under the sun. That what is now has been before and will be again. It’s the long view of human history, and in many ways, it is true. Strife and struggle have always been part of life. Our time on the earth is short. When death comes, the world continues to turn, as impossible as that seems in the midst of fresh, anguished grief.

Yet, here we are. Living. With choices to make, in this particular time in history. Choices, big and small, that will, for good or ill, make a difference. The fate of humanity, of this earth, is not written in the stars, something pre-determined that we watch come around and go away and come around again. The incarnational aspect of our faith says differently. We are not bystanders; we are partners in bringing the kingdom. 

Every person makes a difference. Each one has the call, the gift, to transform the world in some way by being faithful to and sharing the bit of Divinity that lives within. Every act or omission matters.

Ecclesiastes also says there is a time for every thing under the heavens: to be born, to die; to plant, to harvest; to weep, to laugh. The list is long.

What is it time for, now? What do these days demand? What cries out from that biblical list? A time to heal, a time to build, a time to gather stones together. It is a time to discern what to keep and what to cast away – there is much that needs to be cast away. It is not a time to be silent. It is a time to speak. And surely it is time to love in the midst of hate.         

And how will we help these things happen?

My friend’s deceptively simple words suggest living and praying. Not in a superficial way. Living actively in the moment. Praying with our actions. But also finding strength in prayer that connects us to the Presence of Love within that sustains and does the heavy lifting.

To authentically live and to pray in these times is challenging. Again, some biblical wisdom:

Paul writes to the community of Corinth about eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. In the U.S., not something we deal with every day. (Though what modern “idols” do we worship that demand the sacrifice of lives and health of “essential workers” who harvest our food and process our meat?)

Paul says, “I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to sin.” It’s not his response to a dilemma of his age that speaks to me; it’s his reason – a profound love and concern for the other and the willingness to sacrifice some part of his own comfort for them.

Again, this time to the Philippians, Paul writes of putting others first: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not only for their own interest, but also for those of others.”

And, of course, the life of Jesus, who gave everything he had, even his life, showing us what Love looks like.

My friend’s words have become questions: How will I live? How will I pray, in this special time?

© 2020 Mary van Balen

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

St. Augustine
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A Morning Walk’s Prayer of Attention
August 24, 2020 By 16 Comments

A Morning Walk’s Prayer of Attention

green leaf glowing with sunlight
PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Sometimes my “church” is the outdoors. I take an early walk for exercise and to pray the prayer of attention and gratitude for whatever is given. Last week, I was two blocks from home when the morning sun shining through large, broad leaves of an old tree stopped me in my tracks. Some leaves caught the morning rays and glowed bright green against the deep shades of others hanging in the shadow, gleaming like illumined stained-glass windows in the dark stone interiors of medieval cathedrals.

Light streaming through the canopy of leaves into a small ravine was the next gift. Tucked between two homes, the space held trees, undergrowth, and scattered, pop-up choirs of resurrection lilies singing out praise with their glorious purple-pink blooms.

And so it went. But before long, I found myself distracted by walkers and runners, like me, out to enjoy the morning. Unlike me, not wearing masks. As we approached one another on the sidewalk, few made any effort to distance themselves. Time and again, I crossed the street to ensure safe distance. Irritation began to overshadow meditation.

I reclaimed my focus, intentionally moving it away from people and back to the moment, being attentive to the Sacred proclaimed by creation. Slowly, wisdom rose in my heart: gratitude for the beauty around me and awareness of the privilege that allowed me to walk in a neighborhood that offers such respite.

A deeper recognition stirred, one of being part of the greater Whole. Along with the tress and other growing things, I am part of a reflection of an unknowable Presence – unknowable, but with Grace, sometimes experienced.

The trees spoke to me of Presence that exists beyond, yet encompasses all time. The Mystery informs each moment and remains when the moment has passed.

I noticed old trees that have witnessed much and thought of ancient ones around the world that stood as wars have come and gone. Trees that have seen floods, droughts, and fires rage. That have outlasted plagues. Trees that have seen governments and empires, dictators and saints, come and go. The ancient ones that have watched economic booms and busts, seen hatred and the love that overcame it.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I remembered a quote by Thomas Merton:

“A tree gives glory to God first of all by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be, it is imitating an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.”

Thomas Merton Seeds of Contemplation

What is true for the oldest of trees is true for the newly sprouted plant coming up between cracks in cement. It is true for the birds and squirrels that rustled leaves on trees and shrubs as they sought safety when I walked by. And it is true of me.

When I am authentically myself, I reflect the Divine within to the world without. Presence permeates all that is. That will never end.

When I am gone from the earth, well before the trees I passed, I will still “be” in some way or other. And along with the trees that will remain to calm some other earth-walkers in future decades, I will be a part of the Mystery.

These days are passing, but while I am here in this moment, it is important to share the Divine spark given to me. It is equally important to welcome the Presence, to sink into it, to melt into it and know peace in the reality that all things are part of the One Holy Mystery, now and always.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

© 2020 Mary van Balen

 “Open your eyes, alert your spiritual ears, unlock your lips, and apply your heart, so that in all creation you may see, hear, praise, love and adore, magnify, and honor your God.”

St. Bonaventure Itinerarium

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