Mary van Balen

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, on for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my chosen Son; listen to him." After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. Lk 9,29-31; 33-36a

When I see something that gives me a glimpse into God's glory, I want to hang on to it, like Peter. Sometimes when I am watching the sun set over the ocean, I want the sun to stop right where it is, and delay its inevitable disappearance behind the waters. Read More 

Finally, we have snow. Though wet and only two inches deep, it is white and beautiful. Christmas was all rain, and I admit to envying my Minnesota friends’ two feet of powder, view across the lake, and Mass in the Abbey Church. After exchanging Christmas greetings over the phone, I hung up and switched my computer wallpaper to last winter's photo taken out the apartment’s back window. Blue tree shadows fell across the snow-covered lake and patio; January at the Institute was breathtaking.

This year I was in Ann Arbor for the holidays. I did not have the view and was careful as I stepped over water flowing beside the curb when getting in and out of the car, but I had my three daughters, a good friend, and time: Better than snow.

We ate homemade oxtail vegetable soup and snacked on imported cheeses and crackers washed down with spiced red wine. The apartment was crowded; one daughter had to excuse herself a few times to complete marking final papers and posting grades. Another daughter had switched to her “break” schedule: up until early morning, asleep until early afternoon, but we had a good time playing Apples to Apples and catching up.

Most gifts were simple this year, many were practical with a few surprises thrown in. One of mine was unexpected and extraordinary: A hand-thrown mug from The Soft Earth’s potter, Joan Lederman. The form is beautiful and organic, but what makes it unique is the glaze. Joan uses core samples of the ocean floor taken by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. When they have finished with the sediment, it is given to Joan who uses it for her glazes.

On my Christmas mug, the words “Deep Down, Far Out, Earth Crust, Space Dust” encircle the bottom, written on bare clay. The predominant glaze color is deep brown, resulting from sediment from The Kane Fracture Zone, rich in manganese, peridotite, serpentine, basalt, and olivine gabbro. A small band of lighter brown divides the glaze about one third of the way down the mug. This strip of glaze is what merits the words “Far Out…Space Dust.”

In a core sample taken at the K-Trace Boundary, scientists found a small deposit of 65 million year old remains of an asteroid, truly star dust. Was this left from asteroids that collided with the earth raising enough dust to block sunlight and lead to mass extinctions of plants and animals, including the dinosaurs?

In response to the sudden death of a pioneering geologist, Joan offered to make a piece to celebrate his life. She was given sediment from his work discovering the first core that demonstrated the iridium anomaly from the K-T Band. Later she came to appreciate it alongside samples from drillings into Earth’s crust – these became the “earth crust & space dust” pieces. When I first found them on the Internet, I emailed my archeologist daughter to share the amazing find. As a young child, she had been interested in dinosaurs, once taking a survey at a local mall to determine what most people thought caused the extinction of dinosaurs. An Asteroid strike was among the choices.

Knowing my spiritual response to all things “cosmic,” she and her younger sister decided to purchase one of Joan Lederman's last two “Space Dust” mugs for me. Now, when I drink my tea in the morning, I will be cradling earth crust and stardust in my hands, contemplating the glory of the universe and my small place in it.

Visit The Soft Earth website: http://www.thesoftearth.com/

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Every day is a good day on the beach. A least that is my opinion. Yesterday morning I pulled a yellow rain slicker over my wool jacket, slipped the hood over a winter cap, and headed down Coast Guard Beach on Cape Cod. Not many people share my opinion of beach walking weather, I guess, because the shoreline was almost deserted. A few tourists stood at the top of the access steps and snapped photos of huge waves crashing on the shoreline. That was as close as they wanted to get.

I walked for hours between the high cliffs on my left that rose from the sand and the roaring ocean pounding the coast on my right. When I looked ahead, everything disappeared into thick, gray mist. The drops hitting my face were a tangy mix of rain and spray from the turbulent sea. Each breath drew briny air deep into my lungs where I imagined it worked the same healing as it did in my soul.

As gusts of wind pushed at the slicker’s hood, I tightened its draw stings and snapped the top fastener, walking with my head bent slightly into the blustery weather. Two pelicans were riding out the storm close to shore, disappearing into watery troughs and then lifted into sight again on the swells. Occasionally, gulls circled, but, but most of them had found shelter somewhere else.

A few crows had fun with air currents, feet dangling straight below their bellies, wings spread wide, they swirled, hovered, fell back, and plummeted down, sometimes colliding into each other as the wind took them for a ride. They hung on to brambles that covered the tops and edges of the cliffs and rested a moment before taking off again.

I often look down when I walk the beach, searching stony rubble, amazed by the variety of specimens tumbled and deposited by the sea. Yesterday I found a green stone circled by a textured strip of quartz-like crystals growing vertically, branching out and looking like a miniature stone forest. I put that one in my pocket. After a few hundred feet, the mounds of rocks disappeared, replaced by single stones laid feet apart.

"Why so far apart? Why alone?" I wondered. The pattern repeated until the beach disappeared into mist.

I walked between the stones, examining them closely: Some were a homogeneous black or charcoal gray. Others were brightly mottled wet granite showing off their colors. The variety was limitless: green, translucent, knobby rose-colored stones, dark ovals filled with tiny white remains of sea life frozen like meteors in a night sky.

Waves crashed and sent foamy arches of water washing over the solitary stones, flowing around them when returning to the sea. The stones looked lonely to me. Like people close enough to see one another, but too far away to touch. Receding water carved interesting patterns in the sand between the rocks and the shoreline.

I watched for a long time, not sure why my heart was touched by these lone sentries, keeping watch over ancient rhythms that smoothed their edges, left them alone on the beach, and one day would pull them back into its watery depths.

Leaving them untouched, I continued walking the beach, more aware of the Presence in which I moved. Read More 

With positioning desk, table, file cabinet, and bookshelves, the metamorphosis is complete; the freshly painted "bedroom" has become my office. Despite a long day moving, I woke up ready to work. Just standing in the hallway and looking into the new space was energizing. Spaces where we live and work have such power.

While I was in Minnesota last year, I had the opportunity to create my own space for the first time in many years. In the past our family created the spaces in our home. That is how it should be. We had places for art projects, "inventions," and science experiments. An old van der Graff machine sat in the dining room, and an upright piano rescued from a bar squeezed into our living room making music lessons possible.

We were a creative bunch and kept a couple boxes of dress up clothes handy for impromptu dramas. Juggling balls and pins mixed with favorite stuffed animals and a handmade dollhouse that sometimes held little people and other times was populated with small woodland animals. The house spaces changed as we all did.

In the midst of this, a space for writing was difficult to find. At first, a comfortable chair was my "place." After everyone went to bed I curled up in the chair with a journal and pen and wrote away. Eventually I moved into the dining room where first the table and later a small desk moved into the corner served the purpose.

One Christmas my husband cleaned out a small room off the living room that had been a storage place for stuff that had no other place to be. It was a wonderful Christmas present: it even had a door I could close.

Finally, at the Collegeville Institute, I had an apartment and an office to arrange. Housework is not high on my priority list, and I surprised myself with how I enjoyed keeping the rooms neat. I had brought a few things from home to make the apartment "my own:" Shells and stones from Cape Cod and interesting fossils that sat on window ledges, photographs of family and friends, books, two throw pillows, and an afghan.

It was a quiet place where I could work as well as a place to share tea and conversation or an impromptu dinner with friends.

Moving into the transformed bedroom at my Dad's house imparts a similar feeling: I am surrounded by carefully chosen things that have become part of my life: a monk bowl from Thailand, a modern soapstone carving of someone lost in reflection, an ivy plant started with cuttings from a plant at the Institute, an Ethiopian cestrum. A light blue crock that has held pens and pencils since I was in high school and a new pen holder made by a retired photographer from the Catholic Times. And of course, lots of books.

I have a special place for my Bible and a candle, and this morning I resumed Lectio Divina, something neglected in the upheaval of settling in to a new way of life.

Sacred Spaces can be anywhere; An office, a kitchen table, a comfortable coffee shop, or park bench. They allow us to more easily open ourselves to receive the Presence that is always being poured out. I am thankful for this space and for the people who helped make it a reality.  Read More