Solitude’s Gift of Grace
April 21, 2023 By 8 Comments

Solitude’s Gift of Grace

Last week I made an impromptu visit to a state park. My sister and her husband are avid birdwatchers, and while I’m not, they suggested we could enjoy dinners and evenings together after having filled the day with what feeds our souls.

The simple change of scenery lifted my spirits. While the lodge that sat on the edge of Maumee Bay and Lake Erie had no long beach to walk, there was a large body of water. Constant wind off the lake lifted and swayed the graceful branches of weeping willows just beginning to bloom. And though the boardwalk and marshy land around it had changed drastically since my last visit decades ago, it provided a place very different than my suburban neighborhood to walk and observe nature.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d fill my time, so I brought Mary Oliver’s collection of poetry, Thirst, colored pencils and watercolors, a sketch pad and journals, and pastries from my favorite bakery. Even though I live alone, the solitude and quiet offered by this space felt different, more intentional.

In the mornings I sat outside on the small patio sipping coffee and eating a palmier. I read the first half of Mary Oliver’s poems aloud, imagining the wind carrying the words to the dancing willow trees, the Canada Goose on the pond, and skimming them across the water. The words, like Tibetan prayer flags, releasing grace as the wind blew them along.

An arthritic knee kept my walks on the short side, but I took lots of them. White tail deer and I startled one another along the marshy patch where they were wading and nibbling tender sprouts. A muskrat, finding the spring greens irresistible too, pushed aside watery plants, leaving dark trails behind. A black snake slithered from rock into water, smoothly curving its body this way and that and disappeared into leafy growth on the opposite side. Turtles sunned themselves on a log. Ducks hung around in little cove, and birds flitted from branch to branch.

I ended up with some sketches—the bench beneath the willows, my mug of coffee and a palmier resting on a napkin, a small feast I required myself to draw before eating it, and buds of the willow and a tree I’d need leaves to identify—none great art, but I did pay more attention to how the palmier dough was looped into its butterfly shape and how leaves and buds appear in the spring. The process was a mindfulness exercise reminding me of a favorite book, The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation by Frederic Franck.

bench under three willows by lake
pen sketch palmier and mug
sketch of willow and other bud

I read all of Thirst, pondering some lines: “My work is loving the world / …  which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished….” (from “Messenger”); “And they call again, ‘It’s simple’ they say, / ‘and you too have come / into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled / with light and to shine.’” (from “When I Am Among the Trees”)

I ate a delicious walleye dinner and some creamy Easter chocolate from home. My sister, her husband, and I watched the new episode of Ted Lasso and shared walks and conversation in the evenings.

All in all, a lovely time. I didn’t accomplish anything particular. But that was the point. What I needed. To be still with myself and with God, wasting time together with no goal in mind other than being who I am.

Too often these days, I am overwhelmed with sadness and anger and a sense of not being enough. I think many of us struggle with this. It’s easy when we live in a world where so much is broken. Where suffering and injustice surround us, and we feel powerless to change it. Where communication and connection are fraught by deep ideological divisions, both political and religious. And then there is Covid, still hanging around.

When I returned home, I listened to this season’s last podcast of On Being’s with Krista Tippett and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, titled “To Be A Healer.” His words resonated, as if he had known just why I needed that short time away.

Dr. Murthy said he believed our greatest source of strength comes from our ability to give and receive love. He talked about the importance of having a sense of self-worth, of trusting who we are and what we hold inside. Our mental health, he suggests, is the fuel we need to function at our best. We need a “full tank” to be present to ourselves, to one another, to our communities, and to the world.

Sometimes I’m running on fumes.

He suggested four things to help people improve their overall sense of wellbeing and social connection that combat the stress of loneliness and disconnect with ourselves and others. Listen to the podcast to hear them all. The last surprised me: Solitude. It shouldn’t have. Isn’t that what intentional quiet time, quiet prayer, or meditation is? His explanation: “The solitude is important because it’s in moments of solitude, when we allow the noise around us to settle, that we can truly reflect, that we can find moments in our life to be grateful for.”

For me, it’s also a time to be still and open to the Grace always given. A time, as Mary Oliver’s trees suggested, to be filled with light and to shine.

What are your times? Where are your places?

Sources

Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver

Messenger by Mary Oliver

The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation  by Frederic Franck

Vivek Murthy: To Be A Healer   Interview On Being with Krista Tippett

Photos: Mary van Balen

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Befriending Good Friday Darkness
April 7, 2023 By 8 Comments

Befriending Good Friday Darkness

While staying alone at a friend’s woodland cabin one Good Friday night, I turned off the lights and stepped outside for a walk. My eyes needed a few minutes to adjust until silhouettes of bushes, trees, and clumps of weeds emerged from the blackness. Darkness changes even the familiar, and while I knew where the little creek spilled past the end of the driveway and how the area beyond it opened to a path up a hill and along the ridge, I chose my steps carefully, listening to animal sounds and feeling the earth give way beneath my feet. Night heightened my senses, alert for danger as well as beauty.

I stepped on the end of a weathered, grey board, part of some long-gone fence or building, and the other end sprung up from the ground, startling me. It seemed alive, expectant as I was, aware that we both were in the midst of some unknown something that was coming or perhaps was already there. The board settled back onto the ground once I continued on my way. I imagined it returned to quiet attention. All creation seemed to be waiting through the night for what, I didn’t know.

The dark hours of Good Friday invite us to settle into a time of not knowing, of finally sitting peacefully, if not comfortably, with emptiness. It offers a time of deepening faith that something transformative is always happening under the surface, at the heart of things. It moves, but we cannot see. Like seeds buried in cold winter soil or a caterpillar dissolving and recreating in the shroud of its chrysalis. Like Jesus laying in the tomb. Life is at work even in what looks like death.

That truth reveals itself in the “little deaths” that everyone encounters: illness, loss, struggle, depression, uncertainty. At some point we learn that, as much as society tells us we are in control of our lives, we really are not. Some things are beyond our choosing or our making. These opportunities to let go of control and embrace our own powerlessness and uncertainty invite us to grow in trust. Trust that in the end, as Jesus said, Love cannot be overcome.

He showed us in his life and in his death, what trusting God’s Presence looks like. He lived knowing he was not alone in his journey and assured us that we aren’t either. In his lifetime, those in power tried to put him to death, to snuff out Love that made them uncomfortable and that threatened their position of privilege and their way of life. But Love that is the source of all being would not be destroyed.

Instead, by embracing his own death, Jesus transformed it from an “end” into a “beginning.” We are invited to do the same. To befriend darkness and let it in. To let it open us to surrender and receptivity. The dark times, the Good Fridays, are necessary steps into a new place. Their emptiness provides space for Love to grow deeper and to emerge transformed as Jesus did from the tomb.

At a time when the world is filled with darkness, with violence and hatred and divisions, somewhere, good is happening. Love is growing and changing us and our world. Jesus showed us that it is human to be afraid and angry, but also to trust. Trust that deep down, in places we cannot see or know in the moment, Love is alive and Eastering in us, getting ready to rise and reveal itself again and again.

Good Friday gifts us with the time to sink into quiet, into darkness. To allow ourselves to recognize emptiness and infirmity, mortality and powerlessness, and yet, eventually, find hope.

Kintsugi Bowl

Psalm 31, prayed in the Good Friday liturgy, contains the words of surrender and trust Jesus spoke from the cross as he died: “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” But as I read further, the image that stirred my soul was this: “I am like a dish that is broken.” In dark times of unknowing, I feel like a broken bowl, my life, my spirit, in pieces. Good Friday tells me Jesus knew that feeling too. In the end, he trusted that God was holding the pieces. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending them with gold, Love puts us back together, more beautiful, and stronger than before. Able to hold more Love and to give it away.

That night at the cabin, I rested with creation in this Mystery. Unaware of “how,” we were opening to the Eastering always transforming us from within. May this Good Friday be such a gift for you.

Eastering    
      (Unless in silence
      where sings the song?
      What means the morning
      unless first the night?
      Unless into stillness
      where comes the dance?
      Unless into darkness
      where breaks the light?)
Woven warp and weft of things.

- Mary van Balen 1977

Kintsugi bowl painting and weaving photo: Mary van Balen; Feature watercolor and photo: Kathryn Holt

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Showing Up
March 25, 2023 By 4 Comments

Showing Up

Palm Sunday is but a week away. I look back over my Lenten observances and think, as I do just about every year, that I could have done better. Six weeks ago, as Lent approached, I went through a mental list of how I might observe the season: Do Lectio on the daily lectionary readings, spend more time in quiet prayer, read the four gospels, pray the morning and evening hours, keep a special Lenten journal, re-read Brother Lawrence. The list became long, and I struggled to make a choice. All the spiritual practices on my list were admirable, and a commitment to any one of them would bear fruit.

The longer I sat, the more difficult the decision. Suddenly, I knew what practice beckoned me: Simply be faithful. Show up, notice, and respond to the moment. Be open to the Holy One, however present, and be grateful.

It sounds deceptively simple, but showing up isn’t easy. For example, as I write this, I’m working in the company of writers from around the world who have chosen to “show up” for an hour each weekday to write “together” over Zoom with the London Writers’ Salon (LWS) folks. LWS turned three today and is celebrating with a 24-hour writer’s sprint. We can check in for an hour or two or more. No matter the time, the virtual room is open.

Any writer will tell you, showing up every day is what it takes to get the work done. Some days a lot is accomplished. Other days are more “stare out the window” times or a “jot down a few disjointed notes in a journal” day when little or nothing makes it onto the page. As unproductive as it might seem, something is stirring in the mind and imagination. Recognized or not, the writing process is happening, and one day, the fruit of that work done below the surface will spill out onto the page.

Spiritually showing up is similar. Like writers, those consciously traveling their spiritual path will have practices whose benefits are not obvious but are awakening something deep within.

Once while on a year-long writing residency, I had a conversation with Benedictine monk. We were on our way to the Abbey church for mid-day prayer. Both of us had been busy with writing projects, but when the bells chimed, we left our work in the library and headed for our work in the choir stalls.

“Sometimes I wonder,” my monk friend said, “if all these years of reciting the Psalms, day after day, over and over, really makes any difference.” I guess, if one’s been doing that for decades, they’re entitled to wonder.

I couldn’t answer for him, but I did know that whenever I joined in the monks’ shared prayer, it was a source of grace for me. It was one of many. The bell chiming throughout each day encouraged me to pause and remember that God is always with us. The natural setting was stunning: lakes, prairie, wetlands, oak savannas, and wooded hills, all filled with wildlife. Nature is the first revelation of God. Grace flowed through the people with whom I lived and worked: writers, monks, those who ran the Institute. We shared long conversations, impromptu meals, and more formal dinners. We supported one another through grief and difficult times and celebrated ordinary joys and writing breakthroughs. Some of us even shared a poetry reading, complete with tea and biscuits, in a fish house on a frozen lake! Spiritually showing up looks different all the time.

That is how my Lent looked: different all the time. Take last week. Some days were spent supporting a sick friend who had traveled a long distance to see a doctor. Fixing food, making sure there was hot tea brewing, listening, and just making the house welcoming was my joy and my practice. When the house was empty again, I decided to take a day and put myself “in a place where Grace flows’” for me. I did PT exercises for an hour, taking care of my aging, imperfect body, honoring its gift.

Next was Writers’ Hour. I worked on a children’s book telling the story of a friend who was a Black American pioneer in aviation. Knowing it is work that is mine to do doesn’t make it easy. But I showed up and felt renewed enthusiasm for the project.

When the hour was finished, I tucked a journal and fountain pen into my purse and drove across town to purchase Caste from the indie bookstore, Gramercy. I bought a cup of coffee at the café next door and headed outside to write. Journaling is prayer for me, often leading along meandering paths of thought to places within I hadn’t expected to go.

I spent some time gazing at a graceful young tree beginning to bud. It seemed out-of-place, planted between buildings along a sidewalk and a busy street, but that’s just where its mercy was needed. I couldn’t take my eyes off its lithe, narrow branches – calm beauty amid the bustle and noise of the city. The tree simply being “tree” was an eloquent prayer. Such is the gift of creation. It can’t be anything other than its holy self.

After writing, I walked around the college campus across the street, enjoying the sun and cool, clear air. Aware of the time and peaceful place to enjoy nature’s gifts, I did as Brother Lawrence suggests and lifted my heart to God, acknowledging Divine Presence right where I was.

I walked into the library and took the elevator up to the Schumacher Art Gallery on the fourth floor. The special exhibit presented photographs of Native peoples around the globe taken by Dana Gluckstein. A large panel filled with text by Oren Lyon (Faithkeeper, Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation) introduced the exhibit and detailed the long struggles of native peoples as well as the long-awaited adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations in 2007. Another panel featured words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu about the wisdom shared with the modern world by those peoples: “…the first law of our being is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of creation.”

Wandering through the photographs and the adjoining room filled with African sculptures, I became acutely aware of the tiny piece I am of the human family that lives on this planet. How multitudinous are the ways of life, experiences, and relationships with the Divine. I stood still, surrounded by the photos. I showed up.

“You are a beloved child of God,” I heard in my heart. “So are these. So are all, each and every one.” Humility stirred in my soul. How little I know, yet still am a part of the family.

On the way home, I bought a raspberry-filled cookie from a French bakery. The day was, after all, the feast of Saint Benedict celebrated by my monk friends, Benedictine monastics around the world, and others who, like me, find Benedict’s wisdom helpful as they move through life.

“Celebrate every little thing,” I reminded myself. It’s a way of being grateful.

Back home, after enjoying the cookie and a cup of tea, I began reading a new book, This Here Flesh, by Cole Arthur Riley. Like the photo exhibit, it provided accounts of encounters with the Holy One different than my own yet connected in the “delicate network of interdependence.” I prayed to be humble and open to receive and reverence it.

Ordinary life filled the rest of the day: fixing food, eating dinner, gathering virtually with a small group of women with whom I’ve been reading books and sharing thoughts, questions, and grace for two years. Nothing and yet everything was extraordinary. The practice of showing up. Of being aware. Of being open so Grace can flow in and through and out. That is always the call.

Pistil of Thanksgiving Cactus flower open to catch falling pollen
Photo: Emily Holt

Sources:

The London Writers’ Salon

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher   by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Carmen Acevedo Butcher (translator)

Dana Gluckstein DIGNITY Portraits

This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

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Gold of the Moment
March 17, 2023 By 6 Comments

Gold of the Moment

Every week I look forward to a newsletter that arrives in my email on Fridays. It’s by one of my favorite artists, Susan Lynn, and offers some of her paintings and reflections, a video (music, dance, usually something fun), and a poem, in keeping with Goethe’s advice which she quotes at the bottom of every newsletter: “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

Last Friday a poem by Robert Frost was her choice. It’s a favorite that I discovered in high school when I bought a thick, green volume,“The Complete Poems of Robert Frost”, that was offered in the Book-of-the-Month Club. (Does that still exist? In those teenage years, it provided me with a wide variety of literature. My growing library prompted my mother to buy an old barrister’s bookcase to hold it.)

The poem Susan offered was “Spring Pools.” I imagine where she lives, Rockport, Massachusetts, snow is currently melting into puddles. While there are none where I am, I have seen them in the woods. Perhaps you have, too.

Spring Pools
by Robert Frost

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods.
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

Reading it reminded me of two other spring poems by Frost that allude to the ephemeral beauty of spring

“Nothing Gold Can Stay” begins, “Nature’s first green is gold, /Her hardest hue to hold.”

I thought of that on my evening walk. Bright sunlight lit up new buds that shone gold against the bright blue sky and the ground strewn with last summer’s now brown and brittle leaves.

This is the day which You have made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Psalm 118:24 Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill

“A Patch of Old Snow ” reminds me of the importance of being attentive to the moment, of noticing, and how often I don’t.

A Patch of Old Snow
by Robert Frost

There’s a patch of old snow in a corner
     That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
     Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if
     Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I’ve forgotten—
     If I ever read it.

Moments pass quickly. How important to be present to them. I tried on my walk this evening. The air was refreshingly cold and clean. A gnarly tree stood near the first stop sign on my way. I respectfully nodded to it as I stood in silence, thinking about the intelligence of trees, their way of communicating with one another, and their thriving in community, as people are meant to do.

I listened for the red-bellied woodpecker and cardinal, both reliably noisy in my neighborhood. Stooping to see what lay on the sidewalk that ran beside a wall shaded by old trees, I picked up some small cedar cones, a delicate dried flower from last year’s vine, and a few other treasures to send to my grandnephew so he can look at them with his jeweler’s loupe.

I kept a prayer in my heart. Not memorized words but attention, awareness of enveloping Presence in all I saw and felt, gratitude for it, and the lifting of the heart to God as I moved through the waning light of the day.

To be with God we don’t always have to be in church. We can make our hearts an oratory where we withdraw from time to time to talk with Love there … A brief lifting up of the heart is enough …

Brother Lawrence in Practice of the Presence, translated by Carmen Acevedo Buthcher

Resource:

Susan Lynn’s newsletter

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Whitewashing History
February 20, 2023 By 22 Comments

Whitewashing History

After weeks of writing, reading, research, and procrastination, I have told myself today is the day. The day this column will be finished and published, and I can move on to other projects. Why has this one been so difficult to pull together? I had to work through a lot of emotions: anger, frustration, depression, and perplexity to name the most common. But today I’ve decided to stop reading more articles, stop allowing myself to be mired in feelings that pull me down and knock me out. Instead, I’ll write (which is often how I pray and how I work through difficult times) and tell you what I’m feeling. What I’m thinking. What I hope.

Feelings

I’m anxious about the possibility of state-controlled education that will exacerbate divisiveness, hatred, and “othering” in this country and curtail free speech and democracy.

I am deeply concerned. A citizen and former teacher, I shudder reading about the numerous bills (some already laws) introduced in state legislatures and school boards across the country that restrict or outlaw the discussion of issues of diversity, inclusion, and equality. These include topics of sexuality, gender, and systemic racism. While all such attempts to discriminate against people on the margins are terrible and threaten the well-being of students and teachers and the very survival of democracy in this country, this Black History month I’m particularly mindful of those that impact Black Americans and their place in U.S. history.

I’m overwhelmed by the hypocrisy of legislators, governors, mayors, and school board members scurrying to push through laws and resolutions that ARE the very systemic racism that they deny exists now and in our history.

I’m overwhelmed by the fear that motivates such actions and by the hate, discrimination, arrogance, and self-righteousness that it engenders.

I’m overwhelmed by the willingness of people in power to rewrite history to their own advantage and by the effects their efforts (if successful) will have on upcoming generations and the possibility of peace and reconciliation.

I am troubled. A Christian, I feel that many involved in rewriting our history and perpetuating a climate of racism and fear are doing so in the name of Jesus and under the banner of Christianity.

I feel betrayed that more religious leaders, local and national, are not publicly and strongly speaking out against this appropriation of the faith that is fundamentally about trying to live as Jesus lived. Surely, Jesus weeps. He hung out with the marginalized. He chastised those who put down others. His life is a witness to inclusion, of welcoming all into his family.

I flirt with despair that this nation cannot be healed.

Thoughts

I think re-writing history to favor those is power is something authoritarian governments and dictatorships do. Denying that racism is embedded in U.S. history and laws is one way to do this. Another is to threaten teachers who discuss such topics and present truth, uncomfortable as it might be, to their students. It is whitewashing this country’s past.

The term “whitewashing” at one time primarily meant using whitewash to cover a surface. Since the late 1990s in the U.S., it’s also been used in the entertainment field to refer to the use of white actors to portray people of color or to replace people of color with white characters. In 2019, Merriam Webster added this definition of “whitewashing” to its list of meanings: to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: an attempt to stop people finding out the true facts about a situation.

It takes courage to acknowledge the past, own it, and move forward together to heal the wounds caused by immoral actions, policies, and institutions. Efforts to deny the uglier parts of this country’s past treatment of Black Americans —slavery and systemic racism embedded in laws and institutions for example— make healing the racial divide impossible. Like a bodily wound that festers and becomes infected, the wounds of the past must be exposed, cleaned, and tended to heal. Otherwise, the infection grows and poisons the whole body.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

– Desmond Tutu

Nelson Mandela and Rev. Desmond Tutu knew this. Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and appointed Tutu as its chairman. It gave voice to the victims of apartheid and allowed perpetrators of violence to admit their guilt, seek forgiveness, and receive amnesty. It was about healing not vengeance and helped South Africa move to a democracy. It wasn’t perfect. Nothing is. But it showed the world a way to respond when past crimes are poisoning the present.

The way forward isn’t denial. It is encounter. With the past. With the present. With those wronged and those who perpetrated the wrongs.  There is no other way to wholeness.

Jesus knew that.

His life is a witness to honestly facing the hypocrisy of institutions (including religious ones). He didn’t shy away from reminding the Jews of their history—including worship of idols, the murder of prophets for speaking the truth—because facing the past might make them feel uncomfortable or guilty. He didn’t hesitate to call out merchants who were making the temple a “den of thieves.” He named the Pharisees “whitened sepulchers”—pretty to look at but filled with corruption. Jesus didn’t mince words to spare feelings.

His life showed that only in facing personal and institutional sin and history could people and intuitions be healed, made whole, and become a blessing to the world and help build God’s kingdom. His teaching, his life came down to one thing: Love. Love of God and and neighbor, who is everyone. God’s kingdom is a “kindom.” It is filled with people of all ethnicities, skin colors, genders, and sexualities.

Jesus called us to love one another. I admit, I’m not great at that. I struggle to love those I perceive as perpetuating racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, and other “isms” that divide the world into “them – bad” and “us – good.” Deep listening is as difficult as taking action when I’m not sure what I can do to make a difference. Praying is hard when my mind is filled with upsetting news articles about one more shooting of an unarmed Black man or one more legislator jumping on the politically expedient bandwagon of whitewashing agendas.

It’s difficult to “see the log in my own eye” when I’m focused on removing the splinter from someone else’s. It’s easier to see the racism and fear of the “other” embedded in laws and institutions than to recognize it in my own heart.

I think courageous Love is the only way.

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. 

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hope

I struggle with hope because I struggle with trust, not only in human beings but in God-with-us. How can I trust in Divine Presence drawing all things into union with itself when the world is in such a mess? When so many in positions of leadership are motivated by greed and the desire to hold on to power rather than to serve the greater good, where is hope?

Yet God calls us to hope. To find light in darkness. To BE light in darkness. To be healers.

To be part of that, I realize the importance of encountering God within me and growing to trust that God resides and moves in all creation, however hidden or unrecognized. I can look for light rather than being overwhelmed by darkness. I can grow in experiencing that all things are connected and that humble as well as spectacular acts of love and healing work together to move humanity toward wholeness.

Will it get there? I don’t know. But I don’t need to know before I open up to receive and to share Love in the places where I am. I don’t need to know, but to trust.

The new dawn blooms 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 from her poem “The Hill We Climb”

Read: Langston Hughes’s poem:

“Let American Be America Again”

photo Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Photo: Benny Good Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons
Amanda Gorman
Photo: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C., United States,
via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Photo: Nobel Foundation, Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons
Langston Hughes
Photo: Carl Van Vechten; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:07, 5 August 2010
Public Domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

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The Gift of Looking Closely
January 25, 2023 By 14 Comments

The Gift of Looking Closely

Note: Today is the anniversary of my parents’ wedding day. Both deceased, it would have been their eightieth. I’m thankful for their encouragement to engage in the world, to explore and to observe. They provided all kinds of things from a writing desk and microscope to chemistry sets, art supplies, and musical instruments. They afforded opportunities to explore creeks and woods as well as taking me on my first trip to the ocean. Their own faith and curiosity were contagious. They gave generously of their time and supported their children’s (and grandchildren’s) varied interests. I am deeply grateful and think of them as I write this column.

When I was a child, my parents kept a microscope in the kitchen! It was nestled in a wooden box on a shelf in the corner cabinet above the counter. I loved pulling down that box and looking closely at things. Slides in the microscope box provided a few objects to view. A bee’s wing and leg fascinated me. I never tired of looking at them and found other treasures to examine: blades of grass, a dark hair from my head and a blonde one from my sister’s, a piece of string, or a thread from my school sweater. I searched inside and out for specimens that would fit on a slide.

My fascination with looking closely was rekindled years ago when a friend who taught third grade introduced me to the use of a jeweler’s loupe in the classroom, having attended a workshop presented by The Private Eye®. (See more about this company below.) I was hooked and ordered some to use with adult GED students I was teaching at the time. I carried one around when I went to a beach or on a long walk. I gave them as gifts. I put one in a silky little bag in our family’s “wonder basket,” a sweetgrass basket that my children and I filled with interesting things we found: seashells, feathers, fossils, anything that caught our eye and imagination.

Later, as curriculum director for an afterschool program, I approached the director about purchasing loupes, additional materials, and the teacher guide from the Private Eye®. The loupes, simple microscopes, and wooden boxes filled with amazing things to look at were a huge hit. We explored art, language, poetry, and new ways of thinking and seeing.

I’ve used loupes when presenting retreats on journaling into prayer. Starting with looking at our fingerprints, we reflected on the unique creation each one of us is and what bit of the divine we’ve been given to share with the world. Narrowing our vision to what was visible through the loupe helped us center and be still.

Recently, my daughters remembered how much I love looking closely and reflecting on what I see. During a family text chat, one commented that she was feeling “extra science-y” that day because she was using a stereo microscope to examine small bone tools for her work.

“I bet you’d like one, Mom,” she said. “If you have the space for one. They definitely help you slow down and look closely!”

“That would be so cool!” another added.

“I could find room for a microscope!” I replied. The others chimed in, one offering to make it happen if I really would like one.

As the rest of us texted, she did some research and before I knew it, a new stereo microscope with a camera (so I could take pictures for my blog) was on its way.

“I would never say no to a microscope,” I typed.

Today, it sits on the table next to my laptop and monitor. I’ve just begun to explore the possibilities, looking at silver crystals grown by my daughter, seashells, leaves, plant roots, and a sweetgum tree seedpod.

Silver crystals in glass pendant
Welsh Cockle Shell

Sweetgum Tree Seedpod

This column often reflects on cosmic images, especially from the James Webb Space Telescope, but now I can look close in as well as far out! It is easy to be awed by magnificent images of the cosmos, of stars being born, of planets, and galaxies far beyond our own. Who can’t be moved by them? But, as with so much in our lives – the ordinary things, the small things, the routine that fill the day – the quotidian fails to inspire. We walk by pebbles millions of years in the making. A dead fly in the windowsill or broken butterfly wing on the porch are things to sweep away. Intricacies of fabric that we drape over our bodies every morning when we dress are not given a thought. Likely we pick up an apple and take a bite without taking a moment to appreciate its beauty or wonder at how it grew.

A microscope (or loupe) won’t change all that. But it can be a reminder that God’s grandeur is evident in every little thing as well as in the stunning creation that fills our skies and rises from our planet: stars and sunsets, soaring mountains and throbbing oceans, forests and waterfalls. And the creatures that fill them.

… Let me keep company always with those who say / “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, / and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver in poem “Mysteries”

Suzanne Simard, among others, has alerted us to the amazing communities of life that thrive beneath our feet. Indeed, as the psalmist sings, the earth is full of the glories of the Lord. The more aware we become of the wonders it holds, perhaps the more mindfully we’ll live on it. The more passionate we’ll become about saving it. The more willing we’ll be to adjust our lifestyles to help combat the climate change that threatens it.

As time goes by, in this column you’ll be seeing some microscope images and read reflections on what they bring to mind. I hope you’ll enjoy reading and pondering them as much as I will enjoy writing them. Looking closely does indeed slow us down and open our eyes to the beauty and wonder of the creation that surrounds us and open our spirits to the grace it holds.

Ancient Fossil Scallop from James River

© 2023 Mary van Balen

…When it’s over, I want to say: all my life / I was a bride married to amazement. / I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms…

Mary Oliver in poem “When Death Comes”

 Resources:

The Private Eye®

The Private Eye – (5x) Looking / Thinking by Analogy: A Guide to Developing the Interdisciplinary Mind by Kerry Ruef

“Take a Loupe at That!” The Private Eye Loupes in Afterschool Programing  by Mary van Balen

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

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Celebrating the Incarnation: A Way of Life
December 25, 2022 By 8 Comments

Celebrating the Incarnation: A Way of Life

Decades ago, I read an article about keeping a “spiritual journal.” I was already a dedicated journaler, having begun in earnest while in high school and was writing occasional guest columns on meeting God in everyday life. Keeping a “spiritual journal” had never occurred to me. I tried the practice for a month or so but found it difficult to decide what to put into my regular journal and what to write in the “spiritual” one. Before long I abandoned the effort. Clearly, for me, the sacred was part of the ordinary. Everything, in its own way was spiritual.

A quote that came to mind all those years ago was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s words, “By virtue of Creation, and still more the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see.”1 The spiritual journal landed in a bin with older journals, never to be used again.

As I think about that today, I’m reminded of John Muir’s words, “When you try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”2 That pretty much expresses my experience of the Divine. There is no separating it out. It is deeply entwined in all things, you, me, and everything else, what we see around us and everything in the cosmos, far beyond even the amazing “vision” of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). That’s the first incarnation, the ongoing incarnation: God’s outpouring of Love, of Divine Self, and wrapping it up in matter.

So, as Christmas, the great feast of the Incarnation, draws close, I ponder not only that Jesus somehow held the entirety of God in human form, in human time and space, but also that the Divine is present in all creation and always has been. It’s impossible even to imagine, as God proclaims in Is 55:8-9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Madeleine L’Engle called the Incarnation in Jesus The Glorious Impossible, the title of her book inspired by Giotto’s frescoes. She once wrote that for a period of time, she found the best theology in the writings not of theologians, but of mathematicians and physicists. I’m not reading that exactly, but I am reading Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence by James Bridle. It stretches my mind to consider the“beyond-human world.”

What incredible diversity exists on this earth! How everything continues to change and new things emerge! As I read, I become aware that despite the increase in human knowledge, how little we know about the creatures and plants and beings with whom we share this planet and how interdependent we are. Ways of Being has awakened in me a sense of wonder at the inner life of plants and animals. About different forms of intelligence and the importance of respecting it.

Nature itself feeds my wondering. While on a walk, some small leaves caught my eye. (The woman who tends an amazing garden down the street identified them as Bradford Pear leaves.) Brown, they each held colors and shapes near their centers that brought to mind images from the JWST. At my feet, leaves seemed to hold the universe. I was reminded of lines from a poem by William Blake: To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

Some passages in Bridle’s book touch my belief in and experience of the inherent spirituality of all things; some accounts address this directly, as in the case of primatologist Barbara Smuts, who described her experience with a troop of baboons as something like the experience of mystics. Living with the baboons, she felt a shift in her sense of identity from simple individuality to being a part of something much larger than herself. She also described an experience with a troop of baboons who, while traveling, stopped at a small pool and “…Without any obvious signal, each of the baboons sat down on a smooth stone surrounding the pool, and for half an hour (by human reckoning) they sat alone or in small clusters, completely quiet, staring at the water. Even normally boisterous juveniles slipped into quiet contemplation.”3

This occurred in the same area where Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees. She witnessed something that also hints at the “inner life” of the animals. On numerous occasions and locations, she observed an adult chimpanzee (different animals, but usually male) stand in front of an impressive waterfall, hair erect, preforming a “magnificent display” at the foot of the falls: “He always sways rhythmically from foot to foot, stamping in the shallow, rushing water, picking up and hurling great rocks. Sometimes he climbs up slender vines that hang down from the trees high above and swing out into the spray of the falling water.”4 Goodall considered these displays “precursors of religious ritual.” This may be may be imposing a “human world” perspective on chimpanzee behavior, but it gave me pause.

How little we know about God’s presence in creation! Bridle reflects on a presentation by theoretical physicist, Karen Barad on quantum physics. He writes, “Barad’s talk also left me with another impression: That science’s greatest advances arrive not as settlements or conclusions, but as revelations of a still-deeper complexity. This complexity exceeds our mastery and comprehension – but is still relatable, still livable, still communicable and actionable. Science, it struck me then, is a guide to thinking, not a thought: an endless process of becoming.”5

I scribbled in the margins, “Sounds like spirituality to me.”

And so, along with the lectionary and Mary Oliver, Ways of Being has been part of my Advent reading. I need lots of time but, as when doing Lectio Divina, I’m not in a hurry. It is slow, deep reading, letting the mystery sink into my bones.

This holiday, we celebrate two things. The first is the Incarnation of the Divine in Jesus, who showed us what it looks like when a human being lives in complete union with the Divine within. Of course, the unique bit of Divinity that dwells within each of us is not the entirety of God enfleshed in Jesus, but still, in Jesus, we see faithfulness to what we are all called to do: cooperate with the gift of God’s Self given to enliven us and to share. The second thing to celebrate is the incarnation of Divinity at the heart of creation, of time and space. God’s outpouring of self, creating a cosmos beyond our comprehension. Other beings perhaps (I believe so) who reflect a different bit of God into the universe. Into other universes. Other realities. How many billions of galaxies has JWST revealed? How many ways has/is God-life expressed in matter?

The Incarnation is not only something to celebrate, but also something to live—In our ordinary, everyday routines. In our work. In doing what we love. In how we interact with others. In how we interact with the environment. In every little thing. It is our call. Our vocation. Our actions contribute to the ongoing, wondrous reality of God-with-Us. And with all that is.

Notes

  1. Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu. In my 1968 edition, the quote is found on page 66. It is in Part One: The Divinisation of Our Activities, Section 5 A.  Finding the quote in context led to me reading the chapter and putting the old book along with others on my shelf to read again in 2023!
  2. John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1911).
  3. Barbara Smuts as quoted in James Bridle Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022), pp.          54-55.
  4. Jane Goodall as quoted in James Bridle Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022), p. 56.
  5. James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022), p. 86         

Sources:

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu

James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence

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What the Trees Had to Say on Thanksgiving
November 29, 2022 By 6 Comments

What the Trees Had to Say on Thanksgiving

Recently I stood witness as the old maple tree in my front yard was taken down. Losing a tree is always sad, but, in a neighborhood – not a forest – it is sometimes necessary. Rot had set in, sending the largest branch crashing to the ground barely missing a neighbor’s truck and sprawling across the lawn to the building next door. With winter snow, ice, and wind ahead, the tree was too dangerous to leave standing.

Still, knowing that didn’t make the event easier to watch.

A team of five men arrived early in the morning. What took decades to grow took only an hour to reduce to a stump. I thought it should have taken longer – out of respect. Some ritual. Some acknowledgement of the gift it has been. It’s not our way.

The men were efficient. One wielding a chainsaw from his perch in the cherry-picker’s bucket, cut away small branches and larger limbs, deftly guiding them to avoid cables and wires as they fell to the ground. Once one hit the yard, another man picked it up and fed it to the shredder parked along the curb. Woodchips and dust blew in the air like snow.

Standing in my neighbor’s driveway, I felt the ground shudder when larger limbs fell, and sadness welled in my heart for an old friend’s demise. Observing it over the years, I learned much. Did you know that some tree buds contain leaves, some flowers, and some protect both through winters until spring warmth coaxes them open? The tree led me to books and the internet where I learned that in winter, maples store sap in their branches, not roots as I had thought.  (Read my column, Greening Nature and Spirits.)

Close up of maple tree buds opening with emergent leaves and flowers.

Its branches provided shelter for birds and squirrels. Once I spied a tiny hummingbird nest. In every season the maple provided interesting lines and colors outside the living room window. In summer the leaves bestowed welcome shade.

Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, has proven that trees communicate with each other, linked in part by tiny fungal mycelium. They “talk” and cooperate. Forests, her studies reveal, are wired for wisdom and care. (See Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. You can listen to her interview with Krista Tippett, Forests Are Wired for Wisdom on an OnBeing podcast.)

I looked at the tree, now mostly trunk, and saw it isolated, not in a forest community that shares nutrients, nurture, and protection, but on my suburban street. Trees stand in most of the yards, but they are carefully spaced and part of landscaped patches of grass and sometimes gardens. Most of the lawns are doused with chemicals to keep “pests” and unwanted vegetation under control – all of which, if allowed to live and grow, would create a more healthful environment.

I wondered if the tree might have been stronger if its roots had been part of a rich, woodland network and felt embarrassed that for years I took it for granted, unaware of the challenges solitary trees encounter when planted by well-meaning humans whose preferences for carpet-like lawns and manicured yards do great harm to the life that exits under our feet, out of sight.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is trunk-sections-showing-rot-1024x929.jpg

The chainsaw growled, and with every falling branch and every cut into the trunk, I wondered if the maple next door, clearly near the same age as the one being taken down, was aware of what was happening to its neighbor. Had it been sharing carbon and nutrients with it over the years? What of the other trees growing along the street. What were they “hearing”? Were they grieving? Had they known this old maple was diseased?

Now, when I see the short stump left in the yard, I think, “people and trees have a lot in common.” Not just the chemicals used to communicate, one through an underground network of roots and living organisms, the other through the brain’s neural network. Not just some bits of DNA that we share. But our shared need for others. Trees and people do better in community. We seek it out. Sometimes it’s found in families. Or groups of friends. Or in churches or other organizations.

Mother trees described in Simard’s book gather energy with their huge crown of leaves and send it through their roots into the network where it’s shared with seedlings struggling to grow beneath the canopy’s shade until they, too have energy to contribute to the network. Young human beings need the care and nurture of their elders. Wrapped in an environment of love and acceptance where they can grow and thrive, the young mature, and eventually contribute to the larger community themselves.

Life doesn’t always work out that way. Like solitary trees, some people feel very much alone. Human environments can be harmful, even toxic. Unlike trees that function as they are made to do, human beings, for all kinds of reasons, can be decidedly dysfunctional. Still, we are made for love and belonging, and we flourish when immersed in it. Pandemic isolation made that painfully clear.

On this past Thanksgiving day, my daughters, partners, and I were able to be together, a rare gift. I thought of mom and dad, their love, and the family they created. My daughters and I have grown in the grace of that love and have added our own to it, expanding its reach further, to others in our lives and into the world.

As we gathered around the table, I sat for a minute in silence, reaching into my heart for a before-meal blessing. The familiar words, “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts,” wouldn’t do. I was mindful of the sacrifice of plants and animals and well as the work of human hands that put food on our shared table. The loss of the tree heightened my appreciation for all creation, for the mystery and intelligence of life that we humans do not recognize. Most of all, it deepened my awareness of the interconnectedness of all things and our need for one another. I felt gratitude for the precious community of my family.

Concern stirred for our human companions, many suffering from violence and poverty, traveling on this planet that teems with life of every sort and groans under the weight of abuse and short-sighted policies. All life deserves reverence and love. Glimpses of the universe, time, and space we see through the James Webb Space Telescope images reveal how little we know, how much is mystery.

NASA Webb image Stephan's Quintet shows an Interacting Galaxy Group
Stephan’s Quintet Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

I don’t remember what words I spoke before we started passing food around. Something about gratitude and longing for nourishing community for all. They were few and simple, not important themselves. It’s love, moving from the heart to the world, that counts.

May we embrace Creation as a whole, / and become attuned to all the world; / May we be blessing to the universe, and / see divinity in the within and / the without of all things.

from Psalm106 in Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness by Nan C. Merrill
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Getting Up Again
October 30, 2022 By 20 Comments

Getting Up Again

One sunny fall morning, a friend and I shared coffee and conversation in an old city park. It’s become a favorite rendezvous. Covid-conscious, neither of us is keen on eating inside. Besides, the park was aflame with color: Maples showing orange and red. Ginkos glowing yellow in the sunlight. Majestic ash and elms flaunting their grand canopies for all to see.

In such a beautiful setting, one might expect lofty thoughts and happy moods. But I was having none of that. I wasn’t dismal, just disconnected. I was tempted to blame my floundering on a three-week vacation, but really, I was adrift before that. If anything, vacation helped me relax and connect with my center, opening me to meet to each day without an agenda, welcoming whatever came: Visits with two of my daughters out east, great food, and long conversations, country walks sandwiched between hurricane Ian’s lingering rains, wanders along the beach, and a little drawing and painting.

Back home, re-entry was difficult. I’ve lived alone for eleven years, but after three weeks in the delightful company of others, I felt lonely. I watched too much TV and ate way too much, wiping out months’ of hard-won weight loss. Settling back into writing routines just didn’t happen. Not much luck with prayer practices or journaling either.

All in all, I felt a mess.

My friend is a good listener. After the rambling “confession” of my failures, we grew quiet and sipped coffee. The air was chill, and I cradled the mug in my hands, grateful that he had brewed coffee and carried it in proper mugs from his home across the street. Hot drinks in styrofoam are way less comforting.

“We’re all in a mess, one way or another,” he volunteered.

“True.”

I thought of Sharon Salzberg, a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher in the West. One of her “On Being Project” interviews with Krista Tippett was titled, “The Healing Is In The Return.” She talked about starting meditation and her mistaken ideas of what it was and how it worked. She thought that each day she would be able to sit longer with a quiet mind. It would accumulate until she reached her goal of long, still, meditative sits. She discovered that wasn’t the point at all:

“… learning how to let go more gracefully was the point. Learning how to start over with some compassion for yourself instead of judging yourself so harshly—that was the point. … It’s still the most significant thing I’ve ever learned from meditation and that I use it every single day, because we do. We must start over and do a course correction, or pick ourselves up if we’ve fallen down, every day.”

In thirty-plus years of meeting with my spiritual director, I have heard her recommend self-compassion more times than I can count. Why is it difficult to practice?

Instead, it’s easier to listen to my inner critic picking on all the things I haven’t done or have done poorly, the stuff I did that I didn’t want to do, like buying chocolate and eating it all at once instead of a piece a day as I told myself I would.

“Good thing God’s in the mess,” I offered.

Isn’t that point of incarnation? The Holy One being with us wherever we are? However we are? Jesus liked to be in the mess, and he liked the people who were in them.  He hung out with the marginalized, exasperated the righteous religious leaders by ignoring their pious rules, and got into trouble speaking the truth.

I love Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message of Jesus quoting Isaiah in Matthew, “I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual.”

Jesus got it. Being a human being isn’t easy. Growing into one’s true self isn’t a linear journey. Lots of stops and starts, fear and love, failures and successes circle around over and over. As Mother Teresa said, “We are not called to be successful, but faithful.”

Salzberg learned that as she embraced meditation. The point is getting up again. Forgiving yourself and showing yourself the same compassion that you show to others.

That’s what I’m learning too. Again. When I blow my efforts to eat better, eat less, and lose weight. When I stay up way too late, even though I’m a natural night-owl. When I binge TV instead of reading the books I want to read. When I don’t journal or draw or paint or engage in prayer practices that bear fruit. Basically, when I’m in a mess and am discouraged—and how often it that?—I need to have faith in God-with-me and start fresh. Like the next blank page in my journal.

This is part of perennial wisdom tradition, a great river that feeds all wisdom traditions from ancient times. Jewish, Christian, Buddhist. All of them, religious or not. It shows up in holy books, literature, embroidery on pillows, and prints on magnets. Here are a few examples:

In Pirke Avot: The Sayings of the Fathers, a collection of ancient Rabbinic texts, there is a short saying that points to the importance of not giving up: “You are not required to finish your work, yet neither are you permitted to desist from it.”

 Buddhist author and teacher, Pema Chodron has a book titled Start Where You Are. Author Lucy Maud Montgomery, in Anne of Green Gables, writes, “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.” It’s possible to let go one day’s disappointments and have enthusiasm for the day to come.

I find strength and hope in knowing that I don’t tackle tomorrow on my own but can draw on the transforming Love and Presence within. Of all the words on this topic, I gravitate to these, most often attributed to Saint Benedict:

Always, we begin again.

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Giving Gold Away
September 24, 2022 By 4 Comments

Giving Gold Away

This morning, walking through a city park, I noticed goldenrod amid a riot of color and texture in a long strip of garden. That flower had made an appearance a few days earlier while I was reading Mary Oliver’s collection of poems, Devotions. “Goldenrod” was the second and last poem I read that day. An allergy sufferer, goldenrod isn’t my favorite fall flower, but one can’t argue with its sunny beauty, especially when it mixes with purple New England asters on roadsides or in fields.

Mary Oliver’s poem wandered through goldenrod’s possibilities: Offering nectar to visiting bees for their honey. Brightening what might otherwise be a barren void. Rustled by a sudden wind, the blooms swayed and caught the poet’s famous attention. She watched them bend and straighten and scatter their golden dust.

“… they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend, / they rise in a stiff sweetness, / in the pure peace of giving / one’s gold away.”

Stunned into stillness, I sat, savoring the image. “Giving one’s gold away.”

Isn’t that how Jesus lived? How we are called to be in this world?

Bending. Flexible? And giving ourselves away?

Didn’t Jesus bend to listen to someone’s story? To scoop dirt from the road and make healing paste for the blind beggar’s eyes? To write in the sand as a woman’s unmasked accusers drifted away?

When he plucked ripe grain-heads from their stalks? Or sat on a rock in the desert or on the roadside to rest or to listen? Wouldn’t he have bent low to notice creatures that passed by or the plants?

Did he bend under Spirit-weight when he breathed life into his followers?

In all his bending and being and breathing, wasn’t he constantly giving himself away? Himself that was all Love—restless Love longing to move outward and find new homes to set ablaze? Surely, Love bending to the other is natural. Godly.

Giving its gold away.

What of my being scatters when life pushes and pulls one way then another? When I bend, what, I wonder, do I offer? I hope it’s Love, at least part of it. After all, isn’t that what life provides—opportunities to open our empty spaces to Love—so we can give it away?

For Visio Divina: Morning in the park

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