Mary van Balen

My week-long vacation began with a foggy drive through West Virginia and Virginia that necessitated an unplanned overnight in Lexington, VA. The stay was nice, though, and gave us a chance to slow down. One shouldn't have to hurry into a "vacation." Strictly speaking, I was the one headed for weeks vacation. My daughter would take off a few days to spend with me at the beach, but our friend was headed back to work after attending a wedding. No matter. I think we all enjoyed a good night's sleep and arriving in Williamsburg in daylight.

The first day I did a lot of sleeping and reading, surprised at how tired I was. Tuesday I took my daughter to work and wrote a couple of blogs at a local coffee shop before going to visit a friend. Wednesday began four amazing days: First seeing the Dalai Lama, next going to the beach, and finally, seeing the presidential motorcade and the president himself as he arrived at Kings Mill Resort.  Read More 

Time on the beach is always a grace. This week my daughter and I spent three days there, walking, looking for shells, watching birds, listening to waves crashing and tides going out and coming in. We splashed through cold water and waded in tide pools, remembering ocean vacations with my parents. Mom loved the tide pools and sat in her beach chair right in the middle. She had a good eye for sharks' teeth when walking along the oceans edge. With a sieve, she found some big ones in the tide pools.

Wonderful memories.

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On Wednesday, both my daughter and I had the opportunity to attend H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama's address on human compassion at the College of William & Mary. (The tickets sold out in 16 minutes the day they went on sale. Someone who works with Kathryn gave her a ticket. I resorted to standing outside with a borrowed "Ticket Needed" sign and at the last minute received the gift of a ticket from a kind young man in scrubs who seemed to already know a lot about compassion!)

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On today's Universalis site, after a two saints listed for remembrance, Blessed John Henry Newman shows up. (I mentioned him in my May 2 blogpost The Vatican, Nuns, and John Henry Newmanas a champion of lay persons' call and ability to be bearers of truth and prophetic speakers of truth to power.)



Today, I remember his poetry and writings. One has long been a favorite:
"Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with your spirit and life.
Penetrate my being so that all my life
may only be a radiance of you.

Shine through me, and so be in me
that every person I come in contact with
may feel your presence in my soul.
Let them look and see no longer me,
but only Jesus.

Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to be a light to others.The light, O Jesus, will be all from you;
none of it will be mine.
It will be you shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise you in the way you love best,
by shining on those around me."

The other speaks to my frustration today with where I am, making a living, and striving to remain faithful to the call to write and share what small light entrusted to me:
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"I think you have a cricket in your basement," my sister said after spending the night in "the guest room," a queen bed in the, thankfully dry, basement.

I investigated, and sure enough, the cricked was chirping loudly and stopped abruptly for a few moments when I turned on the lights. Her hiatus was brief, and then her song bounced off the cement block walls once again.

Today, I found her, clinging to the side of an old brick next to the wall behind the dryer. I moved the dryer and she stopped her fiddling. We looked at each other. Well, I imagined she looked at me. I know she knew I was there.

"Thank you for your song," I said, "but you can't keep playing in here."

I walked upstairs and returned with a plastic container that had held treasures from my trip to the Northwest. I gave a slight bow to my guest, managed to guide her into the container without damaging her delicate instruments, and carried her upstairs and out the side door Read More 

"Have you celebrated that, Mom?" my daughter asked as I mentioned that this month would mark the beginning of my twenty-seventh year of writing my monthly column, "Grace in the Moment."

"Well, no. Not really."

"Well, you should. You should celebrate your accomplishments, and that is a big one."

I conceded that one ought to celebrate, but wasn't sure how to do something like that. I mean, shouldn't someone else plan the celebrating? It seems odd to throw a party for yourself.

"It doesn't have to be something big. Go out with a friend and have a drink, or go to lunch, or something."

She had a point. Our lives are busy with work, family, and friends. The house can always use some attention. There is shopping and laundry, and yard work. Who has time to think about celebrations? But we should.

Honoring our achievements is not bragging. It is a way to reverence who we are and the way we contribute to the world. Sometimes by our work. Sometimes just by who we are. Recognizing an accomplishment empowers us to go on, to build on what we have done. It is as much a push to the future as it is a nod to the past. Celebrating milestones is a kind of self-care: making sure we appreciate and nurture the gifts we have. Read More 

October came so fast, I didn't notice its arrival. That is unusual for me. Decades ago, moved by the exuberant beauty of an October day, I wrote a song celebrating just that. Waiting up til midnight on Sept. 30, I sang in the season, year after year. (see October 1, 2009 blogpost)Once I had children, we sometimes waited up together and sang in the lovely month that held not only amazingly clear blue skies and flaming trees, but also my birthday.

We had a number of October traditions, the most recent being my emailing my now grown children to wish them a happy October 1. This year, however, I was just too tired to remember. I had had a busy week: a webcast and a retreat and all the preparation that attends both. I worked at the department store on Sunday, Oct. 1, and the only time I really thought about the day was when I was driving to the store.

The sky was not the clear blue I like to associate with the month. Instead, grey clouds hung overhead. The trees caught my eye, though. Their leaves were beginning to show red and orange.

"Wow, the trees are turning early this year," I thought as I passed maples and gums. And then I remembered. It was October. When September blew by, I didn't know. I clocked in and worked through the day, tired and thinking mostly of getting back home and going to bed.  Read More