Our Town

Aurora: Using the Right Lens

Who would’ve guessed? Viewing the Aurora Borealis close on the heels of experiencing a total solar eclipse, both from Ohio! Not me. I read about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights much further south than usual and looked forward to the event. But the evening arrived, and after a busy day of running errands, I had forgotten. I settled into my recliner ready for a quiet evening when an urgent shout broke into my reverie:

“Jordan! Jordan!” my neighbor yelled to his friend in the apartment above mine.

An emergency? Someone’s hurt? My phone rang: “Mary, get out here! You can see them!”

Thank goodness for my neighbors. In minutes, six of us lined up in my driveway. Chairs for everyone, but mostly we stood. I put on water for tea (It was chilly.) and called my sister and her husband.

The aurora had arrived, even in the city, and joined a bright crescent moon, planets, and stars in the clear night sky. Despite streetlamps and security lights, swaths of purple, pink, and green danced over apartments and trees.

“Look through your phone,” someone called out, and I remembered an interesting fact from articles giving instructions on when and how to watch. Auroras are the result of streams of charged particles ejected from magnetic storms on the sun and propelled into space. Some reach earth and glow with colored light when they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms as they speed into our upper atmosphere. The rare strength of the solar storms the days before and force with which the large the particle streams were expelled from the sun pushed the aurora south. As amazing as the human eye is, the lenses in cell phones are much better at collecting light, including that emitted by the glowing particles.

Pale purplish pink hues became stunning magenta when viewed through the phones. Greens popped from soft to brilliant. So, there we stood, looking with our eyes then marveling at the sight through our phone lenses. This solar system, our home, has been exceedingly generous lately with events that encourage us to wonder.

What else awaits discovery? What else – on our planet, in the universe – emanates beauty simply by being? What windows into truth and mystery surround us? And how can we see them? What lenses might we need? I wondered about this for a few days, and the question came along as I walked along the Scioto River and saw a blue heron, tall and majestic. There he was, a pillar of peace and stillness with mallards fussing and flitting about, chasing one another away with loud honks and flapping wings that splashed in the water. The heron remained focused, and one slow, purposeful step at a time, moved through the water without disturbing its surface.

How did he see his watery world, I wondered. And what about lenses of other creatures and the ones that enhance (or cloud) my own vision?

Sometimes I use a jeweler’s loupe to examine ordinary objects. Sometimes I use lenses on my stereomicroscope to look extremely closely and discover complexity, pattern, and design of ordinary objects invisible to the naked eye.

With the help of the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes we can look deeply into the universe and back in time to its beginnings. We see stars being born and galaxies speeding away from one another.

But lenses don’t always make things clearer. They can alter or obscure. Our perception can be distorted when we look with eyes, hearts, and minds clouded by prejudices, fear, and anger. Have you ever shared an experience with others and come away shaking your head when various accounts of what happened are at opposite ends of the spectrum? (Think, January 6.) Different lenes.

How, I wondered, can I “clean my lenses” and be aware of everyday wonders of creation? They needn’t be auroras or solar eclipses to inspire and enchant, revealing the Sacred simply by being. To see divinity dwelling not only in nature and creation around me but also within my own heart? To see that the Incarnation did not start with Jesus of Nazareth, but with the Big Bang—everything infused with the Spirit of the Source.

Seeing through the lens of Grace can be a challenge. A line from the play “Our Town” comes to mind. “Who,” wonders Emily while revisiting a day in her life after she had died, “who realizes the beauty and wonder of ordinary life as it is lived, moment by moment.” The stage manager answers, “The saints and poets, maybe they do some.”

How to develop such an eye? “Be present to the moment,” I think, “wide-eyed and open-hearted.” Nurture curiosity. Befriend quiet and get in touch with one’s deepest center. Cultivate the practices of wonder and awe. Look closely, beyond what we see at first glance – including people as well as the rest of creation. And discover what clouds our vision and do what we can to wipe them from the heart.

What a gift the spectacular cosmic displays have been, reminders of the Glory that surrounds us if we have the eyes and heart to see.

Ah! Ordinary Time

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

First published in The Catholic Times, February 9, 2014

Having grown up in a Catholic family, I’m steeped in ritual and the liturgical calendar. I love Advent, its wreath and candles and anticipation, Christmas with its joy and light in the dark winter. Lent with its weeks of refocusing and preparing to embrace the paschal mystery that ends in the glory of Easter is a part of moving into spring each year. Still, I have to admit to having a particular fondness for ordinary time, the liturgical “season” we are presently observing.

It provides a different type of spiritual journey that requires no particular practices, no gifts to buy, no rituals. Some years, when Lent comes quickly on the heels of Epiphany, I feel uneasy. Last year, two weeks of February hadn’t passed before Ash Wednesday arrived, too soon for me. I prefer a longer stretch of time between putting away Christmas ornaments and getting out the purple cloth that drapes over a small prayer table in the dining room.

It’s not that there’s nothing special about daily routines and happenings. It’s just the opposite. When focus is not on an upcoming holiday or celebration, we can celebrate the ordinary and simple things and discover anew just how full of grace they are. That’s often difficult since the familiar or unassuming can go unnoticed.

Thornton Wilder immortalized just how difficult recognizing the wonder of life is in his play, “Our Town,” when Emily asks the stage manager if anyone ever realizes life while they are living it. The stage manager answers, “No,” and then adds “Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”

Saints and poets. They both take time to be present to the glory of the moment, as simple as it may appear. They recognize the Sacred when the rest of us are hurrying by, preoccupied.

Jesus has a preference for the ordinary. He told stories full of seeds sprouting or not, of wedding feasts and wineskins. He wasn’t impressed by pretentious prayer practices and held up for our emulation the poor widow who gave her small coins rather than the wealthy who gave much more. He worked miracles with what was at hand: water and wine, loves and fishes, dirt and spit.

In Sunday’s gospel reading, Jesus compares his disciples to salt and light, two things so common that we often don’t give them much thought. Salt, a humble presence on the shelf that includes more exciting and exotic spices, adds zest and brings out flavors in food we eat every day. Light from a lamp is nothing spectacular. The lamp is small enough to fit under a basket! Jesus didn’t tell his followers that they should be like a blazing bonfire. A simple flame will do.

In fact, what we celebrate in the “big” liturgical seasons is really the infusion of Divine Presence into every aspect of life, no matter how simple. Each day we are called to “salt” life with the Love God has shared with us. We are called to shine the Light that dwells within us on those we meet each day. We are called to recognize the Holy Presence in the poor and oppressed and in those we encounter. We are called to embrace suffering as well as joy.

A young man takes a broom from the restaurant where he works and cleans snow from the car of an elderly couple he sees in the parking lot. A woman invites a homeless man in for lunch and coffee after paying him for weeding her garden. A retired teacher helps immigrants learn English. A poet rises early to write each day before heading into his “day job.” A daughter holds her elderly father’s hand as they sit, quietly in the nursing home, not saying a word. Someone does the grocery shopping. Someone cooks the meals. Someone notices the way the sun shines on the snow. Someone provides shelter for abused women. Someone listens. Someone holds. Someone visits prisons. Someone reads to a child.

The Holy One is recognized in the moment and in others. God is “born” into the world with every act of love and compassion. Jesus transforms the world with each “death” we embrace, and with every new step in life we are courageous enough to take. Ah. Ordinary Time.