Mary van Balen

September 29, 2020 By Mary van Balen 14 Comments

Remembering Rev. Robert Graetz, Civil Rights Activist

Rev. Robert Graetz 2005 speaking to an Even Start Class Lancaster Ohio Photo Mary van Balen — Rev. Bob Graetz Jan. 25, 2005
Photo: Mary van Balen

Rev. Robert S. Graetz, civil rights activist and the sole White minister to publicly support the Montgomery bus boycott, died at his home on Sunday, September 20,2020. He was 92. You can read about his life and his and his wife, Jeannie’s life-long commitment to work for social justice in the many obituaries and articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times, NPR Newsletter, and other publications.

In 1955, the newly ordained a Lutheran minister (attended the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, now Trinity Lutheran Seminary), accepted a call to the all-Black Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery. Already active in civil rights causes, he was admonished not to start trouble. He and Jeannie would later say he didn’t start trouble; he just joined it.

I want to share a small, personal story – one that didn’t make news but that touched hearts.

First, so you know a bit about Bob if you don’t already, here are a few facts:

He was the only White pastor to publicly support the Montgomery bus boycott, tirelessly driving Black workers to and from work for the duration, organizing, and fund raising to support that effort.
He, Jeannie, and their family of young children were targets of the KKK and other White supremacists who found a White man’s commitment to working with Blacks for their civil rights intolerable.
The Graetz’s survived bricks through their windows and house bombings (saved once when a large bomb that could have leveled the neighborhood failed to detonate).
Their neighbor and friend, Rosa Parks swept up the glass in their kitchen and took up a neighborhood collection to replace the Graetz’s dishes, all broken in one of the explosions.

I encourage you to read stories of Bob and Jeannie and their courageous commitment to live out their faith, no matter what. But now, my story.

Meeting a fellow columnist

I first met Bob at a 1992 alternative commemoration of the 500^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing on the shores of the Americas. Presented by indigenous peoples, the multi-day event was held in downtown Columbus, Ohio. I was covering it for the Catholic Times, where I was a columnist. Bob was there, too.

He had been writing for years for the same paper, contributing to the feature “Point of View’” that provided insights from other spiritual traditions. I enjoyed his unique perspective and remember reading about their small house in southern Ohio, that for a while, had no electricity or running water! Recognizing him at the gathering, I called out his name, and we made plans for lunch. During our conversation, he referenced a recent column he had read in the Catholic Times and wondered, hoped, that I had written it.

I had. It presented the confusing stance of the Catholic Church on ordaining married men. As recent events had indicated, it was ok if the man had not started out Catholic, had been ordained in another denomination, but then converted to Catholicism. No such luck if you happened to be Catholic all along. Still baffling.

Bob and I stood on common ground. Over the years, I ran into him when he spoke at gatherings on Martin Luther King Day, or I’d see him at his book signings.

Speaking to my students

In 2005, I gave him a call and asked if he’d be willing to speak to my class of adult students in Even Start, a family literacy program that served low income families most in need of services. He and Jeannie were happy to come around Martin Luther King Day. It was a big event for us.

Our students invited the mayor and others in the community and planned refreshments. In class, we studied the Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement and read sections of Bob’s book, Montgomery, A White Preacher’s Memoir.

The big day arrived, and Bob and Jeannie spoke to a group that included our students and staff, the mayor, leaders of the very small Black community in our city, a newspaper reporter, and a few other guests. The Graetzs shared their experiences and spoke eloquently about not only the Montgomery bus boycott but also the continued struggle for civil rights on many fronts: racism, sexism, discrimination against the LGBT community, and the increasing economic disparity between the rich and the poor.

The students were riveted, listening to every word, and as I would discover later, also watching every move.

Bob and Jeannie Graetz Jan. 25, 2005
Photo: Mary van Balen

The cough drop

When the talk ended and time had been given to answering questions, everyone mingled, enjoyed the snacks, and had pictures taken with our guests. Cleaning up our classroom after the event, my students started talking.

They were impressed that Bob and Jeannie stood up for other people when they didn’t have to. They were White. They could have moved somewhere else, they said. But The Graetzs stayed and put their lives on the line.

The students kept talking.

“Did you see how she took care of him? How she slid that cough drop across to table to him when he started coughing?” “Yeah,” someone answered. “You can tell, they really love each other. That was so cool.”

“Really,” I thought to myself. “A cough drop?” That such a simple act of thoughtfulness had captured the students’ attention pierced my heart with the realization that they likely had known precious little, if any, of such kindnesses in their lives. Why else would Jeannie’s sharing a cough drop have made such an impression?

Most had grown up in abusive homes. Some were in abusive domestic relationships at that moment. A number of them struggled with addiction. They had all slipped through the cracks of our education system. And while none were Black in our almost all-White community, they knew generational poverty, discrimination, and the hopelessness they engender.

As we finished up, one of the students suggested going to Columbus that Sunday when Bob would be preaching. “Yeah, can we take a trip up there? I want to hear him preach.” Not many attended church, but they all wanted to go.

Unusual field trip

Bus Rosa Parks rode when she refused to give up her seat
On display in the Henry Ford Museum
Photo: Mary van Balen

So we did. A conspicuously White group in that Sunday gathering, we attended the service and heard Bob preach. In the course of the sermon, he asked questions about the bus boycott. My students waved their hands in the air. He smiled and joked that he wouldn’t call on them since he was sure they knew the answers.

They were thrilled. I doubted they had heard those words very often during their school years. But in that moment, they were the ones “in the know.” They glowed on the way home.

That was years ago. Not too long after that, our program closed, having lost its funding. Occasionally, one of our Even Start staff hears from a former student, but that isn’t often. I once received a thank you letter from a young woman we helped escape from her abusive husband, taking her children with her.

Small acts of kindness – courage

We don’t know what effect our work, let alone our small actions or off-hand comments have on others. Today, as I read about Bob’s amazing life and work for social justice, I thought about Jeannie and the cough drop. Of all the things that couple has done in their lives, I’m sure some of my students, to this day, remember the cough drop, right alongside the couple’s courage and faithfulness in the face of injustice.

Today, we face the real danger of losing our democracy to a leader focused on retaining power at any cost. He has plenty of enablers. Building on fear, fomenting anger, violence, hatred, and divisiveness seem the modus operandi.

Centuries-old systemic racism is increasingly uncovered. Consequences of a warming climate are ravaging the globe. And the pandemic adds another layer of suffering and complication to it all.

What can I do? I struggle with this question. I write columns and postcards to voters. I wear a mask, inside or out of public buildings. I try to be thoughtful and kind in the interactions I do have with others. I pray, trying to remember that I am not alone in this walk, that the Holy One, as well as other human beings, are with me in it.

Will I be as courageous as the Graetzs if I’m called to publicly stand up against injustice? Will I find strength in faith?

I’m not sure. But I know, such courage doesn’t just “appear” in a moment. It is something we nurture throughout our lives: with prayer, in our actions large and small. They are related. I remember that the couple who braved threats and bombings also noticed simple needs. They slipped a cough-drop across a table.

Books by Rev. Robert Graetz

A White Preacher’s Memoir: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (first published as Montgomery: A White Preacher’s Memoir)

A White Preacher Message on Race and Reconciliation: Based on His Experiences Beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

I have always contended that the absence of fear is not the point. What you do when you are afraid is what makes the difference. We often had good reason to be afraid.
Rev. Robert Graetz

Filed Under: The Scallop Tagged With: civil rights, courage, Jeannie Graetz, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rev. Robert Graetz, Rosa Parks, small acts of kindness

September 24, 2020 By Mary van Balen 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?

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

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: a time of action, a time to speak out, Being Presence, challenge, compassion, healing, incarnational faith, injustice, Martin Luther King Jr., prayer, racism, transforming love

August 24, 2020 By Mary van Balen 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.

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.

“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

Filed Under: The Scallop Tagged With: authentic self, creation, prayer, Presence, present to the moment, St. Bonaventure, Thomas Merton

August 17, 2020 By Mary van Balen 7 Comments

Perseverance, Faith, and Open Hearts

Painting of a refugee woman holding a small child — Virginia Carvour acrylic on canvas 16 x 20
Columbus Crossing Borders Project

The account in Matthew’s gospel of the conversation between Jesus and a Canaanite woman asking him to cure her daughter provides insight into the transformational power of a genuine encounter with another.

Showing the determination and faith of a mother who was seeking help and the humanity of Jesus who was growing into a deeper understanding of himself and his mission, this story surprises.

One who encounters

Jesus often engaged with people like this woman who was dismissed as unimportant by others, including his disciples.

They didn’t want her hanging around and following them. She was a nuisance as far as they were concerned. To them, she was “other,” like the Samaritan woman at the well, marginalized because she was a woman and because she was a Gentile. They encouraged Jesus to send the troublemaker away.

But Jesus wasn’t about sending away. When crowds followed him, tired as he was, he took time to be with them, sometimes speaking, healing, or sharing food. No, Jesus wasn’t about turning his head when people came to him hurting and in need. He was all about seeing, paying attention, and listening deeply.

One who perseveres

The Canaanite woman was aware of his reputation as healer and an approachable one at that. Still, she needed courage to ask for help. She had to get by his disciples who were intent on protecting him and perhaps themselves from those who could cause problems or divert attention from what they thought was important.

She took the first step, finding and following them. When the time seemed right, she called out, respectfully asking for help, explaining that her daughter was tormented by a demon. After silence, Jesus’s initial response was dismissive: He was sent to the house of Israel, and she didn’t qualify.

Again, she honored him and pleaded for help. Jesus said, “No.” It wasn’t right to throw what was meant for the children of Israel to the dogs (a derogatory name sometimes used for Gentiles).

Despite his rebuke, she persisted. She had no special claim to his power other than being an anguished human speaking in behalf of someone unable to plead for herself. And she had faith that Jesus could help. That was enough.

She took a breath. Even dogs, she reminded Jesus, ate scraps from the table of their masters.

Jesus was listening. And when he looked, he saw her. He recognized her dignity as a child of God who held a spark of the Divine in her soul. He didn’t look past her or see her as his disciples did – an inconvenience.

He heard her pain. Emotionally engaged, he empathized and was moved. And he couldn’t miss the faith she had in him.

Transformation

Looking through her eyes, he saw something new about himself. (Isn’t this what happens when someone truly, deeply engages with another? They learn about themselves, their world, and their place in it.) Jesus wasn’t afraid of seeing something new. He wasn’t afraid to draw his circle even wider.

What he had to give he could give to all, couldn’t he? The One who sent him was limitless Love. There was no shortage to go around. For Jesus, there would be no “others.”

I think of John Lewis when I read about this woman and Jesus. As the late Representative and civil rights activist lived and advised, she “stood up and spoke out” when she saw something that was unjust.

She spoke the truth. Jesus listened and heard with an open heart. And it made all the difference. He healed her daughter and in doing so, the anguished mother’s heart. She healed him of a blind spot, urging him to grow into who he was.

Open hearts

Pray for such grace and courage.

John Lewis’s life witnessed the power of speaking the truth with love, of being willing to suffer for it, and of persevering. His training and belief in non-violence as the path toward change didn’t waver. In interviews he said his heart had no room for bitterness or hate.

Pray for the grace and wisdom to engage in conversations with such an open, humble heart. Listening without an agenda that prompts a quick defensive response or turning away is challenging whatever the situation. But such encounters will help move this country toward healing and becoming a more just society.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: attentive, courage, encounter, faith, grace, inclusion, Jesus and the Canaanite Wioman, open hearts, perseverence, present to the moment, Rep. John Lewis, speak the truth, transformation, transforming love, truth

July 2, 2020 By Mary van Balen 13 Comments

Letting the Light In

Full disclosure: I’ve tried to write this column for weeks. Thoughts and notes spill across my journal pages; drafts of documents sit on my laptop. Prayer and vigil candles are spent. Life feels heavy. Sometimes overwhelming. The state of our world and our country is revealing the dark, shadowy side beneath our comfortable façade. And cracks in that façade are everywhere.

Leonard Cohen’s lyric from Anthem comes to mind: “There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” True enough. But cracks can also make things fall apart – as some must do – before they are put back together or something new is made. In the process, it’s often the cracks we see, not the light.

You may find that true today. The world struggles to find responses to climate change and the will to implement them. The the pandemic brings not only sickness and death, but economic crisis, causing millions to struggle to survive. It challenges the world’s “normal” which, really, hasn’t been working all that well.

Our country, fractured by political turmoil, division, and fumbled responses to COVID-19, must also recognize the racism that is staring in our collective face. The video of George Floyd’s murder by policemen was a tipping point, coming closely on the heels of other senseless murders of African Americans. Protests erupted across the U.S. and the world and continue today. They must. They make us look. They reveal cracks that have crazed our nation even before it was born.

“What can I do?” I ask myself. I don’t have answers; I have questions. It’s time for white people to look deeply at their own stories and those of their ancestors and recognize how they have benefited from systemic racism for generations. We can educate ourselves. Reading and discussing the book Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving, is jarring as our group listens to the long history of racism and slavery in our country from the beginning, hearing how early it was codified into our laws.

Truth illuminates the cracks. It’s the light that gets in. And once it does, we have a choice. The line before Cohen’s famous one quoted above is this: “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering.” Our efforts will not be perfect, but they must be made.

We all must do the hard work of hearing the truth and making changes in our lives and in the laws and practices of this country. On a walk in my neighborhood I noticed two messages painted on the sidewalk: “Black Lives Matter” and “You can do hard things.”

These unprecedented times demand we recognize the truth of both. There is much in our world and in our nation that requires doing hard things for the good of all.

This year, July 4 presents an opportunity to reflect on our country, to consider its history through an inclusive lens, and to work for its future. When I pondered the Roman Catholic Lectionary readings for this holiday, the one from Philippians spoke to my heart:

Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things…

It is hopeful. It reminded me to look for what is good in the world, in one another, in our dreams and values. To focus on justice and truth. To hold tight to them. To look for the light coming in through the cracks.

But that wasn’t all. The reading continued:

Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.

What have we seen in Jesus? Love. He was all love. Love of God. Love of neighbor. He stood with the poor and marginalized. He challenged those who abused power and were greedy, concerned only with their own comfort and well-being. He told the Good Samaritan story: everyone is our neighbor; we must take care of one another. He never saw anyone as “other.” Everyone belonged. In the end, he was murdered by a world that couldn’t accept such radical, inclusive love.

This reading calls us to hope and also to act, like Jesus, keeping our hearts set on what is good and just. On Love. To use our hands and feet and minds and talents to bring more of it into this world. And, as the reading ends, Then the God of peace will be with you.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment, Widening Our Circles Tagged With: Action, Anthem, Black Lives Matter, civil rights, Cracks that's how the light gets in, equality, hope, humility, justice, Leonard Cohen, light, love

May 15, 2020 By Mary van Balen 14 Comments

No Matter How Small, Everything Matters

Collier’s Cranes, Gates Atrium, MIT PHOTO: Mary van Balen

These days of pandemic are challenging in a myriad of ways. One is the dilemma of finding a way to respond. What can I do in the face of this? How can I help? Answers to these questions may be difficult to find. I offer this example.

Sometime in the past couple of weeks, a load of stress burst from wherever I had hidden it and overwhelmed me. When friends asked how I was doing, I usually had answered “fine.” After the initial shock of the pandemic and fear of contracting COVID-19 (I’m in a vulnerable demographic), I thought I was dealing with the situation pretty well.

I was, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Just like that. Working from home, I couldn’t focus. Talking with my daughters and friends flooded me with desire to see them, hug them, or share a meal. Of course, I couldn’t. Tears surprised me at odd times, like while I was folding towels or making dinner.

Instead of taking life one day at a time, I spent time wondering about the future. When will I feel safe going outside, visiting family and friends, or sitting in a favorite restaurant? There’s no going back to “normal.” Will we emerge with a heightened sense of interdependence with one another and our planet? Will we be willing to make changes required for a more just and sustainable future? No answers.

I ended up washing the floors in my apartment. People who know me well will surmise the level of stress. Housecleaning is near the bottom of my priority list. If I’m cleaning, either company is coming or I’m dealing with something.

In this case, it was my sinking spirit.

So, last night, I listened to my heart instead of my head, which was telling me to get to work on my column or clean off the table. My heart, on the other hand, pleaded with me to stay put on the sofa, smartphone in hand, where I was singing along with videos of Peter Seeger and the Weavers from their 1980 reunion at Carnegie Hall.

The concert was pure joy. When Pete threw his head back and belted out the song “Wimoweh,” his energy surged right out of the phone. (If you’re don’t remember the older versions of the song, you’ll remember it from The Lion King.)

Moving from song to song, I ended with the one that closed the concert: Good Night Irene. Slower. Softer. It was perfect.

Cheers and applause exploded in the packed hall, washing over the performers who returned the sentiment by standing and clapping for the audience. Love wrapped everyone in a long embrace. Me included. It didn’t matter that I was listening decades later, and hundreds of miles removed. Time and space can’t keep Love contained. Once it’s loose in the universe, it doesn’t end. It expands. It heals. It gives hope.

The Weavers and those who had travelled from around the country to attend that concert felt the power of love that evening. But they couldn’t’ possibly have known that forty years later, in the midst of a pandemic, their talents and effort, their appreciation of and presence to that moment, would buoy the sinking spirit of a woman self-isolating alone, sitting on her living room couch, singing along.

We never know what healing and hope our acts of love will unleash into the world. In these days, when most of us are sheltering in place, our contributions may seem small, but every one counts. Every one.

While front-line workers release love into the world, so do those with more hidden work to do. It all counts, whether we’re cooking for elderly neighbors, making grocery store runs, staying home, wearing face masks when outside or in a building, reading to children, contributing to the public discussion, or even writing a column.

Being faithful to what we have been given to do, large or small, does indeed matter – now and always – because every act of love is an outpouring of the Love that creates and sustains all.

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: compassion, connectedness, everything matters, hope, peace, small acts of love, The Weavers

May 5, 2020 By Mary van Balen 10 Comments

Liberation Day and Inspiration from WWII

“Food, Peace, Freedom” Commemorative Plaque 1945, Delft

Yesterday I received an email from a cousin in the Netherlands telling me about two special days observed in her country, yesterday and today: Day of Remembrance (May 4) and Liberation Day (May 5). The first honors those who gave their lives during WWII. The second celebrates the end of German occupation of Holland and the end of the war.

In her email, she shared stories of her mother and father’s work during those dark days. Her mother helped bring hungry children from the city to Friesland (a northern province of the Netherlands) where the farmers had food and people were happy to provide shelter and nourishment to the youngsters. Her father helped collect guns, air dropped in nearby fields, to be used by the Dutch resistance. He and his comrades carried messages by bicycle- with wooden wheels- to those in the resistance. (Bicycles were forbidden, so just having one was dangerous.) All this was done on moonless nights to avoid being discovered.

Today, the people of the Netherlands will remember the Allied Forces that brought the war to an end and the GIs who rescued the “hungry and exhausted people of Holland.”

She also remembered my father, who joined in a flight that was part of Operation Chowhound/Manna dropping food to the starving Dutch people. He was stationed in England, an Intelligence officer, but went on the mission because his father was a Dutch immigrant with a large family remaining in the Netherlands.

Decades later, a Dutch couple appeared at my parents’ door. They brought a brass flare that had been used to light up the field where food was dropped near their home. It was a gift to Dad, a “Thank You.”

I have a Delft plaque that memorializes that food drop. Looking at it now, I pause, remember, and give thanks for the self-giving of so many.

Life brings unexpected challenges. For my parents’ generation, WWII called them to great sacrifice, making the world a safer place for generations to come.

For us today, the great challenge is the pandemic. The first call is for us to do our part in stopping the spread of COVID-19 starting with quarantine, social distancing, and wearing face masks. But a bigger challenge will remain after a vaccine is found and the people of the world are able to move about more safely. Like WWII, the coronavirus will require people and countries around the world to work together. But instead of fighting to end the scourge of Nazism, our struggle is to change the way human beings live on this planet.

We must find ways to respect the earth and live without destroying it. We must find ways to live as a global family, not as warring tribes.

Remembering, along with my cousin, the sacrifices made by our parents has awakened a deep appreciation for the example they have given us: the courage to hope at a time when what needs done seems impossible; the willingness to sacrifice for the good of others, and the strength to go on when all seems lost.

Today, commitment to the common good is lacking in the hearts of many who, instead, hold on to a sense of privilege and of the value of working for self interests rather than for what is best for all. The uneven response in the U.S. to this pandemic and the clinging to an illusion of rugged independence with little regard for “the other” is evidence of such a mindset.

Mindful of the demands WWII placed on people of the world, I listen in disbelief to protestors today who cry that their rights are being trampled when they are told to wear a face mask. Wearing a face mask in public to protect others and combat this virus is too much to do? Really? A friend suggested that perhaps they don’t understand the importance of that simple action. Perhaps. I hope they catch on soon.

Our challenge is overwhelming. It’s about creating a new, sustainable way of being with one another and with the earth. Different than what faced those in WWII, the response must also be different. The way forward needs to be one of peaceful cooperation, not war. It seems impossible.

Now, when I look at that Delft plaque, it will be a source of inspiration to move ahead and not only of remembrance. It will encourage resolve to continue the legacy of those who worked together for a common purpose. As we begin the long process of change, I’ll draw hope from their hope. And love from their love.

Filed Under: The Scallop Tagged With: climate change, Common Good, cooperation, justice, Liberation Day, Response to COVID-19, WWII

April 22, 2020 By Mary van Balen 14 Comments

Sunday Prayer: A Mindful Loaf

Sunday, I decided, was the perfect day to use some of my precious yeast and flour to make a single loaf of bread – the day Christians set aside to gather and remember God’s great gift of self, given and shared with all creation. Baking would be my prayer.

My old Tassajara Bread book’s cover is stained and bent, but its respect for the ingredients and the nourishment of body and spirit as well as its slow, mindful approach was perfect for my prayer – of course it would be. The book’s author was a young Zen student, later Zen priest, at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Edward Espe Brown.

Strains of Holst’s The Planets filled my little kitchen with a sense of the cosmos and my small place in it. I gathered the ingredients and, lighting a beeswax candle, took a few quiet moments to remember that, as always, I was in the presence of the Holy One whose Love and Breath is the Source of all that is. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Begin.

The first step was making the sponge – something Tassajara introduced into my vocabulary. This stage gives yeast time to grow, uninhibited by the salt added later. As the sponge rises, gluten is formed; that makes kneading easier. I poured warm water into a large bowl. Sprinkling yeast on the water, I marveled at the tiny grains that would come to life and make my bread rise. Simply by being itself, the yeast would move a pound or two of heavy, dense dough.

May I be myself, moving the world forward ever so slightly, by giving the gifts and Love entrusted to me to share.

I stirred in a little honey to give the yeast something to feed on, added flour, mixed, and then set it aside to rise for an hour, covering the bowl with a damp towel—carefully chosen—printed with illustrations of shells found along New England beaches. I remembered rhythmic sounds of ocean waves, smells of salty air, the variety of sea creatures, all mingled with my awareness of vast cosmic space. My small kitchen was becoming spacious.

There are times in our lives that are “sponge-times,” blessedly free of experiences that hinder growth. They are respites and retreats. They are moments or hours or days.

I am grateful for the sponge-times that bless my life, from childhood to this uncertain moment of pandemic; for the people and places and books and words and music and art and night skies and all things that have been doors of such grace for me.

Next came the folding-in. With gentle, around-the-bowl-and-toward-the-center motion of the wooden spoon, I blended in salt and oil, careful not to tear the tender dough. I folded in more flour until it held together, a ball in the middle of the bowl.

Oh, that we may hold together, this world of people, in these times.

I didn’t use the mixer, but kneaded by hand on the countertop. I felt the dough becoming supple, stretching, not tearing. The gluten was forming, ready to capture bubbles of carbon dioxide made as the yeast grew. Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, passed.

Can I stretch, not break, when life pushes and pulls in different directions?

Next, more time to rise in the warmed oven. Time to wash dishes, clean the countertop, and put the canister of flour and bottle of oil away. I closed my eyes and listened to the music. I remembered walking on beaches and finding shells and an occasional piece of sea glass.

Lying on the couch, I put my feet up, and wondered: Who tended the bees that made the local honey? Who grew the wheat and ground it into flour? Who delivered the groceries to the store and put them on the shelves? I didn’t think much about these jobs before these days of self-isolation.

I am grateful for the people whose work provides what is needed to make a simple loaf of bread. Scarcity and the need for others to risk their health make me value each ingredient. I am careful not to waste. I am sorry for not always having been so careful.

Next came the punching-down. The yeast and gluten had done their work. The dough had risen high in the bowl. But I made a fist and gently pushed the soft dough until it was almost flat again. It seemed counterproductive. Why squash air pockets the yeast and gluten had worked together to make? Bakers know. Still, it seemed unfair. I punched anyway, re-covered the bowl, and let it rise again. And it did.

May I rise back up when life punches the breath right out of me. Can I trust that the Spirit living within me won’t be beaten so far down that it won’t be able to rise again? Yes, so far. But there have been times – dark times – when I didn’t. I’m grateful for people in my life who trusted the spirit in me when I couldn’t.

I gently kneaded the risen dough one last time and put it in the pan. Yes. It had to rise again. Then it was ready for the oven. The aroma of baking bread filled the apartment. I had time to wash dishes again while listening to the music and imagining planets not included in Holst’s suite: planets spinning around other stars in other galaxies.

I began cutting up onions and mincing garlic for soup to have along with fresh bread for dinner.

The oven timer buzzed. The loaf was ready. I had made a small roll, too, for eating while it was still hot, melting a smear of butter.

Bread. Many grains, one loaf. Gift of the earth. Work of human hands. I placed the roll on a small blue plate, gift of a Cistercian monk-friend years ago. Made by potters down the road from the monastery, the plate’s dark blue glaze edged with white misty swirls has always reminded me of the night sky, the Milky Way, or photos taken by the Hubble. It’s my “cosmos plate.”

I poured red wine into the matching chalice and sat quietly. My family and friends, my communities, the city, the world and all its people, the earth and all the “helpers,” the cosmos—all were gathered in, sitting with me in the Presence of the Source of all.

The world is not the same as it was when a tiny virus brought us all into this time of uncertainty. May I have the courage to move forward into a new time with a will to change, to create new ways of being with one another and with our planet. May we all be willing to shed the old “normal,” as comforting as it might seem, and to make something new, kinder, and better, together.

“Eucharist” means “thanksgiving.” My Sunday baking liturgy finished, I gave thanks, broke the bread, and ate. Amen.

Filed Under: The Scallop Tagged With: baking bread, coronoavirus, creation, Eucharist, grace, Mindful baking, prayer, present to the moment, spirituality, Tassajara, Zen

April 9, 2020 By Mary van Balen 12 Comments

Celebrating the Triduum Together While Apart

Holy Thursday begins the Triduum—time set apart to reflect on the meaning of events from the Last Supper to the Resurrection, not only in the lives of Jesus and his disciples, but also in the Paschal Mystery unfolding in our lives.

Following the great tradition observed by generations of Christians, we gather to commemorate these events. But this year is different. We cannot gather. Our buildings are closed.

We are church

Photo: Mary van Balen

Covid-19 requires us to find new ways to “be church.” At its most basic, church is people, not buildings or doctrine or hierarchy. It is the people of God. And while the liturgies of Holy Week are beautiful sources of grace, we don’t need to be in a particular place or follow established rites to experience God-with-us.

In John’s gospel, at the last supper, Jesus promises his disciples that the Spirit will come and dwell within them. That Divine Presence, which lives within each of us, has animated all creation since the beginning: from the tiniest atoms to the furthest galaxies. The challenge of these days is to recognize that Presence in each moment, wherever we are.

While the supper is the setting in John’s gospel read today, the first Eucharist is not the centerpiece. It is the other events of that evening that John remembers. They move our souls with their intimacy and the love that soaks every moment.

During the meal, Jesus rises, ties a towel around his waist, fills a basin with water, and gets on his knees. He cradles his disciples’ dusty feet, washing and drying them one by one. When he’s finished, he asks if they understand what he’s done.

Not waiting for an answer, he tells them: If he, their master and teacher, washes their feet, then they should be ready to wash one another’s feet.

In this moment…

In this present moment, many are providing such physical acts of caring. Healthcare professionals, parents at home with small children, and those caring for sick family members serve the vulnerable. Farm laborers and grocery store workers keep food flowing to our tables. Sanitation workers and janitors keep our streets and buildings clean. Many find ways to feed the homeless and provide a place for them to sleep. The list is long.

This is a eucharist: the self, sacrificed out of love for another.

John also tells of Jesus giving a new commandment: “Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another.” He says it twice.

During this crisis, we share that love for one another by staying home; by venturing out only when necessary and keeping our distance when we do; by virtual visits instead of meeting face to face. For some, these actions mean loss of jobs and income. How can we show care for them now and when this time has passed?

Jesus reassures his disciples that they will not be forgotten or left alone. He prays for them and for those who will believe through their word: “…that they all may be one. As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…”

In the midst of self-isolation, we ensure that friends and family do not feel forgotten. We draw one another into the circle of oneness and love with calls, texts, and video chats. We check that they are ok, share a laugh or a story, and hold their grief at the loss of loved ones.

Then Jesus goes forward, endures betrayal, suffering, and death, showing the unfathomable depth of God’s love. His disciples spend their sabbath filled with confusion and fear. Then on the first day of the week, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene. He instructs her to tell the others what she has seen and heard.

When Jesus appears to them all the following day, he greets them with “Peace,” and as promised, bestows the Spirit with a simple breath.

It is that Spirit who makes the present moment the place where we encounter God. We remember the risen Christ is with us. The indwelling Holy Presence abounds in the simple routines of everyday life. While we miss celebrating the Paschal Mysteries together, we are finding new ways to live them while apart.

That is why our churches are closed. At first glance, they appear empty. But really, they are filled with love.

Chapel of St. Ignatius Seattle University
Photo: Mary van Balen

Filed Under: Grace in the Moment Tagged With: acceptance, Covid-19, Easter, faith, hope, present to the moment, Triduum, trust, unconditional love

March 23, 2020 By Mary van Balen 12 Comments

Coronavirus and Being Apart – Together

Changing the slogan

Apart Together – Mary van Balen

A few days ago, a friend sent an email that, among other things, suggested a change to the slogan often heard in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. “Getting through this together” could use a little tweak. In light of the urgent need for people to self-isolate, she thought “Getting through this apart” might better reflect the message being sent by medical experts world-wide, and locally, by Gov. Mike DeWine and Director of the Ohio Health Department, Dr. Amy Acton.

I forwarded the email and added my thoughts: How about “Getting through this apart—together”?

A Robert Frost poem came to mind, “The Tuft of Flowers.” I hadn’t thought of it in years.

The poem

This poem spoke to me immediately when I first read it as a teenager in The Complete Poems of Robert Frost, one of my Book-of-the-Month Club purchases.

The speaker in “The Tuft of Flowers” is a man going out to turn the grass in a field mowed by someone earlier that morning. The speaker looks for the one who had gone before, listens for the sound of his whetstone, but without success. He had gone on, alone.

Watercolor sketch for my journal

“As we all must be,” the man says in his heart, “Whether they work together or apart.”

But, getting ready to toss the grass to dry, he spots a butterfly, searching for a flower remembered from the day before, circling around one lying, cut and drying out, with the rest of the grasses.

Suddenly the butterfly turns toward a brook. The man looks and sees what it had discovered: a tuft of flowers, untouched by the scythe, a “leaping tongue of bloom” rising up from the cut grasses along a reedy brook.

He senses that the mower had left the flowers standing out of sheer joy at their beauty. That realization opened him up to be present to the moment, to noticing birdsong. And, to his surprise, a connection with the one who had cut down the meadow and disappeared into the morning.

Instead of feeling alone in his work, the man felt the companionship and support of the unknown mower and carried on a heart-conversation with him, a kindred spirit.

The grace of that encounter with the butterfly, the flowers, and through them, the mower, flipped the man’s perspective. He was not alone after all.

“Men work together I told him in my heart, whether they work together or apart.”

Our work to do

This poem holds wisdom for us, as we face the Coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic. Taking the lead where our President has not, some governors in our country (Thank you Gov. Mike DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton) have already ordered their citizens to shelter in place. I hope they all do, and soon. Not only for the sake of individuals’ health, but as a way to slow down the virus spread. To “flatten the curve.”

Staying inside one’s home alone or with family members is isolating. But it is our work to do. And as the poem reminds us, what one person does affects countless others. We are interconnected in more ways than we can imagine. Like the mower and the one who came after to turn the grass, we are working together at the same task. Even though we will never know the names of those who heed the warnings, follow the orders, and isolate themselves, we can draw strength from their actions.

For us, they are of life and death significance.

Some people cannot stay home. Healthcare professionals, grocery store workers, and so many others whose work is critical during this time, are putting themselves a risk to serve the rest of us. But for every person who decides not to be part of the effort – those who could stay inside but don’t, those who make unnecessary trips or insist on attending large gatherings, secular or religious, those who go on about life as usual – the strength of the communal effort is weakened. Thousands more will die.

Illusion of an unconnected self

In our country, individualism is glorified. “Doing it my way.” “Pulling oneself up by the bootstraps.” “I don’t need any help.” “Keep government off my back.”

“Going it alone” is an illusion. None of us “makes it” or fails to “make it” alone. And this crisis will not be met by individuals. It will be overcome by a nation, by a world of people working together as they live apart.

If you’d like, read the poem, “The Tuft of Flowers” online. Or if you, like me, have an old 1964 copy of The Complete Poems of Robert Frost sitting on your bookshelves, read it there on page 31.

Journal pages – Mary van Balen

Filed Under: The Scallop