These Bowls
February 29, 2024 By 14 Comments

These Bowls

Reflection inspired by the Calabash Bowl series in I And My Miles: A Talle Bamazi Retrospective on view from January 1-March 27 at the Schumacher Gallery, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio.

Note: Gallery closed March 2-10 for midterm break

painting oil on linen By Talle Bamazi of yellow calabash bowl floating in field of color
My Dwell, oil on linen by Talle Bamazi Photo: Mary van Balen taken at I And My Miles: A Talle Bamazi Retrospective at Schumacher Gallery

These Bowls by Mary van Balen

The calabash wide open,
drips move  
down the canvas
source unseen,
around the bowl
into the bowl
heading toward a shelf of color.
 
Sitting on a bench
I am present
to a ribbon of bowls
running along the wall
like favorite cards I clip
to a string draped
from door hinge to door hinge
across my living room wall
reminding me
of friends
and moments
and hope.
These bowls - 
gourd gifts 
which first are food
then hold sustenance
after their flesh is eaten
and their shells dry -
receive again
and again
whatever comes,
offering
to those who scoop
or drink
or taste
what has been given
to be given.
 
They're brave,
these bowls,
taking what comes
letting go what’s needed.

Resources

Talle Bamazi: Bio

Talle Bamazi Retrospective on display at Schumacher Gallery, Capital University in New Americans Magazine blog

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Surprised by Wisdom
January 31, 2024 By 10 Comments

Surprised by Wisdom

Do you have storage places that hold treasures for years, tucked back into an overlooked corner or hidden beneath a pile of unused linens or clothing?  Something special enough to keep but long forgotten. While looking through my cedar chest the other day, I lifted a heavy item encased in paper and bubble wrap from beneath a stack of dishtowels. I carefully removed the packaging and caught my breath.

There was a red clay sculpture of cupped hands made by my youngest daughter decades ago when she was in middle school. It used to sit on an end table in our home, but after moving into a small apartment 13 years ago, I stored it along with other things I wanted to keep but had no place to display.

I held the sculpture and followed their easy curve with my fingers. As they moved over the red clay, a tightness that had taken up residence in my body and spirit began to loosen. Long fed by fear and worry, the fist curled up in my gut began to unclench. The hands offered an invitation: Relax. Open. I tried.

A cleansing sigh passed through my lips. Tears and laughter pushed each other about in their rush to respond. I sat back on a nearby chair, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. The sculpture conveyed a profound sense of receptivity. Solid and steady, they seemed comfortable with vulnerability. Something, it seems, often I am not.

What, I wondered, sustains such an attitude as I move through life? Trust, I think. Trust that in the end, good will prevail. Faith in a pervasive Goodness that enlivens and dwells within and without all creation. It is called by many names: God, Love, Ground of Being, and it persists even through suffering and dangerous times. How else to explain a John Lewis? The thousands of refugees risking lives to walk to our borders? Gazans who rise each morning determined to survive. People around the globe who endure disasters, both of natural origin and those brought upon them by systemic injustice, and people motivated by ignorance, fear, and hatred.

Many open-hearted people don’t just survive. They go forward to do good where they are. Somehow, they see beyond their current situation and trust that in the big picture even small efforts make a difference. They refuse to give into cynicism and despair, believing as others have that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

This desire to give is another gift of openness and trust.

You may see such people in a parking lot collecting petition signatures to demand change in gerrymandered maps and voter suppression or sharing food at a drive-through pantry. They are companions and, as Mr. Rogers called them, “helpers.”

This sense of embrace is another gift the cupped-hands sculpture offered. My neighbor felt it too. She came over for dinner and saw them sitting on the small stand that sits beneath a mirror at one end of the dining table. I had made space for them between a vigil candle, some poetry books, and a Galileo’s thermometer. She looked at them for a while and, not taking her gaze from them, said, “They are so welcoming.”

Yes. The hands expressed willingness to hold. To comfort and care. To simply “be with,” which isn’t simple at all. They conveyed not only openness but also hope. The little hands reminded me that I am held and loved and treasured for what who I am and what I have been given to share, when I’m up for it and when I’m not.

Detail of painting by Richard Duarte Brown
Detail of painting by Richard Duarte Brown

The sculpture encouraged me to open and receive whatever each day would bring. To trust that no matter what it was, that the Goodness and Love in the world, in people, in community, would hold it with me. To suffer. To celebrate. To work. To rest. I wouldn’t have to hold it alone.

It reminded me that sometimes I need the hands of others and sometimes I must be the hands for others, living with faith in Goodness even in dark times.

How did the small sculpture communicate all that? Did they always, and I was just too busy raising kids, working, and navigating a difficult marriage to notice? No. It is the gift of true art of all kinds. Art isn’t a static creation. It’s an encounter, a conversation. What the painting, drawing, words, or music communicate has as much to do with the one who experiences them as it does with what the artist has given. Different grace at different times depending on what the observer brings: Fullness. Need. Joy. Despair.

The little hands spoke to the need I brought. I’m grateful for the moment to hear them.

…yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world… Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Teresa of Avila
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NASA: Streaming Wonder
September 30, 2023 By 2 Comments

NASA: Streaming Wonder

Wonder has been hard to come by lately. For me anyway. Sometimes I’m more tuned in, open and attentive. But with national and global news, I’ve been overwhelmed, and dullness settled in. On a morning walk I did see a hairy-capped acorn that drew me to stop and look closely. I stuck it in my pocket to send to a great-nephew with whom I share such things.

Still, all in all, I’ve been moving through days focused on a writing project, completing a couple leg exercise sets daily, and walking enough laps around the neighborhood to meet my step goal.

Last Sunday started out much the same when a cell phone “ding” alerted me to a short text on the family thread: “Happy OSIRIS-REx Return Day!!!!,” followed by a NASA link.

What was “OSIRIS-REx” and where was it returning from? I followed the link and forgave myself for not recognizing the mission: It began in 2016! A lot has happened on earth in the past seven years. After a quick read through the article, I clicked on NASA TV and virtually joined my family in watching the drama unfold.

Once again, NASA and the teams that work with them streamed a sense of wonder, joy, and hope into my living room.

Wonder

Wonder at how their engineers design such a craft

It traveled for a year to orbit the sun, then returned close to Earth, using its gravity to bend its trajectory, lining up with the asteroid Bennu’s orbit and continuing the journey. In 2018 it began mapping the surface of Bennu looking for a good place to collect samples. When it did in late in October 2020, the collection was what what a NASA commentator called a “pogo stick” operation – A quick contact of the robotic arm with the soft, rocky surface to collect bits of the asteroid’s pebbles and dust, then a pull back.

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
Robotic arm briefly touched asteroid
 

In 2021 OSIRIS-REx (sometimes referred to by NASA experts as “O-REx.” You’ve gotta love their way with endearing nicknames) started home.

Then, September 24, 2023 the craft flew close enough to earth to release the sample-bearing capsule that streaked toward Earth at 27,000 mph, eventually slowed to 11 mph by the bright parachute that deployed without a hitch, and then landed where expected! Remarkable.

Wonder at how scientists will tease information about the origin of our planet from those bits of asteroid

They are hopeful that O-REx’s cache will provide new insights into the vast cosmos and it’s beginning. Whatever we learn, it will expand our knowledge and experience of the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope continues to give us stunning glimpses of deep space. Even the “closeup” bits we can see with our own eyes, like a Super Moon shining through a break in clouds, make my heart beat faster.  

PHOTO: Jarred Keener

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that we meet God in matter. That has been my spiritual experience since childhood and seemed evident despite dualist teachings to the contrary.

Ilia Delio writes that for Teilhard, “matter is the incarnating presence of divinity; God is present in matter and not merely to matter.”

Teilhard also wrote that nothing is profane if one had eyes to see. How significantly the current space exploration and scientific advances have expanded what we can “see.”

Scientist and theologian Judy Cannato wrote of the challenge this presents: “The new cosmology can upset our old truths as it challenges us to adopt a novel vision of life. Taking a look at a new paradigm will always expose our illusions and bring about a confrontation with our fears … like Einstein, we can choose to fudge our own equations, living in one world while praying in another. Or we can endeavor to reconcile science and faith within ourselves allowing them not only a peaceful coexistence but a mutual resonance that permits us to live a life filled with radical amazement.”

It’s a call to wonder!

Joy

Joy in effort, beauty, and being

Joy and enthusiasm emanated from Jim Garvins, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s chief scientist, who was in Utah for the capsule’s landing. Throughout the broadcast his smile and enthusiasm were contagious. Smiles covered the faces of those in Mission Control as they watched the successful conclusion to OSIRIS-REx’s journey. The face of the correspondent beamed as she covered the return from just a few miles away. Everyone involved was jubilant. Local elementary and high school students were thrilled to have something so momentous happening in their backyard.

In his book, Awe, Dacher Keltner writes of things that move us to tears including beauty of all types and  “awareness of vast things that unite us with others.” Those familiar with this column may remember columns about other NASA missions that moved me to tears: Cassini’s final descent into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending images until its final moment. Perseverance’s landing on Mars. The successful launch and final unfolding of the James Webb telescope.

Tears welled in my eyes again as I watched not only the landing of OSIRIS-REx’s capsule, but of the careful transfer to the temporary clean room.

Hope

Hope in the ability of human beings to cooperate and accomplish extraordinary things together

NASA and worldwide space agencies are good at this. The James Webb is one example. So is O-REx. The mission brought together numerous organizations including the University of Arizona, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, and the Utah Test and Training Range.

Hope for a future of respect for all people

The highly visible role women played in the recovery of the capsule recalled NASA’s ongoing commitment to creating an inclusive culture in the organization. It strives to celebrate and support diversity, recognizing that every person brings gifts to be shared. In these days, when fear-mongering and the violence it engenders is on the rise, NASA’s efforts to expose the lies of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other “isms” and “phobias” that plague the world are welcome. They provide an example of how humankind can move forward together.

Hope for commitment to the common good

NASA will not horde the precious asteroid samples for its scientists but will distribute up to 30% to scientists around the globe. The remainder will be kept at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (and White Sands) for other scientists and for future generations of scientists who will have different questions and more advanced technologies to help answer them. (I think this cooperative spirit and the consideration of future needs is common among scientists. It’s why archaeologists, with their long view, excavate only a section of a site.)

 Gratitude

Just as the hairy bur oak acorn broke into my imagination during an otherwise “inattentive” walk, the return of OSIRIS-REx’s capsule full of asteroid bits pushed aside dullness and filled my heart with joy, wonder, and hope. Then, without another word, OSIRIS-REx changed course and headed off on a journey deep into space. (It is now called OSIRIS-APEX or Osiris-Apophis Explorer, after the asteroid it will encounter next: Apophis) We will hear back from it in 2029.

Meanwhile, for expanding my horizons. For reminding me of creation’s wonders near at hand and far away. For uncovering the connectedness of everything. For these gifts, I again say “Thank you” to NASA and all its partners.

Bur Oak Acorn

Cosmic-Cliffs-Carina-Nebula-NIRCam-Image-NASA-ESA-CSA-STScI

Feature photo provided by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Photos by Mary van Balen unless otherwise credited

Resources

To Bennu and Back: Journey’s End Short video NASA Goddard

OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return (Official 4K NASA Broadcast)

OSIRIS-REx Mission Page

The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey by Ilia Delio pp 54-55

Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons from Back Holes, Supernovas, and other Wonders of the Universe by Judy Cannato p 36

Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner pp 44-48

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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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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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Icons from the James Webb
July 28, 2022 By 8 Comments

Icons from the James Webb

As far back as I can remember, the night sky has captured my imagination, though early memories are fuzzy. My parents showed me the dusty band of light that was the Milky Way and how to find the Big Dipper. Following an imaginary line through two stars in its bowl, someone said, led to the North Star. I had limited success. The first vivid sky-gazing memory I have is of standing with our small girl scout troop in front of the science museum at night in downtown Columbus. Downtown was darker then, and we watched as the man who had led us through a journey of the “sky over Columbus” projected onto the museum’s planetarium dome set up his telescope at the top of the steps.

“We’re going to look at Saturn,” he said, bending over the telescope and peering through the eyepiece to find the planet. We took turns looking. The view took my breath away: a smooth, rounded shape rising from a thick, flat ring, The planet’s angle provided a view with little space between the rings and the planet itself. Together, they looked a bit like a white, glowing fried egg. I’ve never forgotten it. My heart opened wider and wonder flooded in. Seeing with my own eyes something that had previously existed for me only in textbooks or magazines, shining in the dark over my own city was exhilarating.

I couldn’t get enough of looking.

Over the years I’ve traveled – sometimes by myself, sometimes with family or friends – to see eclipses, meteor showers, blue moons and supermoons, or planets and stars in various configurations. At some point along my journey, I grew particularly fond of the constellation Orion, my protector. He became an icon, a door into an experience of Holy Presence that surrounds me, no matter how alone I feel.  

Once, I spent a night by myself in a friend’s small cabin. I walked along the creek and a pipeline that slashed through the wooded hills. Far from the city, the black, star-splattered sky fed my soul. Before leaving the next day, I wrote in the guest log simply, “Tonight I lived on the stars.”

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous / to be understood. 

Mary Oliver from poem “Mysteries, Yes“

James Webb Space Telescope

With people around the globe, I followed the recent release of the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb). I was in a doctor’s office when the broadcast began and pulled out my phone to stream NASA’s presentation. Preliminary interviews and commentary gave me time to drive home and watch most of the broadcast on a big screen. The images were stunning. Commentary explained how the infrared signals were painstakingly rendered into color images, each hue representing a different wavelength.1 As usual when witnessing such events, I cried.

Icons

You may be familiar with classic icons, the stylized paintings familiar in the Orthodox Church and often referred to as “windows into heaven.” I wrote an article2 using the word icon in a much broader sense, referring to ordinary objects, physical representations or metaphors that have become windows drawing us into communion with Holy Mystery.

The Webb images can be new icons that break open our hearts and let mystery in. Like my view of Saturn through a telescope on the museum steps.

NASA Webbs First Deep Field image shows a cluster of galaxies
Webbs First Deep Field
All Webb Images Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The first image released was Webb’s First Deep Field, a look at thousands of galaxies sparkling across the black field in just a sliver of the universe. Peering back to within a billion years after the big bang, I was reminded of Wisdom in the Hebrew Scriptures, dancing with delight, the feminine spirit creating along with God at the very beginnings of the cosmos.2

NASA Webb image Stephan's Quintet shows an Interacting Galaxy Group
Stephan’s Quintet

NASA Webb image Southern Rim Nebula
Southern Rim Nebula
NASA Webb Photo Cosmic Cliffs Carina Nebula
“Cosmic Cliffs” in Carina Nebula

Image after image filled the television screen: Stephan’s Quintet (you might remember an earlier image of this at the beginning of the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.), Southern Rim Nebula (clouds of gas and dust from a dying star); the Carina Nebula (a “star nursery). Everything in the universe is made of elements created in the birth and death of stars. You, me, the people you love and the ones you don’t. The insects in the soil, birds overhead, rivers, oceans. Everything. Star dust was (and is) destined to evolve into solar systems, new stars, planets, and life that may live on some of them. Might there be other creatures observing the cosmos from their place in it, contemplating the meaning of it all?

Spending time with these new icons may expand our sense of connection not only with the Creative Force that set all this in motion, but also with one another. How have we evolved into a race that finds diversity threatening rather than an opportunity to learn and wonder at the reflections of the Sacred in every bit of stardust?

Hope

Since those first images have been released, I’ve looked at them again and again, marveled at the Southern Rim Nebula, used it in meditation, and painted it to make my own icon. The images stir joy, amazement, and appreciation of the people who’ve given them to us.

But along with these emotions and thoughts, sadder ones emerge. As incredible as these images are, they aren’t enough to change the patterns of human behaviors that push us apart and despoil the creation that has taken billions of years to evolve.

My hope is that these new icons can open minds as well as hearts, inspire people to be still before such magnificence. Can we be receptive to the truth they reveal: That we are an infinitesimal bit of something beyond our most expansive imagination? That we know and understand so little of it? That humility is the proper response?

As we sit before these images and let them open a window into the beginnings of creation, can we be filled with gratitude for the love and graciousness that fills it? Can we find a way to put fear and hatred aside and recognize our kinship with the Holy One, with one another, and with all that is?

Different way of seeing

Decades ago, I backpacked across Western Europe with a good friend. We spent the summer traveling from country to country with no itinerary, meeting people from all over the world as we slept in youth hostels, the occasional hotel, and homes of friends and family. But besides meeting people from different countries, we also ran into folks from back home.

At any other time, coming from the Midwest, meeting someone from the west coast wouldn’t seem like meeting a neighbor. But across the Atlantic, when we ran into someone from Oregon, we were excited. We’d say, “I know someone in Oregon!”, or they’d say, “We have friends in Ohio!” As if we might know them. People we would have considered strangers had we met at a restaurant back home seemed like neighbors when we met in a small German town.

So, I wonder. Perhaps Webb’s images will provide a new context for us, for our vision of who is our neighbor. Seeing the immensity of the universe as we peer into deep space may provide a perspective that encourages human beings to become more aware of their connections, of their responsibility for this tiny little bit of a planet we call home. Perhaps humanity will be more willing to work together, to stop demonizing one another, and to look for ways to live and love together instead.

It’s a dream. I know. A hope. Greed, fear, the desire to “be right,” to view the world and others as either/or, them/us, the need to put others down to elevate oneself, seem to be the human default.

Seeing with new eyes, with a non-dualistic “both/and” mindset, is a journey. Placing ourselves before Webb’s images, quietly gazing at their intricate beauty, may refine our spiritual vision to better comprehend the grace they reveal. Contemplating these windows into creation with openness begins to transform us little at a time. Thank you, team James Webb!

Watercolor by Mary van Balen of NASA Webb image Southern Rim Nebula
Watercolor: Mary van Balen

Sources:

  1. How the James Webb Space Telescope’s images are made  Axios
  2. Icons: Windows into God – Finding glimpses of God in unexpected places:Mary van Balen
  3. Proverbs 8: 22-31
  4. “Mysteries, Yes” by Mary Oliver Take the time to read it. You’ll be grateful you did. I read it in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver published by Penguin Books, New York, 2017, p. 84. It was originally published in Evidence by Beacon Press in 2009.

Images:

Follow this link to NASA’s page, First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope, to examine the images and read information about each one.

If you missed the July 12 broadcast, you can view it here.

Comparison of images of same area taken by Hubble and by Webb” can be found here: Science Friday: Stunning JWST Images Show New Details Of The Universe

James Webb Space Telescope info:

About: Webb Key Facts

James Webb Space Telescope Home: Goddard Space Flight Center

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Gardening and Other Ways to Heal the World
June 6, 2022 By 10 Comments

Gardening and Other Ways to Heal the World

I walked earlier than usual today, aware that the temperature would rise and that the sun would be unfiltered by clouds later in the day. Approaching the buttery yellow house two blocks from my apartment, I scanned the large flower garden that borders the sidewalk and wends its way along the property line on one side and the driveway on the other, framing the green lawn. I’m not a lawn enthusiast (that could be another column), but I always enjoy flowers.

In the stretch close to the driveway, someone was on their knees, earnestly working at putting something into the ground or perhaps cleaning out a space for a new plant.

“So much time to spend on flowers,” I thought to myself. “To keep such a garden must take hours almost daily.” I didn’t think “wasted” exactly, but the notion that time could be spent on more significant endeavors did, for a second, flit around the edges of consciousness. Embarrassing to admit. A one-time flower gardener myself, I know better.

In years before divorce moved me from a home with lots of outdoor space to an apartment with little, I tended flower beds. Well, “tended” may be misleading. My gardens were on the wild side. Dark red poppies were the showstoppers, but bachelor buttons, coreopsis, larkspur, pinks, snapdragons, marigolds, zinnias – Not my favorite; their leaves always molded, but they were reliable germinators – grew big and wild.  Anything I could enjoy outside and cut for bouquets inside was welcome. The lavender plant had grown into a hedge; herbs grew among flowers near the kitchen door, and of course, there were weeds.

Over the past eleven years, how much joy I have taken in countless walks by the yellow-house garden, mentally thanking the couple who lives there for their work. Early spring into fall, even with winter’s interesting plant “skeletons,” it draws the eye and lightens the spirit. Already this year, I have stopped, struck still by the extravagant, peachy peony blooms and clusters of Virginia bluebells.

Flowers are pleasing in the moment and can be memory whisperers: The garden’s peonies carried me back to my childhood home where I watched big, black ants clambering over peony buds that would open and explode into stunning masses of fragrant pink, white, and magenta blooms along the side of our house. The bluebells transported me back to a spring day at a Trappist monastery along the Shenandoah River where my family was visiting a long-time friend, Father Maurice. A wide swath of bluebells ran along both sides of the river, edging it with a tumble of deep blue and spring green, Hildegard’s viriditas, both an expression and an agent of Holy Presence.

peony bush covered in large pink blooms

My neighborhood gardeners’ work is a gift to me and all who walk by.

It reminds me of a friend who is, among many other things, an accomplished writer, publisher, photographer, presently a seminary student, and a dedicated gardener. On her newly launched website, Urban Gaia, she describes herself as a person sempre in restauro, always under restoration, and helps people find healing and experience the divine through gardening.

Know it or not, we human beings, along with the rest of creation, are interconnected parts of one reality. As Paul writes in his letter to the folks at Corinth, unity springs from variety working together, one Source, many gifts. That’s a good thing. Gardens are wonderful, but we aren’t all gardeners.

Last month, my daughter delighted in the sale of two of her paintings exhibited in a student art show. A first for her, but not the reason she paints. Like the gardener who plants and tends out of an interior stirring or call, she paints because that is part of who she is. She began around 5 or 6 when she fell in love with Monet, set up an easel in the basement, and used a new set of oils to try her hand at waterlilies. Always an artist, she now relishes the thought that her work hangs somewhere in two homes and brings joy to those who see them.

And me? I write. Like my daughter, I started writing as a child and never stopped. Books. Articles. Columns. Songs. Poetry. Published some. Nothing on the best sellers list. Still, I keep going. People may look at me and wonder why I spend so much time writing words that few will read. (I confess to wondering this myself sometimes!) What can I say?

I’m a writer. The couple down the street are gardeners. My daughter is a painter. The list of “gifts,” of interior “callings,” is endless. At our best, we listen to what stirs in our hearts and follow its direction. We do our work, becoming more and more who we are made to be.  We put it out there. We trust it will do what it needs do. Sometimes that’s simply attuning the ear of our hearts more keenly to the interior Presence that guides us.

Still, it’s easy to feel like we are not enough. Not talented enough, smart enough, creative enough, (you fill in the blank) enough to make a difference.

No wonder. The world is overwhelming. Weekly mass shootings in the U.S. continue with legislators beholden to the fear-mongering NRA unable to pass meaningful gun control legislation. Our fragile democracy is threatened from within. Violence is disproportionately perpetrated against Black Americans, people of color, women, LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, and anyone who can be labeled “other.” Wars ravage the earth as unscrupulous autocrats and dictators grab for power and wealth. Ukraine, presently the most visible, is one of many. The planet itself groans beneath the weight of human abuse. Numerous commentators spew fear and hate on popular media, and disinformation abounds. What can one person do?

Nothing? The culture of celebrity, power, and consumerism feeds that lie. Media sources hold up people of wealth, possessions, and fame as paragons of success. They, the news outlets tell us, are the “influencers,” “thought leaders,” and “game changers.” The important ones.

Don’t you believe it. Let me retell a story I heard last weekend on Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast. It was told by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., whose focus on healing not just curing, sharing stories, and being genuinely present to the patient challenged and influenced the medical profession.

Her rabbi grandfather, whom she described as a “flaming mystic,” was a profound influence in her life. On her fourth birthday, he made a gift to her of this ancient story. (While much of this language is her’s, I paraphrase. You can click the link below to hear Dr. Remen tell the story herself in the interview.)

In the beginning, he said, all was holy darkness, the source of life. At some point, the world came bursting out of the center of that holy darkness as a great ray of light. Later, the result of an accident, the vessels that held the grand light, the wholeness of the world, shattered into thousands of pieces. They fell into all people and events where they remain hidden even today.

Credit: ESA/Hi-GAL Consortium

Her grandfather told her that humanity is a response to this accident, We are created with the ability to see those bits of light in people and things and to bring them to the surface, making the world whole again.

Of course, accomplishing this great task will take every person – past, present, and to come – working together. In this story, everyone has a part to play. Everyone is enough. Everyone has just what they need. Everyone makes a difference.

” … we heal the world one heart at a time,” Dr. Remen continued. “And this task is called tikkun olam, in Hebrew – ‘restoring the world.'”

Fred Rogers used those words in a public service spot when he addressed parents about how to be with their children after the attack of 9/11: “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be tikkun olam, repairers of creation.” 

So, next time you are tempted to think that what you are doing when you follow your heart—whether it puts a roof over your head and food on your table or is something you do part-time as you’re able—when you think you’re not making a difference or that you are “not enough” to matter, remember the wisdom of this ancient story. It is echoed in other wisdom teachings.

Do what is yours to do. Take care of who or what comes across your path. Love, connection, kindness, listening. These things always matter. They always make a difference.

 Like drops that feed the lake or seeds that sprout and flourish, our contributions, however small, become light that pushes through cracks and gives hope. This healing takes time. It won’t be as swift as we’d like. We won’t see its completion in our lifetimes, much as we long for it.

This is where trust comes in, trust that being our true selves, responding the the stirrings of Divine Presence within, heals the world and those who live in it, one heart at a time. In the end, Love will prevail.

Resources

Hildegard von Bingen Viriditas

Missy Greenleaf Finn’s new website:    Urban Gaia

On Being with Krista Tippett  Rachel Naomi Remen: How We Live With Loss

Rachel Naomi Remen has written a children’s book that will be published in September, 2022: The Birthday of the World: A Story About Finding Light in Everyone and Everything

YouTube Mr. Rogers: Tikkun olma

Response to gun violence

Write and call your Senators and House Representatives. Let them know you want sensible gun legislation passed now (e.g., universal background checks, assault weapons ban, red flag laws, increased funding for mental health)

Senators’ contact info: Find your Senator

House Representatives’ info: Find your Representative

Donate:

Moms Demand Action

Everytown for Gun Safety

Photos: Unless otherwise indicated, by Mary van Balen

Feature photo: A local gardener who has cultivated his patch in the community gardens for 43 years.

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Dreams, Hope, and “Making Do”
February 27, 2022 By 6 Comments

Dreams, Hope, and “Making Do”

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

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

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

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

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

Curry highlights three ingredients of “making do.”

Ancestral Wisdom

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

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

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

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

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

Imagination

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

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

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

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

God

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

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

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

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

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

Finding hope

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

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

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

Amanda Gorman : “The Hill We Climb”

© 2022 Mary van Balen

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Lunar Eclipse: Nudged Toward Faith
November 20, 2021 By 10 Comments

Lunar Eclipse: Nudged Toward Faith

… And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be, / the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

Mary Oliver from poem “Blue Iris”

Today, I stood on the porch and drew draughts of cold air deep into my lungs, happy for it after two days spent mostly inside. Raindrops made linking circles, expanding and disappearing at the edges of driveway puddles. I remembered a column written years ago in which I named rain an icon of God’s ever-present Grace soaking our souls. Looking out at the morning, I prayed to be open to it. And I thought about yesterday’s gift – the lunar eclipse.

Unable to sleep, I had risen around 1 a. m., brewed a pot of Red Rose, and pulled a small panettone intended for the holidays from its hiding place in the pantry. The sweet bread, studded with raisins and candied orange bits, melted in my mouth. Enveloped in a fleecy robe and a wing-backed chair, I read poetry and sipped the tea.  

The longest partial lunar eclipse in a millennium was approaching. Off and on I put down my book and mug and walked out onto the driveway. The unusually crystal-clear sky was stunning. Orion’s shoulders angled toward the moon, still white and whole. Later it would begin to move into the earth’s shadow.

Returning to the kitchen, I decided to make cornbread for the morning. Soon the baking wholegrains filled the house with earthy aromas. I knew I wouldn’t wait till the morning to eat a slice. “It is morning,” I told myself as I buttered a bit. “Very early morning!”

More tea. More poetry. I watched the moon as darkness began to take a bite out of it around 2 a.m. At 3, I crawled back into bed, setting my alarm for 4, mid-eclipse, when the earth’s shadow would drape the moon with a reddish orange veil.

The hour passed in a blink, and I was back outside: a grey-haired woman in her robe and slippers, cradling a large mug in her hands. Standing with Orion and whatever other stars and creatures were witnessing the moment, I lifted my mug and sipped tea, a toast to the moon. Not quite a complete eclipse, but I think even more beautiful because of it. The tiny crescent of brilliance near the base held the rusty moon as if in a thin, silver cup.

Give praise, sun and moon, / give praise, all you shining stars! / Give praise all universes, / the whole cosmos of Creation!

Psalm 148 translation: Nan C. Merrill
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

“Receiving blessings with gratitude,” a friend said, “requires humility.”

Gazing out into our solar system, overwhelmed by the sight, I longed to be an ever-open receptacle of such beauty. It spilled out over me, the pavement, gnarled trees, and blades of grass. Grace opens one’s eyes to the extraordinary reality of everyday things and to the Presence that dwells in all.

The immensity of the cosmos in which our earth spins, humbled me, and I gave thanks, adding my small voice to the chorus of praise rising from all creation. Astronomical events always provide needed perspective. Disheartened as I felt that night about events in our country and world, I was reminded that I see only a snippet of what is happening. That life continues to evolve and change. That my moment is not the only moment. There is a long view that I do not have. I want to trust that it is bending toward justice. But some nights, I don’t.

That night Orion, the moon, and the magnificence of creation nudged me towards faith and courage.

Finishing my tea, I walked back inside and returned to bed. Hope cautiously emerging from the edges of my mind, and a prayer of gratitude stirring in my heart.

© 2021 Mary van Balen

Feature photo by Mary van Balen – Stained-glass dome of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome. Architect: Michelangelo

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Wisdom and Hope: Saving an Ancient Olive Tree and Each Other
October 27, 2021 By 8 Comments

Wisdom and Hope: Saving an Ancient Olive Tree and Each Other

In Cuglieri, a small town in western Sardinia, people have come together to save “the Patriarch,” their cherished olive tree ravaged by wildfires that engulfed the region in July. Estimated to be 1,800 – 2,000 years old, it has been a symbol of a way of life.  

In a New York Times article,1 Maria Franca Curcu, the councilor with responsibility for social policies and culture for the municipality, was quoted as saying “the Patriarch is our identity.” Saving him, she says, would be a message of hope to those who have lost so much in this fire. Farmers lost 90% of their olive trees and their livelihood. Of the 2,600 inhabitants, 1,000 were forced to evacuate.

What struck me about this story was the way people came together with hope of reviving the tree. A professor and director of the botanical garden at the University of Cagliari offered his expertise. Despite the 11-foot-wide trunk having burned for two days, efforts were being made to nurture what life remains deep within. The team cooled the soil and covered it with straw. They wrapped the trunk with jute tarps. A local plumber created an irrigation system to keep the soil moist and to deliver an organic fertilizer every 10 days. A construction company built a structure to do what the now non-existent crown of leaves would have done: provide shade.

The hope is not that the tree will return to its former glory, but that peripheral roots will rejuvenate, provide nutrients to the stump, and enable new shoots to appear in the fall. The result would be something new, growing from the original.

The plight of the Patriarch is a metaphor for our times: The status quo is no longer viable. The pandemic has exposed diseased parts of political and economic systems that should not be sustained. Inequalities that exist around the world are impossible to ignore. The gap between the ability of rich countries and poor ones to obtain vaccines is one example. In day-to-day life, Covid has affected how people shop, work (or not), gather, communicate, pray, and support one another. The murder of George Floyd pushed awareness of racial bigotry and police abuse beyond the tipping point. Effects of climate change are manifesting faster than expected, resulting in, among other things, an increase in severe weather and the scope and severity of wildfires like the one that burned through Cuglieri.

What is happening in the world calls for a response similar to that of those dealing with the aftermath of the wildfire: communal efforts and hope:

  • Listen to experts – follow scientists and those trained in dealing with trauma and growth.
  • Practice self-care – seek out what you need to heal.
  • Engage in service – care for those in your “village” or donate to groups equipped to respond when you can’t.
  • Be open to change – accept that the future will look different as we let go of old ways that don’t serve the common good.

For me, the story of the Patriarch highlighted the power of symbols. Seeing that tree gave many people hope, a sense of who they are and of well-being. I began to think about the symbols in my life that are a source of hope. I have scallop shells scattered around my house. I hadn’t thought of them as symbols of hope but of pilgrimage. However, people don’t pilgrimage without hope in the process. Now, when I see the shells, I will remember the Holy Presence that is both the call and the destination, and of the promise that God is with us.

What are your symbols of hope? What can you look at each day to remind you that you are not traveling in the world alone? That Goodness remains in the world. That in the end, Love prevails. Maybe photos of loved ones or of places where you felt Sacred Presence will stir hope in your heart. Perhaps a Cross or holy book. A candle. A painting. A poem or a prayer written out and posted on your refrigerator or sitting on your table.

Surround yourselves with symbols of hope. And like the villagers of Cuglieri, don’t expect what will rise from the suffering to look the same as what has been lost. If new shoots don’t grow from the old stump, the villagers may plant a young tree that will grow into a Patriarch for new generations. Like them, we are called to have faith in community. And in hope.

© 2021 Mary van Balen

  1. Sardinian Village Tries to Save an Ancient Tree Scorched by Fire 

Photos: Mary van Balen

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