IMAGE: ADORATION OF THE MAGI by Giotto

One Epiphany long ago my mother smiled when I asked her, “Where’s the other Wise Guy?” and replied that he had been lost during our recent move. As I played with the camels, sheep and two mysterious “kings,” I hoped the third one had found a new home, someplace warm to spend Christmas. Imagine, following a star to find baby Jesus, a baby whose birth was acknowledged by the forces in the far flung universe.

Later, I learned that Matthew’s gospel (the only one that mentions the magi) was short on details and what I learned as a child was as much legend as anything else. No Matter. Three astrologers searching through Hebrew Scriptures looking for an explanation for an amazing cosmological event still captures my imagination. Even the Pope today used them as an metaphor for the compatibility of science and faith.

The Epiphany is celebrated in Christian churches as the first time Jesus was revealed to the wide world beyond Bethlehem and Judaism. The wise men represent all the rest of humanity at the manger, foreshadowing the reality that took the disciples and perhaps even Jesus some time to figure out: God’s love is for all people. We are all children of the Most High.

Today, as I drove to the doctor’s office for a check-up, I paid particular attention to people who were out on the cold, snowy morning: A father at a bus stop, a modern shepherd with his flock of four children, one in a stroller, carefully bundled against the wind; a man wearing a black stocking cap pulled low over his ears, his hands shoved into his pockets to stay warm; a young woman munching an apple for breakfast, a backpack slung over her shoulder, waiting for a ride to campus; people driving cars I passed or that passed by me on the freeway.

I tried to look with wise men’s eyes, seeing God’s beloved braving the elements to be about the work of their daily lives. “Each one,” I told myself, “holds some bit of God in their hearts.” Like the wise men, I should honor them, for who they are, for the Divinity that enlivens them from within.I should offer my gifts, as simple as they are, joining in the effort to bring the world a little closer to the Kingdom ushered in by a baby.

“Where’s the other Wise Guy?” She is here. He is each one of us.

A new semester is about to begin, but I will not be teaching this time around. Instead, I am joining a host of other Americans looking for full time employment. As much as I enjoy teaching theology as an adjunct instructor, I cannot give the time and attention required for large classes while searching for a job that comes with benefits. Perhaps the opportunity to return to the university classroom will come again. Meanwhile, I am searching the Internet for openings and filling out applications.

This exercise requires me to revisit my educational background and employment history time after time. I imagine the application of a once stay-at-home mom who worked at a variety of part time jobs while keeping the home-fires burning looks different from those filled out by career people who have lost their jobs to downsizing and the poor economy.
When my children were younger, I created positions that enabled me to use my gifts and education to bring in some extra money while being home when my daughters were: I worked in schools an enrichment teacher and summers in a program for elementary students run by a local college branch. Later I worked as an adult educator in grant-funded jobs that served the poor and marginalized populations.

While working at those jobs and being the primary parent at home, I managed to write and publish four books and numerous magazine articles as well as to maintain a monthly column for over twenty years. I gave retreats and did some public speaking, but now, thirty-some years later; I can no longer afford positions that count on the employee not being the primary economic support. I suppose those who can teach as adjuncts or in GED/ABLE programs all have other jobs or a spouse that brings home the benefits.

Each time I read through my CV, the variety of jobs and accomplishments surprise me. I packed a lot into the past thirty years. I hope not too much, or too wide a variety to attract a future employer. I don’t have ten or twelve years in any one place except my home.

I am also filling out applications for graduate school. While working with abused women, I knew they needed more than academic instruction that would enable them to earn a GED and maybe find a job. Many needed counseling that could help them heal and regain self-esteem and confidence. The autumn may find me entering a university not as an instructor, but as a student in a social work program that would prepare me to offer such counseling.

During this process, I have discovered that my many and varied experiences have prepared me well to face an unknown future. Raising children helps one become flexible. Any parent can tell you that what you expect to happen often doesn’t and you need to be able to change plans at a moment’s notice. When disappointment shows its face or illness derails schedules, the parent (Still often the mother) supports and reschedules.

I have learned trust. Not only from times when challenges that seemed insurmountable faded into the past, but also when jobs I loved disappeared along with the funding that made them possible. Trust that something else would turn up finally enabled me to let go of worry and sleep when I could not imagine what the next job might be.

I have also learned openness. A teaching certificate does not necessarily mean a classroom position, but it can help snag an opportunity that results from creative thinking and awareness not so much of what is but rather of what could be.

I don’t know what I will be doing in a few months, but whatever it is, I am confident it will be interesting, demanding, service oriented, and likely, not what I expect!

Many people seem eager to say goodbye to the holidays. Christmas trees that went up the day after Thanksgiving were taken down December 26. Candy canes and decorations are piled into shopping carts with “75% OFF” signs taped to them, and Valentine’s Day goodies have taken their places on store shelves.

Having grown up in a house that saw neither tree nor candle before Christmas morning (Santa brought it all), I am not ready for business as usual. Christmas lasts twelve days, and I have three left. Christmas is a holiday to savor. Madeleine L’Engle called the incarnation the “Glorious Impossible,” and so it is.

One day is hardly enough to celebrate God’s coming to tell us that we are the desire of the Divine Heart and Love is the way in. Jesus showed us that even death would not stand in the way of Infinite Love. So, I am still singing along with Christmas carols as I drive, writing holiday greetings, and baking cookies.

I celebrated 2010’s arrival with my brother and sister-in-law and two of their friends. Tom had built an amazing snow squirrel in their backyard, a truly unique sight! We laughed, ate homemade pizza and salad, and watched a movie in the living room lit by Christmas tree glow.

Simple things: Sharing tea and conversation with friends; dinner with my daughters; enjoying wine and playing family games. Walking in snow. Wrapping up those I love with a warm embrace. Ordinary joys become more delicious when I take time to recognize the wonder of them all.

I can hear Fr. Michael Himes saying if something is always and everywhere true, it must be noticed and celebrated somewhere, sometime.

God is everywhere and always with us. These twelve days of Christmas are a time to stop and notice, to rejoice in the gift of Divine Self that was given in a complete and extraordinary way in the life of Jesus.

Finally, we have snow. Though wet and only two inches deep, it is white and beautiful. Christmas was all rain, and I admit to envying my Minnesota friends’ two feet of powder, view across the lake, and Mass in the Abbey Church. After exchanging Christmas greetings over the phone, I hung up and switched my computer wallpaper to last winter’s photo taken out the apartment’s back window. Blue tree shadows fell across the snow-covered lake and patio; January at the Institute was breathtaking.

This year I was in Ann Arbor for the holidays. I did not have the view and was careful as I stepped over water flowing beside the curb when getting in and out of the car, but I had my three daughters, a good friend, and time: Better than snow.

We ate homemade oxtail vegetable soup and snacked on imported cheeses and crackers washed down with spiced red wine. The apartment was crowded; one daughter had to excuse herself a few times to complete marking final papers and posting grades. Another daughter had switched to her “break” schedule: up until early morning, asleep until early afternoon, but we had a good time playing Apples to Apples and catching up.

Most gifts were simple this year, many were practical with a few surprises thrown in. One of mine was unexpected and extraordinary: A hand-thrown mug from The Soft Earth’s potter, Joan Lederman. The form is beautiful and organic, but what makes it unique is the glaze. Joan uses core samples of the ocean floor taken by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. When they have finished with the sediment, it is given to Joan who uses it for her glazes.

On my Christmas mug, the words “Deep Down, Far Out, Earth Crust, Space Dust” encircle the bottom, written on bare clay. The predominant glaze color is deep brown, resulting from sediment from The Kane Fracture Zone, rich in manganese, peridotite, serpentine, basalt, and olivine gabbro. A small band of lighter brown divides the glaze about one third of the way down the mug. This strip of glaze is what merits the words “Far Out…Space Dust.”

In a core sample taken at the K-Trace Boundary, scientists found a small deposit of 65 million year old remains of an asteroid, truly star dust. Was this left from asteroids that collided with the earth raising enough dust to block sunlight and lead to mass extinctions of plants and animals, including the dinosaurs?

In response to the sudden death of a pioneering geologist, Joan offered to make a piece to celebrate his life. She was given sediment from his work discovering the first core that demonstrated the iridium anomaly from the K-T Band. Later she came to appreciate it alongside samples from drillings into Earth’s crust – these became the “earth crust & space dust” pieces. When I first found them on the Internet, I emailed my archeologist daughter to share the amazing find. As a young child, she had been interested in dinosaurs, once taking a survey at a local mall to determine what most people thought caused the extinction of dinosaurs. An Asteroid strike was among the choices.

Knowing my spiritual response to all things “cosmic,” she and her younger sister decided to purchase one of Joan Lederman’s last two “Space Dust” mugs for me. Now, when I drink my tea in the morning, I will be cradling earth crust and stardust in my hands, contemplating the glory of the universe and my small place in it.

Visit The Soft Earth website: http://www.thesoftearth.com/

CLAY NATIVITY SCENE: GENEVA HARDING VAN BALEN; PHOTOS: MARY VAN BALEN

Leaning back in my chair, I smiled, ready to concentrate on Christmas. I sent out some fee-lance magazine articles yesterday; now my students’ final grades were posted. I had spent the past couple of days reading papers on “Sacrament” and realized that the assignment was appropriate to the season that celebrates the Incarnation.

Besides looking at the seven ritual sacraments of the Catholic Church, our class explored the broader understanding of sacrament as a visible or physical sign that points to something beyond itself, which in our case, was to God. Karl Rhaner said that all grace is mediated through the material things of the world, and many of the students’ papers illustrated that fact.

A number of students wrote about people, particularly family members, who had been a “sacrament” to them. A parent’s unwavering support during life’s upheavals helped more than one student become aware of God’s constant presence. Others experienced God’s mercy through forgiveness received from a spouse or friend. For some, a friend who faced serious illness or unemployment with peace, borne of deep faith, inspired them to reconnect with God in their own lives. Nature, sport, music, and art all made appearances in the papers.

Learning that Jesus is the primordial sacrament, the Sacrament from which all others flow, was exciting for some students and is what we celebrate at Christmas. In order to communicate infinite love and desire for unity with creation and human beings, God needed to “speak our language.” We are part of a material world and God became part of it. If Jesus had not become one of us, we would never have “heard” the fullness of God’s voice or known the fullness of Divine Presence.

Fr. Michael Himes of Boston University expounded on these ideas and explained grace as “Love outside the Trinity.” God is already a relationship of persons but desired to draw us into that “family circle.” Jesus is our invitation, our means of arriving there, our Sacrament.

I am finally ready to concentrate on the season. As much fun as shopping can be, the activity easily becomes overwhelming, and we think less about appreciating family and friends and more about beating someone to the checkout line or the hours we have left to go. The best way is most likely not hurrying from store to store, but taking some time to reflect on how God’s grace is mediated to us through people and places, through talents shared and time enjoyed. We can read Scripture and reflect on the amazing story of a young woman who was open to the most intimate experience of God’s mediated Grace: Jesus, God/man, growing in her womb.

PHOTOS: from ASTRONOMY – SKY MAP: ASTRONOMY, ROEN KELLY

The last meteor shower of the year is visible late this Sunday, Dec 13 into early Monday morning. Optimum viewing time is midnight EST. The new moon will not offer any interference, so if the sky is clear, step out, look up (Gemini is the source of the shower, just left of Orion), and enjoy.

These showers remind me of my small place in creation and the glorious cosmos of which I see only an infinitesimal speck. As Christmas approaches, looking to the night sky seems somehow appropriate. Wise men from the east followed wonders in the night sky to find the child, Jesus.

Perhaps, gazing into the depths of the universe will lead us to ponder the wonder of the incarnation and Maker who came to reveal our capacity for sharing in Divine glory.

Photos: NASA
“…Letting go of things we thought we could not live without…” The words crashed into my heart with such force that I glanced around to see if anyone else felt the tremor. All eyes were on the speaker; I jotted the words in my ever-present notebook and settled back to hear more.

Jay Jackson, a colleague and friend, was presenting his final paper, “Kenotic Aging: Life Discovered in Letting Go,” before receiving his Master of Arts in Theology degree next week. Kenosis is ancient Greek for “emptying” and is used in Christian theology to speak both of Jesus’ incarnation, emptying himself “…taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” (Phil 2.7), and our personal self-emptying that allows God to fill us with Divine Self.

Theological discussions can sound technical and far removed from everyday life, but Jay took Kenosis and brought it home: Self-emptying is letting go. This Christmas, my first not part of a couple, I am particularly aware of letting go. I won’t be arranging gifts under the Christmas tree at 2 am. Instead, I will drive a few hours to spend Christmas with my daughters at one of their apartments. Holiday preparations are minimal. Instead I am studying for the GRE, filling out applications, and finishing a freelance writing job.

Rather than allowing myself to become nostalgic and focus on what is not happening this Christmas, I am becoming aware of the upside of letting go: openness to new life and new opportunities. As Jay pointed out in his presentation, emptying oneself of some things opens one up to receive others. While that sounds exciting, living it out is not easy. Accepting new life and embracing new opportunities requires waiting, facing unknowns, and trusting that what eventually fills up the emptied places will be life giving.

Christmas invites me to trust. The Maker of All Things, Jesus Christ, became a vulnerable human infant, trusting Mary and Joseph to protect and care for him, to nurture him as he grew. Undoubtedly, he had to empty himself of human concerns and fears to be filled with Spirit and Love that enabled him to trust completely as he walked his adult path, embracing even death.
Jesus showed us what a human life filled with God’s Self looks like.

Sometimes, life does the emptying: Jobs are lost; loved ones die; accident, illness or age diminish vitality. Even before birth, emptying is built into our genes “programming” the basic physical and mental selves we begin with. “Letting go” can be accepting with grace what has been taken from us, not filling the space with bitterness and anger. Sometimes, the emptying is intentional, and we choose to let go of things in our lives.

I am reminded of a few lines of favorite poem by Sir Thomas Browne:

If thou could’st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, “This is not dead,”
And fill thee with Himself instead.

Kenosis is not a self- loathing type of emptying; instead, it frees us up to be our best selves. God created each of us, a unique and beautiful reflection of Divinity. As we move through life, that self is hurt, distorted, crowded out by life’s busyness and demands. Kenosis is an invitation to let go of everything that is not us, and let the bit of God we have been given to shine on the world fill us again.

Carrying on a tradition from my Dutch heritage, my children each left a shoe and a carrot by the front door for Sinterklaas, or Saint Nicholas. In the morning the carrots had disappeared, eaten by Saint Nicholas’s horse, and candies along with a small gift filled the shoes. A simple celebration, but one that continues. My daughters are all in grad school, but they enjoy receiving an envelope from Saint Nick to open on the morning of Dec. 6. Gold coins recall the three bags of gold Saint Nicholas tossed through the window of a cottage that was home to a poor man and his three daughters who had no dowry. Hard candy, and a gift keeps my daughters connected to family and good memories wherever they are.

Tonight I think of my cousins in the Netherlands. Dec. 5, not Christmas, is their gift giving day. The date is not the only difference in our celebrations. In the United States shopping frenzy begins on Black Friday and continues until Christmas day and beyond, when people return gifts to get something they would rather have at a cheaper price. So much time and energy is spent running from store to store, finding the best bargains, wrapping gift after gift, many people are relieved when the Christmas season is over and they can pack up the decorations and get back to an ordinary routine. Christmas has become almost synonymous with excess and consumerism.

Across the ocean, Jeanette, Piet and their family had a more relaxed day. Each person received one special gift, but perhaps the most fun was reading the poems they had written for one another and opening the little gifts, often homemade, that went along with them.

The poems were often humorous, good naturedly poking fun at the recipient or the gift that was offered. One year their oldest son was preparing to take an test for entrance into professional studies. His younger brother made him a “contraption” to use: It had a calculator, a place for notes, and a little mirror to help him read what others had written. Once, a new washing machine was the wish, but all that was affordable was one made of cardboard given along with a poem extolling the virtues of the old machine that creaked and groaned but still managed to present clean clothes.

Christmas day is more like Thanksgiving here: Time to attend church and then for families to gather, share a meal, and enjoy one another’s company. As Christmas approaches, I think we would do well to remember that we don’t have to wear ourselves out with endless shopping and that the number of gifts have nothing to do with the love that is shared.

******************************************** SAINT NICHOLAS DESIGNED BY RON HENDRIKS

HOMEMADE SNOWFLAKE: DR. MARGARET COOK; PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN

Being unemployed will affect many this holiday season, and while I have a part-time job that will end in a couple of weeks, I put myself in that category. I lingered at the Christmas card display at Half Price Books last night, thinking I might find something to send to a few friends, but decided even reduced prices were more than I could pay. Instead, I decided to make the greetings sent this year. Memories of homemade cards made years ago made me smile.

The first card I made as a young adult was complicated and, as a result, few were sent. I wrote a short story, typed up the pages, illustrated them with watercolors, and sewed them into blank red deckle-edged card stock purchased at a college bookstore.

Then there were the linoleum block printed ones with white pine trees on brown paper. I wrote an original poem inside each one (This was long before computers made printing them out fast and easy). They were so labor intensive that the last ones were sent out in July with a caveat: “Christmas is Everyday.”

More recently, I have made copies of my December column on green paper and sent it to those who do not subscribe to the Catholic Times.

“Maybe I will do that again,” I thought as I moved toward the bookstore door and headed out to the car. It might work for a few friends, but most can easily access my columns online.

I remembered a card I received from Madeleine L’Engle one year. Reading one of her Crosswick’s Journals had inspired me to send her a box (A “Mary K. box” my children said.) filled with things I thought she would enjoy: A crystal growing kit, a homemade book introducing myself and my children, a shell from a favorite Cape Cod beach, some columns, and of course, a letter.)

She surprised me with a wonderful letter, a Christmas card poem, and her newsletter. Her card was simple: Hand lettered poem and line drawing copied on the lovely blue paper that office stores sell: between pale and neon.

“Maybe I will write a poem.”

It would have to be short. Between grading papers, filling out grad school and job applications, studying for the GRE, and writing magazine articles I don’t have lots of time to write poetry.

“Maybe a reflection from my “Lectio Divina.”

The more I thought about the project, the more ideas materialized. That is the joy of homemade: I was taking time to entertain ideas, think of my friends and what I could offer them from my life at the moment. No matter what I decide or how late the cards are sent, the recipients will know a bit more about my heart and my experience of the Incarnation season than they would have if one of the boxes of cards had proved irresistible. And, in the making, so will I.

“Show me where it hurts, God said, and every cell in my body burst into tears before His tender eyes.”
Rabia – Eighth-century Islamic saint and poet*

When I read these words I thought of two women: Precious, from the movie of the same name and a former student whose funeral I had attended earlier that day. One was black, one was white. One still lived, one was dead at twenty-nine. Both were sexually abused and led lives overwhelmed with challenges and battles that for one, proved insurmountable.

I watched the movie with a friend I had met while working with young women, all victims of abuse of one type or another. For many of them, abuse began with sexual molestation as young children. As we walked out of the screening room, I became aware of the color not only of those of us leaving, but also of the line of people waiting for the next showing.

“Where are the WHITE people?” I asked. I have been seeing movies at this art theater for years and had never seen such lack of diversity. Does the general public think “Precious” is a movie for a “black” audience? I hope not. “Must be a fluke,” I thought to myself.

“Maybe not,” I thought after I spoke to a young friend a week later. She had seen the movie at a large, multi-screen complex in the middle of an upscale shopping center. After talking for a while about the importance of the film and how moving it was, I ventured to ask the same question: “I don’t want to sound racist, but I am wondering about the people in the theater. Was it a diverse crowd?”

“No, not at all. First, it was smaller than I thought. And almost everyone there was African American.”

Another fluke? I hope so. The themes dealt with in “Precious” transcend race, economic status, and nationality. Being poor and Black complicates things in our society, but the reality of abuse knows no boundaries, and sadly, no one culture seems any better at dealing with it than another.

“In Black culture people sweep things like this under the rug,” my young friend said. “Everybody wants to keep it a secret, and more and more people get hurt.”

“All cultures sweep abuse under the rug,” I replied. “Look at the Catholic Church; it did just that for years. Why? To protect the institution, the status quo? And the Church isn’t alone. In some sick way, no one wants to look at and admit the scope of abuse or deal with its consequences.”

That thought was reinforced when I read a newspaper article the following day about the lack of funding for women’s shelters. Many abused women and their children are turned away, forced to return to lives increasingly scarred by domestic violence. In the coming year, more shelters will close, endangering hundreds of others.

We have to ask hard questions: Why is there insufficient funding to protect the most vulnerable among us? Why do we assign this problem to a particular race, faith, or nationality (usually not our own) when it exists everywhere? Why are we willing to avert our eyes rather than confront the truth?

“Precious” forces us to see a broken society and inadequacies of services for those in desperate need. The movie reveals the importance of good teachers in seemingly impossible situations. It makes us squirm when stereotypical reactions to obesity are challenged. It teaches us to look beyond surface realities to causes. It allows us to know a real human being that most of us would be happy to pass on the street and never see again. “Precious” reveals our common humanity and the dignity of those we are tempted to “write off” as a “drain on society.”

Every person has truths to teach, especially people from whom we expect little or nothing. Through all the pain, injustice, and suffering, “Precious” shows us courage, tenacity, and amazingly, hope, whose name is Love.
© 2009 Mary van Balen

* From “Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West.” trans. Daniel Ladinsky. New York: Penguin, 2002. p 2.