Mary van Balen

He was listed under "Other Saints" on the Universalis:Today site that designated today as simply Wednesday of week 17 of the year. I had never heard of Titus (Anno) Brandsma, but his birth in Friesland, Holland (place of my family's origin), work as a journalist, and contemplative spirituality (He was a Carmelite priest.) piqued my curiosity. I googled his name and found numerous sites that provided information on this man who, along with the Dutch Church, refused to accept Nazi orders for Catholic newspapers to print Nazi articles and who eventually paid for public resistance with his life.

Perhaps journalists who work for Catholic newspapers or magazines know of this man. If not, I will do my part to introduce him. An interesting biography including photos appears on a Carmelite website. The same website hosts a series of short essays or meditations on his life written by social worker, Jane Lytle-Vieira, a member of the Carmelite’s Third Order and a graduate studying theology. Read More 

Blessed in the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose hope is the Lord.
That one is like a tree planted beside the waters
That stretches out its roots to the stream:
It fears not the heat when it comes,
Its leaves stay green;
In the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.
Jer 17, 7-8

Years ago, someone gave me two pussy willow stems. They rooted quickly in a water-filled vase and after just a few weeks they were ready to plant. I put them beside the garage where a future bush would be visible from the kitchen window. That was a mistake. A water pipe ran not far from the pussy willow and became clogged over the years by willow roots doing just what the tree did in Jeremiah’s metaphor: They stretched out to water, finding every tiny crack until the pipe was full and the bathtub upstairs wouldn’t drain.

How can roots be so smart? And what happened to my spiritual “smarts” when it comes to seeking out the “water” that gives me life? Read More 

PHOTO: NASA - KEPLER FIELD OF VIEW

Last Thursday I noticed a news release about NASA’s Kepler Mission that is searching a small part of our galaxy to locate planets orbiting its star in a “habitable zone,” planets that could be capable of supporting life. We are looking for extraterrestrials.

As one who has long hoped that intelligent life exists on other planets and that connection with ET’s would happen in my lifetime, the article was intriguing. I am a Star Trek fan and enjoy watching science fiction movies and reading books that deal with “encounters of the third kind.” For reasons unknown, I imagine ET’s as peaceful, intelligent creatures who would have something to teach our warring, violent race.

Such images have been fed not only by movies, but also by a couple of my favorite authors: Madeleine L’Engle and C. S. Lewis. In L’Engle’s groundbreaking novel, “A Wrinkle in Time,” Charles Wallace and Meg Murray and their friend Calvin rescued Mr. Murray from a horrible planet, Camazotz, and traveled to different planets by “tessering” or moving along wrinkles in the time/space continuum.

Once, Meg, Calvin, and Mr. Murray found themselves on a strange planet where the inhabitants were beasts covered with soft fur and who had long tentacles instead of eyes or a mouth. Despite their differences, the earthlings and beasts were able to communicate. The beasts healed Meg who arrived frozen from her travel and revealed that they, too, were fighting the blackness that was in control of Camazotz and threatened the universe. I loved reading that chapter out loud to my fourth grade students, and we fell in love with the beats who had no eyes but who knew more than their human guests with the sense of sight.

The Narnia Chronicles, a seven volume fantasy written in the 1950’s by C. S. Lewis, features four English children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy who wander into the world of Narnia through the back of an old wardrobe fashioned from wood of a magic tree. Aslan the lion is the central character in all seven volumes, the creator and ruler of Narnia, a divine presence.

In “The Magician’s Nephew,” still pools in the “wood between the worlds” are portals through which characters are transported to different worlds. As I read and re-read this book, images of meeting creatures from places utterly foreign to my own played in my mind.

At the end of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” when Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund they are too old to return to Narnia and must become more involved in their own world, Lucy cries at the thought of not being with Aslan again: "It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are -- are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name.”


"How many names does God have?" I wonder while contemplating the thought that somewhere in the universe, other creatures have been made to have a relationship with the Holy One, the Creator, the One we cannot limit by our imaginations. The One whose love is so great that it cannot be poured out only to human beings, but could well fashion others to share in the joy of receiving the infinite desire of God to give God’s self away.

How could such a belief or hope threaten faith? The news release, written Jan 7, 2010 by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press, mentioned Rev. Jose Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, commenting on the annual American Astronomical Society conference last week: “These are big questions that reflect upon the meaning of the human race in the universe.”

In a May 14, 2008 interview published in L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO, responding to a question about whether belief in extraterrestrials would create problem for faith, Funes said, “I believe no. As a multiplicity of creatures exist on earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God. This does not contrast with our faith because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God. To say it with Saint Francis, if we consider earthly creatures as “brother” and “sister,” why cannot we also speak of an “extraterrestrial brother?” It would therefore be a part of creation.”

I am in good company and wish the Kepler Mission Godspeed and good luck!

PHOTO: NASA - April 16, 2009, STAR CLUSTER NGC 6791 FROM KEPLER FIRST LIGHT IMAGE  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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