present to the moment

November 8, 2013 By Mary van Balen Leave a Comment

DEEPENING: 5 Distractions

candle and labyrinth I followed the labyrinth path with the stylus. This time, I arrived at the center. Either luck or I am better at paying attention. Still, as I sit with the candle burning and quiet surrounding me, I struggle to just “be” with God. Distractions continue. Great lines for a blog or an article or a letter to a publisher. At least they seem great at the moment. Reluctantly, I let them go, trusting if they are that good they will return after prayer time. Schedule. Not as much there as in the past. Mostly keeping up therapy and doctor appointments. Those are easier to ignore…I know they are written in my appointment book.

Breathe in. Breathe out. “Pre…sence. Pre…sence.”

Remember sitting with a beloved, one with whom you have fallen in love, head over heels? Years ago, decades really, my roommate complained. When I was with my boyfriend, I was oblivious to everything and everyone else, and that included her. Of course, that absorption didn’t last forever, but I do remember it. Distractions weren’t a problem; bringing myself back to reality was!

I would like to sit with God that way. I have done so, now and then, in the past, but I’ve lost the ability. For now, I listen to the voices that intrude on time set aside for quiet prayer, and then let them go. The problem is, they seem to be waiting in an unending line: Adult children, finding a publisher, writing an article, disturbing news articles, glorious sunlight pouring in the windows (or rain pelting against them). “To dos.” “Wish I had dones.” I listen then let them go.

When the allotted time has passed, I realize that of the half hour, I may have had a few moments of true silence and simply “being.” But I was there. In the chair. Giving it my best…

…Patient One, I take comfort in the knowledge that when you look at me, you see your daughter, taking time to be with you. You don’t count the minutes my mind wanters or struggles to simply be with you. Like a parent happy to see an adult child pull into the driveway and come through the door. No matter what the visit brings, there is joy at their coming. Their thinking of you. I’ll be back tomorrow, and I know you’ll be glad. Amen

Filed Under: The Scallop Tagged With: distractions, prayer, present to the moment, quiet prayer, unconditional love

September 7, 2013 By Mary van Balen Leave a Comment

Candle, Cookout, and Poetry

“I have energy,” I thought as I drove home from work around 4pm. I noticed because lately, I haven’t. Maybe it was not using my CPAP machine regularly (no excuse for that) or that my shift was over before the sun set. Maybe it was the magnificent cool weather. Whatever, I had a spring in my step even after an hour of running errands. I decided to have a cookout.

I put brats in a pan of beer to precook and simmered canned baked beans with onion, mustard, and molasses. The grill was heating up and I tackled dishes left in the sink. Then, when I put the brats on, I placed a candle on the outside table and sat down to read some poetry and drink the Heineken I hadn’t used to cook the brats.

Pink clouds streaked the sky. Swallows dipped and soared. And Mary Oliver took me to dark summer ponds covered with lilies. (“The Ponds” in New and Selected Poems, p92-93.)

I plopped a couple of brats into whole wheat buns slathered with Dijon mustard, scooped baked beans into a little bowl and mounded the remaining space of my plate with some chips.

My neighbor has been sharing tomatoes, and even though the one I sliced was sweet, I sprinkled a little sugar on one slice to remember my mom and dinners around the table when I was a child. We always sprinkled tomatoes with sugar. Maybe it was a ploy to convince the kids to eat their vegetables. I enjoyed the taste and the memories.

So, I sat, munching dinner under a darkening sky and reading “The Ponds,” marveling along with Mary Oliver at the light of countless lilies floating on dark summer ponds. [Read more…]

Filed Under: The Scallop Tagged With: "New and Selected Poems", "The Ponds", dazzled, light, Mary Oliver, poetry, present to the moment

August 9, 2013 By Mary van Balen Leave a Comment

Ask of the Days of Old

I was trying to sit quietly, to be aware of the Holy Presence within and without. The beeswax candle was burning. Scripture was waiting to be savored. And corn muffins were baking in the oven.

I couldn’t be still. Too many things to do pushed into my brain along with a bit of panic that I could do them in time to meet deadlines…some very public deadlines. Breathe in. Breathe out. Be still. I tried. I failed.

I wondered if I still believed in the Holy Presence that is the original milieu. The place where I live and breath and have my being. “Yes,” my mind gave the conditioned response. “Then why can’t I rest in the mystical embrace?” it wondered. Too busy to linger long on any one thing, it darted off to books, phone calls, appointments, writing, and work at Macy’s.

Mercifully, the oven’s buzzer announced the corn muffins were ready, and I had a good reason to get up and focus on something closer at hand. I spread butter on steaming soft insides of the yellow muffin.

I read over the Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy: “Moses said to the people: “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created people on the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?”

“Ask of the days of old.” Maybe that’s what I can do. Remember. Not only creation and ancient history, and history of a particular people, but my history. The times I heard God’s voice speaking from the midst of fires in my life.

“Even the people who knew Moses and his story of the burning bush needed reminded,” I thought.

I took a buttery bite of warm breakfast. It tasted like hope.

Filed Under: The Scallop Tagged With: hope, Moses, prayer, Presence, present to the moment

July 12, 2013 By Mary van Balen Leave a Comment

Called to Notice, Call to Love

Originally published in the Catholic Times

Sunday’s readings from Deuteronomy and from Luke emphasize two things: God’s law is the law of love, and it resides deep within each of us, as close as our mouths and our hearts. The Old Testament reading is taken from the end of Moses’ speech to the Israelites who had completed the long wanderings in the desert and were on the brink of entering the Promised Land.

Moses had recapped the struggles of their journey, told them blessings come from their curse, and that God would gather them back from the nations where they were scattered. The command Moses gave to the people, to turn back to God with their entire being, was attainable. Unlike Gilgamesh, the hero of the ancient Mesopotamian epic, who traveled to the ends of the earth, to the depths of the sea, and to the heavens, in search of the secrets of the gods, the Israelites had God’s word on their lips and in their hearts. They had only to obey it.