Mary van Balen

I stand on the patio behind the apartment and watch rain pour down in long lines, like strokes from a pen, shrouding everything in gray. Thunder rumbles in the background. A small chickadee, sinichka my friend from St. Petersburg called them, takes shelter in the blue spruce beside me. We are both hushed into reverential silence. I stand close to the brick house, beneath the overhang. Together, sinichka and I feel the wind and watch it play across the water, patches of light blooming and then, just as quickly, dissoloving back into dark as the wind changes its mind and churns up brightness somewhere else on the lake. Sometimes the light races across the surface, hanging on to the wind, but can't keep up and lets go, falling back into smooth green water.

We wait, sinichka and I. I'm not sure what she waits for. I suspect that once the heavy rain turns into a gentle summer shower, she will fly off in search of food, calling out "chick a dee dee dee" as she dips and darts away. I am waiting for Grace.  Read More 

PAINTING: Wheat Field in Rain by Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh Gallery
This Sabbath was meant to be kept,” the rain insisted last night as I sat in a pizzeria waiting for my dinner to arrive. It had been a pleasant day. After morning Mass, I ate a leisurely breakfast at Panera’s and read a friend’s essays written while he attended a writing workshop. They were good, ranging from a deepening relationship with his tattoo artist son who needed help translating “get out of my face” into Latin for a client to God’s maddening habit of going quiet.

I changed tables at the invitation of a friend who had come in for a quick lunch and finished my iced tea with her and her companion. Returning home, I wrote a blog entry and began cleaning my office, something I had wanted to do for weeks. On Friday I will have a visit from the Catholic Time’s editor and photographer. The paper is planning an article on local bloggers, and my workspace is not ready for public display.  Read More 

ALL PHOTOS: Mary van Balen
Shortly after an interview with a journalist from The Catholic Times about blogging, I fought the urge to call him back with another comment about the advantages to blogging: It took me out for a walk in a summer rain.

I used to walk in the rain often. Whether the drops were heavy, soaking through my thick hair to drip down my face or were more like a mist settling on the surface of my mane like shining drops caught in a spider's web, I relished the openness to what nature had to offer.  Read More 

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN


He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth.

Hos 6, 3b



Winter is finally over, or so it seems. Snow piles are melting. Wild snow drops are covering the ground and a few crocuses have poked their colorful heads above ground. When I take the short cut to my car, the earth gives beneath my step. Some people are watching for the forsythia to bloom so we can quickly get past the folk wisdom of "three snows after the forsythia blooms." Some people are not waiting. On the first truly sunny day that we have had since February, I have seen shorts and t-shirts and sandaled feet.

Even I, a winter-lover, enjoyed running errands without a jacket and opening doors and window blinds, allowing spring sun to flood the living room. My soul is ready for spring. Spiritually, this has been a long winter and often my soul has felt dry. Not that God hasn't been raining Grace all along, but winter rain is cold. Rather than opening up to receive it, I sometimes close in on myself, like I do when I walk out into a January storm. I pull my coat around me and sometimes wear a hat to keep the water from soaking my head and chilling my body.

Winter rain has a purpose. Plants are nourished even when they lie dormant and unaware in the dark earth. God's Presence, though sometimes difficult to embrace, feeds my soul whether I know it or not.

But Spring rain is warm and welcome. I used to delight in taking long walks in warm rains, returning home drenched and happy. Once I indulged in such a walk last year in Minnesota. I walked in the woods, looked at the flowers and green shoots coming up. Color looks more intense to me in the rain. The walk was one of rejoicing. Ice was receding from the lake, birds were sining and scavenging for nesting materials, already preparing for new life.

Spring rain brings hope for future harvests. I think hope is what makes spring arrive in the soul, opening it up wide to receive life-giving self. Hope is warm and expectant and vital. After a long winter, after a long Lent, I am ready for God to rain into my heart. Read More 

October has traded her blue skies and sunshine for grey clouds and rain. Driving down the highway I noticed tree limbs soaked black holding up their orange, yellow, and salmon crowns as if challenging the elements to quench the flaming foliage. It hung on with surprising strength, surrendering few leaves to the cold wind.

Colors have a depth and saturation on wet, grey days that they lack at other times. I enjoyed seeing bleached grasses and weeds running along the top of a grassy green strip and against the wire fence threaded through with remains of trumpet vine and poison ivy.

Beyond the fence in a low-lying field, a splattering of white Queen Anne’s lace blooms mingled with purple New England asters. Further in the distance red and orange sugar maples dotted nappy hills that remained predominately green.

I passed the small white shed of a roadside stand. Its eves were hung with bunches of Indian corn and bittersweet. Between the shed and farmhouse, orange pumpkins of every size lined up, shiny and wet.

Even in the rain, I love October days. Read More 

It’s raining. For those sitting in the stadium waiting for the big game to begin or for my daughter who rode her motorcycle over to join me for lunch, that is not such a good thing. But I don’t mind. Rain makes me want to find a good book, fix a cup of tea, and spend the day reading. My daughter called after work yesterday and said the weather on the east coast was grey and wet. “I want to go back to my apartment, put on my sweats, and just veg. Maybe read a book or watch a movie. If my friends want to get together we can sit around my place, mess and all.” In a voice that exuded relief, one friend told me that he was scrapping his outdoor “to do list” and working on quieter, more reflective tasks inside.

Rain provides permission to change plans to something we would rather be doing. I am not sure why that is true, but for me, it always has been. Waking up to the staccato sound of rain on the windows or the tin roof over my old study immediately filled my mind with alternatives to the day’s schedule: Instead of going to work, I could stay home and cook an amazing dinner or bake a batch of cookies. I could write the long overdue letter to my friend in California. I could take a walk if the rain were warm.

The older I get, the less often I follow the subversive rain whispers of abandoning “adult” responsibilities for spontaneous pursuits. But I am glad the rain hasn’t quit making the suggestions, and I am never sorry when I follow its advice. Read More