silence

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Originally published in The Catholic Times, December 14, 2014

The gospel from the first Sunday of Advent showed Jesus instructing his followers to be alert. Warning against the possibility of dozing and being asleep when the lord of the house arrives, Jesus had one word for them: “Watch.”

When I taught writing to elementary students and later to adults, my advice was to “be wide awake.” They kept a writer’s notebook, a place to hold thoughts, interesting articles, and favorite poems, anything that spoke to their hearts or passed through their lives. Sometimes what they jotted down ended up in an essay or launched them into a theme that developed into something longer. Most didn’t. The process of noticing and of being present to the moment was the important result. They developed “writerly habits.”

Prayer and writing have a lot in common. Jesus wasn’t instructing his followers to be writers, but to be “wide awake” for God’s presence. Jesus wants us to develop a “pray-ers habit.” “I am with you always,” Jesus says at the end of Matthew’s gospel, “even to the end of time.” The struggle for us is being still enough, inside and out, to become aware of and respond to that presence. Some people in Mark’s gospel audience were preoccupied with the future. They wanted to know when the end was coming, when Jesus would return. Jesus told them that wasn’t for them to know. Instead, they were to live in the present, alert to the “now.”

That’s what Advent is saying to me this year: Don’t spend the time I have in one place while my mind and heart are somewhere else. Don’t fill my mind with mental “chatter” that drowns out what the moment is saying. Easier said than done. I can’t tell you how many mornings I get up with the intention of spending twenty minutes in quiet prayer, simply trying to be present to God-with-Us, but instead end up rushing out of the house on my way to work without having sat still for a moment.

Stuff happens. I’ve thrown in a load of laundry, fretted over finding some other job, responded to emails, and perused the New York Times headlines. I gulp down my cup of tea and can’t remember if I had Constant Comment or Lady Grey. A pity since the aroma and taste of each is worth appreciating.

Even while driving to work I’m thinking about what I’ll do when I finish my shift. Never mind that the sky is clear and bright or that a friendly driver slowed down so I could make my turn. No matter that I have been given another day to live and breathe and love.

Yesterday, I read through Advent’s mass readings. Lots of them are concerned with justice and compassion, God’s and ours. God hears the cry of the poor, promises rest to those who are tired, takes care of sending rain and sun for crops, cares about the lost sheep, the littlest one, cures blindness, lameness, and broken hearts. God wants to love us all, but I’m afraid I’m often too busy to notice.

I think when Zechariah was stuck dumb it was to make him be quiet long enough to become a better listener…to pay attention and to see God at work in ways he didn’t expect.

Mary said “Yes,” after hearing the angel’s invitation. Joseph heard Wisdom in his dreams and took his pregnant fiancé into his home despite appearances.

You have to be listening to hear the “angels” of the moment or God talking in your dreams. You have to be paying attention to recognize God in the poor and suffering in this world. You have to be still to hear Divine Love and share it with others.

Advent’s a time to recall that the God who created us, who came to us in Jesus, and who will come again is, most importantly, here in each and every one of us this very moment. God’s concerned about the least among us. About justice and compassion. About what’s in our heart. Advent’s a call to be still and to be amazed that the most Holy Mystery wants to spend gracious time with us.

Creation Gives Voice to Presence

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Originally published in The Catholic Times, November 9, 2014

Volume 64:6

Emily Dickinson’s poem, Exultation is the going of an inland soul to sea, comes to mind each time I have the opportunity to head to the beach. Someday, I tell myself, perhaps I will live near the east coast, close enough that a trip to the ocean could be measured in minutes rather than hours. As it is, I’m grateful for the times when the long trip is possible.

One of my daughters lives a few hours from a national seashore, and we’ve made a tradition of spending at least a couple of days at the beach when I visit. In October the air is cool. We don’t swim but walk for hours along the sand. This year we wore scarves and sweaters as we sat in beach chairs and enjoyed looking far and gulping the salty air deep into our lungs.

As we watched, gulls and sanderlings entertained, and dolphins moved slowly out beyond the breakers. Pelicans dove for fish, and crabs disappeared down their sandy tunnels. The planet seemed to breathe with the ancient rhythm of the surf moving in and out. We talked about death and life, remembered beach vacations with my parents, and wondered how life would continue to unfold. Then, two pilgrims, we simply sat in silence.

The numinous place where land and sea meet is always a place of prayer for me. Power. Beauty. Mystery. Waters of immense depth, churning and filled with life, speak of the One Who is the Beginning. This day there were no revelations. No new understandings or answers to questions that move in my heart like the waves at me feet, but Presence simply inviting me to enjoy and to trust.

We headed back to my daughter’s apartment carrying a few shells, a small piece of driftwood for her mantel, and two pieces of seaglass that eventually would sit on my prayer table. The next day I drove home through mountains glowing with fall colors. In one more day, with sand still clinging to my pant legs, I was walking a road winding through wooded hills and watching birds landing on feeders outside a cabin’s windows.

PHOTO:Mary van Balen

I lit a candle and wrote in my journal, making sketches of shells and a list of birds at the feeders: woodpeckers, nuthatches, and tufted titmice. Looking up, I was amazed at the variety of colors and textures outside the window: Huge yellow, brown, and deep red oak leaves, smooth barked and deeply ridged tree trunks, green shrubs dotted with red berries, all against a backdrop of blue sky and grey leaf-covered ground.

Unlike my days at ocean when my eyes looked out across the water at the horizon, the day at the cabin offered obstructed views, but they were rich. Leaving the chill of the cabin, I moved outside to the sun-warmed deck, and still the pilgrim, sat silently on the weathered bench.

Wind rustling leaves filled the woods with a sound similar to the ocean’s surf, not rhythmic, but constant.

Creation psalms came to mind with their images of a God who made the sun and moon to mark time and confined the oceans so life could flourish on the land. ‘How varied are your works, Lord! In wisdom you have made them all” (Ps 104, 24). Like Job reminded by God, I have no idea how all this came to be. The “Big Bang” is likely, as Pope Francis recently affirmed. The how and the why remain a mystery, engaging professional scientists and theologians and expanding the minds and spirits of the rest of us who think about it.

But, deep down, I’m pondering Presence in the moment, in the now of sitting on the beach, walking through the woods, or working at Macy’s. In doing laundry and cooking dinner. In reading poetry and scripture, in drinking tea, and falling asleep. It’s the grace to be alive and open to the wonder of each bit of life that I’m looking for.

Being still in the midst of creation nurtures that prayer in us. It’s always been so, as the psalmist says: The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world (Psalm 19, 1-4).

PHOTO: Jennifer Stephens

Quieting Down to Listen

Creation Gives Voice to Presence