Mary van Balen

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN




"...Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness...
Psalm 51, 6-8a



Today begins the ancient season of Lent. While it is often connected with "giving up something," the next forty days are more than a time to lose weight by not eating sugar. It is a time to deepen one's relationship with God by reflecting on what separates us from intimacy with the Holy One.

I love Psalm 51 and it's statement of the Divine desire for Truth to fill our inmost being. To be filled with God's Truth is to be filled with Compassionate Love, for ourselves and for all. How can this happen? How does one grow in the ability to hold God's Presence within?

While giving up candy or too much television may be good things, they are good not because candy or television is innately "bad," but because they can give us the illusion of filling up the emptiness placed in our deepest center, the emptiness that can be filled only by the Holy One.

What speaks to me in this section of Psalm 51 are the words: "Therefore, teach me wisdom in my secret heart."

In order to receive this gift of Wisdom, my heart must be receptive. I must be aware of existing in the Holy Embrace, undistracted, present to the moment where God and I both reside.

That is the challenge of Lent for me: To spend time with this greatest Lover, time to repent of habits and preoccupations that keep me from opening my heart and receiving the Gift so faithfully given.
© 2010 Mary van Balen Read More 

LINKS: "Delights and Shadows" by Ted Kooser Home Page Ted Kooser's Official Website "I'm In Charge of Celebrations"

PHOTOS: MARY VAN BALEN
“He has a fish house on the lake behind the Abbey and goes out there, drinks tea and reads poetry. He welcomes visitors. Once he invited the Queen of England when she was in the States, but she sent her regrets, saying she was “devastated” that she could not come.”

My heart beat faster, and as Byrd Baylor says in her book, “I’m in Charge of Celebrations,” I knew tea in this monk’s fish house would be an experience worthy of anniversary remembrances.

The comment was part of general conversation at my daughter’s college graduation party. Friends gathered to mark the occasion, and while discussing unique aspects of studying at a university connected with community of Benedictine monks in rural Minnesota, a professor mentioned the fish house.

I plied the speaker with questions, hungry for more details. First, there was the matter of learning what a fish house looked like. I had visions of an old oriental carpet laid directly on the ice. What about the hole for fishing? Would that be there? Did he plumb the waters as well as verse? And how did he make tea on a frozen lake without melting something important, like the floor? Read More