Mary van Balen

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 

After a night of magnificent thunderstorms, the few dark rainclouds that remained this morning moved off to the east, and breezes blew all afternoon through sunny skies.

“Unless into darkness, where shines the light…” A line from an Easter poem I wrote years ago speaks of balance and complementarity. The beauty of yesterday’s storms made today’s cool brilliance more delicious. After a morning at church and an afternoon meandering around shops and a farmers’ market, I ended up sitting on the front porch feasting on a dinner made of my purchases: soft goat cheese slathered on a slice of fresh rosemary-garlic bread and a huge, organic tomato sprinkle with salt.

Filled to the brim…I give thanks. Read More