Celebrating Change, Bit by Bit
March 22, 2024 By 4 Comments

Celebrating Change, Bit by Bit

I took a walk in the sunny cold air this morning, just once around the block before lunch, and chatted with landscapers piling dark, smelly mulch around the gardens of an old, ranch double. We smiled. One man predicted warm weather ahead. “Suddenly, spring is here!” he said. And so it seemed.

But just when I had hope of swapping winter parkas for my favorite lightweight fleece, a fierce storm brought lighting and thunder, pelting rain and hail, plummeting temperatures, and tree-felling tornados.

This is Ohio after all.

I know “you should never say ‘never’,” but I’ll chance it. Change is never smooth. No. It comes with starts and stops, pains and joys, and not necessarily in that order. It demands letting go of the old before we can embrace the new. And it’s never once and done.

The plants I thought were dead after the first freeze have been growing and changing in one way or another, unobserved, through the Midwest’s persistent winter until they seem to pop up overnight. Like the crocuses that painted my neighbor’s lawn with purple one morning.  Of course, they’d long been working toward that moment; I’ve just not been alert to the process. Change is rarely predictable. And with growing things, it’s seldom sudden.

How many miniscule shifts had protective leaf scales made before I finally noticed them relaxing, inviting buds to soak up sun and stretch their sweet bodies into warmer air? Uncountable.

So, as far as spring goes, I try to wait patiently, trusting that the forces of change are at work in the background. Eventually, enough atoms will have shifted, insects nibbled, and water and temperature flowed up and down and around, that even with my limited abilities to observe, I can see that something’s afoot.

I cultivate the habit of looking and listening closely. I slow down on my walks, spend more time gazing out my windows, and get comfortable with quiet so nature’s sounds have a place to sing.

Is this why Mary Oliver started every day standing in the doorway, notebook in hand, welcoming morning, noticing? She knew that to see the flow of glory she had to be there every moment, open, senses alert, ready to be amazed.

Can I do the same so when skunk cabbage appears in marshy places or forsythia bushes bloom or maple leaves unfurl after their flowery tassels have festooned the trees and then fallen to the sidewalk, or more birdsong fills the air – so when these things happen, I am at the door to welcome them as surprising yet awaited guests who arrive in their own time.

It’s not just the “out there” physical, observable matter that changes under cover. Movement within the human spirit is ongoing and often unnoticed. My spiritual eye is frequently clouded and unable to see. I don’t stay still long enough for it to focus. I don’t sit quietly long enough for my inner ear to hear sacred whispers.

When a shroud of darkness seems to suddenly lift from my soul, there is likely nothing sudden about it. Like plants in winter, Holy Presence that dwells within has been busy opening me bit by bit to its love and warmth that have been there all along. So I believe.

When I experience a moment of grace or encounter, am I finally noticing the ongoing transformation happening from the inside out?  I wonder, do human beings need an accumulation of “holy” before they see it?

Like Mary Oliver, I can stand at the door of my house and my soul and be still. Quiet. Patient. Attentive. Trusting that, seen or not, the miracle of transformation is happening, inside and out. And it is amazing.

Photos: Mary van Balen

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Just Enough Blessing
October 31, 2023 By 14 Comments

Just Enough Blessing

Not a lot has changed for me since writing the last column. I continue to have difficulty focusing on the present moment. Quiet prayer feels impossible. How does one still the mind during such times? Information pours into my consciousness and pulls at my attention. The atrocities of the Israeli/ Palestinian war are overwhelming as is the rise of hateful threats and actions against Jewish people and those of Palestinian descent in this country. Our families, friends, and neighbors fear for their safety. This conflict has taken the spotlight off the Ukrainian’s ongoing battle to maintain their autonomy. National divisiveness, fear, and anger continues to poison the political atmosphere, particularly with elections just days away.

I confided in a spiritual companion that beyond struggling with prayer practices, my faith itself falters. I try Brother Lawrence’s “practice of the Presence” and remember throughout the day that I am in the presence of God—and hope there is one. This is what I can do.

My friend shared her practice of beginning each day reading newspaper articles—not just the headlines as I usually do—and looking for goodness, for acts of courage and concern for the common good. It reminds her that as much evil as there is in the world, there is also much good. Then she reflects on what she can do in her day, where she is, to contribute to bringing God’s Love into this time and space.

The next day, since my subscriptions are digital, I went out and bought a physical, hold-in-your-hand newspaper. I pulled a blank journal off my shelves, wrote “Lectio with Newspapers” on the front, and settled at the dining room table intending to read until I found a bit of light in the dark news, cut out that section, glue it into the journal, and then write my reflection on it. The journal would be a new addition to the Lectio journals I have kept over the years while using Scripture or other Wisdom literature as the text.

I read one article. Then two. A few lines caused me to pause, but I was sure there must be some more solid “goodness” that would jump off the page. An hour or so later, I folded up the paper and decided to try another day.

In this frame of mind and soul, I came across Mary Oliver’s poem “Mockingbirds.” It opens with her hearing two mockingbirds tossing their songs across a field. She had nothing better to do than listen, she said. Then she offers a story of a poor Greek couple who welcomed two strangers into their home having nothing but their attentiveness to offer, which they did. And their guests, who turned out to be gods, loved them for it. Upon leaving, they shed their mortal bodies and became a fountain of light reaching into every corner of the humble cottage.

The couple understood and bowed before the Sacred in their midst and asked nothing for themselves, grateful for the blessing of Presence.

Mary Oliver ends the poem saying she was opening the dark doors of her soul, leaning out into the moment. She was listening.

I read the poem a few times and decided I longed to be like the poor Greek couple. I already am in some ways. I feel like I have little to offer these days. No great (or even not so great) wisdom. No answers. Not even an unshakeable faith. But I could be attentive. To the simplest of things. Maybe the sound of the ever-colder wind rustling the last leaves off the trees. Or the water boiling in the electric kettle. Or the sun illuminating the bouquet of pink and white alstroemeria that after two weeks are still beautiful in my brother-in-law’s handmade vase.

Or maybe it’s laughter shared during a heart-to-heart with a friend. A chat with a stranger met while on a neighborhood walk. A meal shared. The smell of beets from the garden simmering in a large pot on the stove.

If I can, like the Greek couple, give my attention, perhaps I will recognize the good in that moment, and bow to the Presence. Maybe I’ll be able to recognize Light in newspaper articles the next time I try. Or maybe Presence will flush out some of the fear and make room for Love to enter in.

I don’t know. But like the Greek couple, it’s all I’ve got. And like Mary Oliver, I wonder what else is a better way to spend my time. Who knows what doors attentiveness will open? What spaces in my soul will be swept clean, ready to receive a stranger. To discern the next step. To let light in so it can leak out. Maybe I will recognize the Sacred and be open to its Blessing. Maybe it will scatter through the dark corners of my soul and fill them all with light. Or maybe the Blessing will bring just enough light to reveal the Holy One sitting with me in the dark.

Sources

“Mockingbirds” by Mary Oliver

Nicolas Herman-Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher

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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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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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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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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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An Eclipse Unobserved
May 21, 2022 By 10 Comments

An Eclipse Unobserved

Sunday night, May 15, I slept through a total lunar eclipse. Usually, I send email reminders to family and friends a day or two before the event. When the night arrives, I set my alarm and stand on my driveway or in the backyard at any hour, no matter how late, to witness the cosmic display. Eclipses, lunar and solar, have inspired several posts on this blog in the past. (See here, here,  here and here.) How’d I miss this one?

I didn’t notice the date on my wall calendar or date book. (Yes, I still use the paper ones.) I passed over the EarthSkyNews1 email alert. I even missed the second text sent that night on our family thread. I saw the first, at 10:02. Uncharacteristically, I was already in bed. “Don’t forget to check out the Blood Moon tonight,” it read. I pulled off the sheet and walked outside to look. It’s edges and light were softened by misty, wispy clouds, but the full moon was just clearing the apartments across the street, headed for open sky above. The text reference to “Blood Moon” was lost on me. The pale orb looked lovely, but nothing red about it. After five minutes or so, I headed back to bed and to a long night of much needed sleep.

When I awoke late Monday morning, I reached over to the bedside bookcase, pulled off my phone and reading glasses and checked for messages. (I’m way too tied to that phone!) Ah. There was another from Sunday night. It arrived at 10:04 pm while I was out in my PJs and bare feet looking at the moon. “The partial eclipse begins at 10:30.” There it was.

A matter of two minutes made the difference between my watching a stunning total lunar eclipse and my sleeping peacefully away for ten hours! “I needed the sleep,” I rationalized, but didn’t feel any better about missing the experience.

The dance of planet, moon, and sun governed by laws of physics never disappoints. Sunday night, the full moon blushed a deep red as it moved into the earth’s shadow. With feet planted on the ground, anyone with a clear sky above could have looked up in wonder at the spectacle that played out nearly 240,000 miles away. It was glorious—whether or not celebrated by human beings.

Creation continues to do what it has been doing for eons, regardless of our attention—evolving, expanding, birthing new stars, galaxies, and realities we can’t imagine. It’s a work in progress. Occasionally the veil of distance, time, and space is drawn back just a bit, and we catch a glimpse. (Did you see the first photo of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy2?

Image Credit: X-ray – NASA/CXC/SAO, IR – NASA/HST/STScI; Inset: Radio – Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

As I lamented my missed opportunity, I thought of Psalm 27 that reminds us that God’s grace comes even as we sleep and took some comfort in the knowledge that beauty released into the universe blesses even when unnoticed. The splendor of the Blood Moon, the incredible workings of our solar system that produced it, the ongoing evolution of the cosmos in which we live, are all expressions of Love constantly given away.

A child asleep in her mother’s arms is no less loved than when the little one is awake and aware of the affection. My sleeping through the eclipse didn’t diminish its wonder. As I slept those ten hours away, I rested, cradled in the arms of the universe and the creative arms of the Mother-God in whom it unfolds.

Awareness doesn’t change the reality of Love-shared, but it can enlarge the hearts of those who notice with appreciation and openness to receive.

In Mary Oliver’s long poem “From the Book of Time,”3 she writes of beginning a spring day at her desk but being drawn by birdsong into the outdoors where she noticed the grass and butterflies moving above the field.

“ … And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening / is the real work. // Maybe the world, without us, / is the real poem…”

Surely, the cosmos doesn’t need us to be what it is, to be the “real poem.” Yet since we are here, we are invited to help with the composition: a word, a phrase, a comma or full-stop. We contribute, knowingly or not. How and what depends on each of us. A bit of glory here, a bit of sorrow there. Love. Hate. Compassion. Fear.

While I trust in Holy Presence, whether cognizant of it or not, I will pay more attention to special events that can open my heart and the eyes of my soul. November 8, the next total lunar eclipse of this year, is already circled on my paper calendars. I might even add an alert on my phone.

Meanwhile, no need to wait for an eclipse. The universe is always spilling over with unfathomable creativity. The jots we are privileged to witness point our minds and hearts toward the Holy Mystery that is far beyond comprehension but is the life force in all that is. This Mystery showers us with goodness and love, even if we, unaware, sleep right through it.

Sources:

1 Subscribe to EarthSkyNews newsletter

2 The Milky Way’s Black Hole

3 “From the Book of Time” in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, p. 234

More info on the Black Hole: Sagittarius A

The Milky Ways supermassive black hole

Here’s How Scientists Turned the World Into a Telescope (to See a Black Hole)

Black Hole Image Makes History

Feature image by Ulrike Bohr from Pixabay

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Simply Enough
April 30, 2022 By 10 Comments

Simply Enough

At last, after two-and-a-half years, this weary pilgrim again headed to the coast, putting myself in a place where grace flows. Always. Every breath of salty air pulled into my lungs; every shock of cold water closed around my ankles draws me into the rhythms of the place. The infinite horizon. The boom of crashing waves. The gull cries. All of it. Grace sinks deep and soaks my spirit’s tired, depleted spaces with life. On this trip, gentle tears greeted my first steps through the dunes. The place spoke: “Welcome home.” My soul sighed with gratitude.

Bundled in a winter coat, hat, gloves, and scarf, I happily walked the ocean’s edge with my daughters, strong wind making the air feel much colder than its 38-40-something degrees. Following along the frothy seam that joins water and sand didn’t disappoint. The vista changed by the day, or by the hour, from blue skies and sun-sparkled water to dark, low-hanging clouds threatening rain. From smooth, glassy sea to turbulent waves. Birds covered the dunes and beach some days and were barely present on others.

I’ve become wiser over the years, happy with any weather and grateful for whatever the ocean offers up for my attention: The sun glinting on a broken shell. An interesting piece of driftwood. Sandpipers speeding along the tide’s edge, their short legs a blur of motion. Willets standing on one leg to preserve warmth on a cold day.

It might be sighting a dolphin’s fin in the distance while walking with my daughter or a windstorm that left its fingerprint on the sand.

Photo: Emily Holt

Despite gleaning some wisdom on my beach walks, I don’t always heed their lessons.

Arriving home, I wondered how to share the experience with my readers. I searched for a topic, but found no over-arching theme. Instead, thoughts that emerged were of small movements of grace offered in every moment. Simple. Not requiring connection to something bigger for significance. Enough in themselves:

Looking for beach treasures to fill a lamp. Examining feathers on the sand. Learning that what looked like gray, rubber litter was actually a moon snail’s egg collar. Deciding that the walk to an old Coast Guard station was too long to complete before the park gates closed and enjoying the sunset instead.

Photo: Kathryn Holt

There were many small pleasures found off-beach: A morning of shared painting and writing. The delight of sipping our first Vietnamese egg coffee: dark espresso topped with egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk whipped into a thick cream and sprinkled with cinnamon. A walk to the small downtown area and chatting with a local artist at the indie bookstore.

I bought honey from the beekeeper around the corner, and as always when on the coast, I relished freshly made crab cakes.

Wild ponies foraged along the road and a young, great blue heron seemed to preen for the camera. We marveled at a lighthouse and the engineering and skill required to build it in the 1800s. I savored the sweet smell of marshlands, so different from salty ocean air. We laughed together at Ted Lasso episodes while binging on Island Creamery homemade ice cream or white-cheddar “cheesy-poof” balls.

Each moment complete. Lovely. Overflowingly enough.

In her poem “Snow Geese,” Mary Oliver offers the wisdom of loving what does not last, calling it our task “…and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.” Being present to those fleeting moments open us to their gift. They might find their way into memory or stir hope or joy, but only if we are attentive. As Oliver’s poem continues, “…What matters / is that, when I saw them, / I saw them /as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.”

Returning from the ocean is always difficult for me. While I love family, friends, and familiar routines, I am a reluctant inlander. Once home, my challenge is to be as attentive to moments here as I was to moments on the island. Not with expectations, but with openness. Not looking for something that completes a larger picture, but simply moments that are, in themselves, grace enough.

It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a Soul, and a moment. And the three are always here.

Abraham Heschel

Photos: Mary van Balen unless otherwise indicated

© 2022 Mary van Balen

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James Webb Space Telescope and “Holy Curiosity”
January 2, 2022 By 4 Comments

James Webb Space Telescope and “Holy Curiosity”

Early Christmas morning, I shut off the alarm and lay in bed, still tired after a late night. My cell phone dinged. Ahh, a daughter checking to see if I were watching NASA’s coverage of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launch. Events like this are a family thing, shared virtually, often with a toast to celebrate success. I texted back, “Just getting up. Turning on the computer.” Too early for wine, tea was my drink of choice.

What a Christmas gift! After three decades of imagination, development, and global teamwork, the deep space telescope designed to give humanity a glimpse back in time to the beginnings of the universe was ready to launch. The European spaceport is in Kourou, French Guiana, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest near the equator. NASA TV provided stunning images: The Arian 5 rocket towering above the trees. A fiery liftoff. And a final a view of the James Webb, separated from the final stage of the rocket and moving past the earth toward deep space.

Humanity’s Last Glimpse of the James Webb Space Telescope
 Credit: Arianespace, ESA, NASA, CSA, CNES

Watching broadcasts of space missions is always emotional for me. In 2017, twenty years after beginning its journey of discovery of around Saturn and its moons, the spacecraft Cassini sent its final images as it dove into the planet’s atmosphere. I stopped preparing dinner and gave full attention to my laptop perched on the microwave, streaming coverage. When the last image disappeared and Cassini burned up like a meteor, I cried.

Watching the JWST launch was no different. The scope and complexity of the mission. The passion to explore the universe. The cooperation of thousands of people and space agencies around the globe. The perseverance to work through setbacks. The vulnerability of broadcasting the event despite possible failure. These things stir the soul.

Imagine, a telescope so big that it was folded like intricate origami to fit into the faring that protected it as it punctured a hole in the atmosphere. Imagine, a giant mirror over 21 feet across and a multi-layered sunshield unfolding like butterflies emerging from their chrysalises.

NASA: Animation by Adriana Manrique Gutierrez

Imagine. Someone did. Lots of people did. Their curiosity, skill, and determination led to the launch of the telescope that won’t stop until it reaches a spot along the sun-earth axis over a million miles away.

Images of the launch and NASA’s informative videos have stayed with me, feeding my sense of wonder. During the past week it drew me to poetry, books, and podcasts that explore in different ways the secrets of the universe, our place in it, and the mystery of faith.

After the launch, I pulled out an old coffee table book, The Home Planet, a collection of magnificent photos and reflections of space explorers who have orbited the Earth. Many wrote of a heightened appreciation of the interconnectedness of all things on earth and the overwhelming beauty of our planet after viewing it against the black emptiness of space. Looking through its pages, I marveled at the evolution of space exploration, culminating in JWST’s million-mile journey. Will its revelations move humanity closer to acknowledging the interdependence of all creation? Will it move those on earth to take better care of the planet? Will this encounter with the inconceivable immensity and complexity of the universe foster humility as well as expand knowledge?

Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, said after the launch, “The promise of Webb is not what we know we will discover; it’s what we don’t yet understand or can’t yet fathom about our universe. I can’t wait to see what it uncovers!”

I wondered, in my own life, how willing I am to admit that I don’t understand? Not only the workings of the universe, but closer to home, realities at work in everyday life. There is much I don’t know or can’t even imagine. For instance, the history and effects of systemic racism and oppression of the marginalized in this country. Am I delving deeper? Educating myself? How willing am I to listen to the truth spoken by those kept on the edges of society? Do I have the humility to hear, to listen with the ear of the heart? To be transformed by it?

Poetry was my next reading stop. Mary Oliver’s “Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?” speaks of looking long and deep:

There are things you can’t reach. But

you can reach out to them, and all day long…

… I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking, I mean not just standing around, but standing around

     as though with your arms open…

I imagined the arms of the JWST open wide, gathering energy of the sun. The giant golden eye of a mirror, looking out, slowly gathering in light from billions of years ago. And I thought of my standing with open arms and open heart, ready to receive the Grace of Divine Presence. It’s often not visible or obvious to me, but God is no less present for my inability to perceive. The important thing is to develop a practice of openness “all day long,” never being done with looking.

When it arrives at its destination almost a month after launch, JWST will be carefully positioned in the second Lagrange point that allows it to orbit the sun while remaining in the shadow of the earth. In this place, JWTS’s sunshield will protect it from heat and light from the sun, earth, moon, and even from itself! This is critical for the collection of faint infrared light, a process easily disrupted by other sources of light or heat.

I often think of a comment made by Michael McGregor, author of Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax. When asked if Lax would want others to emulate his life, McGregor was quick to respond. No. What was important to Lax was that people find a place where grace flows for them and put themselves there often.

Grace flows in different places for everyone. Even in different places at different times in a single individual’s life. Putting oneself there is important. The “place” could be simply silence or meditation. Time in the woods, along a beach, taking long walks, or gazing at the night sky. It could be working at a food pantry or homeless shelter, or having conversation with a good friend. Journaling. Painting. We need to spend time in places that shield us from too much “interference” of all types—even from ourselves. To be free of things that hinder the reception of Love, constantly shared, drenching creation.

Sometimes finding that place is not going somewhere. It’s just a matter of turning the heart.

In a conversation with Krista Tippett, Jeff Chu shared some wisdom from the new book he worked on with Rachel Held Evans and which he finished after her death in 2019. Wholehearted Faith was published last month.  Speaking about the need for more love, tenderness, and fierce advocacy for justice, he said, “… And so many of us just need a little reminder from time to time that love is there. Love is there if you pay attention. Love is there if you turn your hearts just a little bit.”

Standing under the night sky allows me to “turn my heart,” to open to Love.

In his comments after the launch, Bill Nelson recalled the words of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows his handiwork.”

Indeed, God’s splendor is on display in the stars and galaxies and mysterious beauty of the cosmos. The incarnation celebrated during the Christmas season, this embodied Presence, has inspirited creation from the moment the universe began and continues in every person, creature, and bit of matter here or millions of miles in space.

Just as we cannot imagine how the discoveries of the JWST will affect humanity’s science, spirits, or way of living, we cannot imagine the transforming power of the ongoing incarnation.

The human drive to explore the galaxies, using every bit of human knowledge, skill, and talents is fueled by curiosity and wonder.

Searching our hearts and all that is around us. Paying attention. Looking for the Sacred in our midst. This passion is driven by the longing for meaning, for God, and by the desire to know that we are part of a story far bigger than ourselves. One we can never fully comprehend.

As expressed in Wholehearted Faith, “… many of us have found a renewed sense of possibility when we’ve realized how much of God’s beauty remains to be explored — and that the life of faith is also a life of holy curiosity.”

Thank you NASA and its global partners for an extraordinary Christmas gift, one that reminds us to wonder, to search, and to expect the unexpected. Not only in our universe, but also in our experience of God-with-us.

SOURCES AND RESOURCES

Books

The Home Planet: Conceived and edited by Kevin W. Kelley for the Association of Space Explorers

“Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?” in Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver

Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu

Online

OnBeing with Krista Tippet 12/23/21 Jeff Chu: A Life of Holy Curiosity

NASA JWST Sites – Follow links for more information, images, and videos of the JWST

James Webb Space Telescope Homepage

NASA’s Webb Blog where you can keep up with new information

JWST launch:  Official NASA Broadcast on YouTube

James Webb Space Telescope: Goddard Space Flight Center

Where is Webb

About Webb Orbit

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“Breath-Praise” – The Simple Prayer of Being
October 5, 2021 By 10 Comments

“Breath-Praise” – The Simple Prayer of Being

I am slowly reading my way through Mary Oliver’s Devotions, a thick book of her poems that she selected for publication in 2017, just two years before her death. I think of Devotions as a parting gift. I’m less than halfway through the 442 pages of brilliance, unveiling life’s glory and grace.

Balckburnian Warbler perched in shrub
Blackburnian Warbler
Photo: Michael Delphia

And so, I found myself, a week after the arrival of Autumn, reading a poem celebrating summer! No matter. Each season has its own gifts as well as those it shares with the other three. In this case, that gift is birdsong. A Meadowlark’s to be specific. The sound broke in to Oliver’s consciousness while she worked on a summer poem. As I read the finished piece,1 a few lines captured my attenition:

“…the faint-pink roses / that have never been improved, but come to bud // open like little soft sighs / under the meadowlark’s whistle, its breath-praise, // its thrill-song, its anthem, its thanks, its // alleluia. Alleluia, oh Lord.”

“… its breath-praise …”

“Breath-praise.”  In.

 “Breath-praise.” Out.

The meadowlark. Me. We both have “breath-praise.” Most often unconscious, its participation in Grace. Immersion in Presence, Breath, Life. A simple prayer of being. When done with awareness, breath-praise is the recognition of a reality larger than oneself, reverencing the creator, the force, of which one is a part.

The time of business is no different from the time of prayer.

Brother Lawrence

Breathing it in. Breathing it out. Brother Lawrence, the 17th century Carmelite, knew this truth. A lowly lay brother in a Parisian monastery, he is best known for his uncomplicated prayer of becoming aware of being in God’s presence throughout the day and carrying on a conversation with God in those moments. Lifting his heart in praise and recognizing the enveloping Sacred Presence in which he moved, Brother Lawrence, like the meadowlark, practiced “breath-praise.” He knew he had work to do (for years, it was in the monastery kitchen, which he did not like) and went about it simply. He didn’t need to be in a chapel or at Mass to pray.

One of his quotes adorned my refrigerator during my childrearing years: “The time of business is no different from the time of prayer. In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, I possess God as tranquilly as if I were upon my knees before the Blessed Sacrament. 2

I sometimes had trouble with the “tranquilly” part, but all in all, his sentiment was a great reminder of the holiness of life’s quotidian tasks.

Photos: Mary van Balen
red and yellow autum leaves against the sky
trees in yellow wood

In New Seeds of Contemplation,3 the great monk, mystic, and author, Thomas Merton wrote:

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying God. It “consents,” so to speak, to God’s creative love … Therefore each particular being, in its individuality … gives glory to God by being precisely what God wants it to be here and now … Their inscape is their sanctity. It is the imprint of God’s wisdom and God’s reality in them.

Human beings, on the other hand, complicate things, including simply being the self God created each one to be. It’s difficult when voices from all kinds of places – the past, the media, culture, significant people in our lives – have their say and cloud the perception of just what “being oneself” means.

I often confuse what I have (or, more often, have not) accomplished with who I am. For example, the books I haven’t written overshadow the self that is given through countless meals prepared, laundry done, letters written, and the simple ways of living and loving that, as Merton wrote, are the “imprint of God” in me.

Writing is part of who I am (thus years and years of columns, posts, articles, and books), but not the whole of it. The temptation in our culture is to focus on major things. On “doing” not “being.”  One of these approaches cannot exist without the other. Life is a both/and endeavor. Br. Lawrence spent his monastic career doing his chores and in the simplicity of his tasks, he was being his true self. His prayer practice contributed to his sanctity, and sharing it provided inspiration for countless others across centuries.

Their inscape is their sanctity. It is the imprint of God’s wisdom and God’s reality in them.

Thomas Merton

Merton knew that being faithful to the God-spark within was all we need do. That looks different for each of person. For him, it included lots of writing: books, poetry, correspondence, articles. Also being a novice master. And, later, living alone in his hermitage.

Mary Oliver is a saint of attentiveness and gratitude. She noticed. She wandered and wondered through the natural world.  She loved. And she wrote.

What imago Dei resides in your center? What bit of the Sacred do you bring to every task you do and to every moment you are at rest? What song of gratitude might you add to the universe as you stand at the kitchen sink or the washing machine? When you weep for the world or rejoice with a child or friend? When you work? When you play? When you have no idea where you are going or when you are filled with enthusiasm for the next step?

October is a beautiful month to notice and be inspired by the unconscious praise that rises from the natural world. Opening our eyes, ears, and hearts to the wordless chant of praise that arises every day from every created thing, we can join in their prayer. Recognizing their holiness may stir our hearts with the desire to grow in willingness to be, like them, exactly as God has made us to be. Then our “Amen” will rise with theirs, not from our lips, but like the meadowlark, from our being.

Sources:

  1. Mary Oliver, “While I Am Writing a Poem to Celebrate Summer, the Meadowlark Begins to Sing,” Devotions (2017):203.
  2. Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (1985): 145.
  3. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, (1972): 29-30.
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