Remembering Rev. Robert Graetz, Civil Rights Activist

Remembering Rev. Robert Graetz, Civil Rights Activist

Rev. Robert Graetz 2005 speaking to an Even Start Class Lancaster Ohio Photo Mary van Balen
Rev. Bob Graetz Jan. 25, 2005
Photo: Mary van Balen

Rev. Robert S. Graetz, civil rights activist and the sole White minister to publicly support the Montgomery bus boycott, died at his home on Sunday, September 20,2020. He was 92. You can read about his life and his and his wife, Jeannie’s life-long commitment to work for social justice in the many obituaries and articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times, NPR Newsletter, and other publications.

In 1955, the newly ordained a Lutheran minister (attended the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, now Trinity Lutheran Seminary), accepted a call to the all-Black Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery. Already active in civil rights causes, he was admonished not to start trouble. He and Jeannie would later say he didn’t start trouble; he just joined it.

I want to share a small, personal story – one that didn’t make news but that touched hearts.

First, so you know a bit about Bob if you don’t already, here are a few facts:

  • He was the only White pastor to publicly support the Montgomery bus boycott, tirelessly driving Black workers to and from work for the duration, organizing, and fund raising to support that effort.
  • He, Jeannie, and their family of young children were targets of the KKK and other White supremacists who found a White man’s commitment to working with Blacks for their civil rights intolerable.
  • The Graetz’s survived bricks through their windows and house bombings (saved once when a large bomb that could have leveled the neighborhood failed to detonate).
  • Their neighbor and friend, Rosa Parks swept up the glass in their kitchen and took up a neighborhood collection to replace the Graetz’s dishes, all broken in one of the explosions.

I encourage you to read stories of Bob and Jeannie and their courageous commitment to live out their faith, no matter what. But now, my story.

Meeting a fellow columnist

I first met Bob at a 1992 alternative commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing on the shores of the Americas. Presented by indigenous peoples, the multi-day event was held in downtown Columbus, Ohio. I was covering it for the Catholic Times, where I was a columnist. Bob was there, too.

He had been writing for years for the same paper, contributing to the feature “Point of View’” that provided insights from other spiritual traditions. I enjoyed his unique perspective and remember reading about their small house in southern Ohio, that for a while, had no electricity or running water! Recognizing him at the gathering, I called out his name, and we made plans for lunch. During our conversation, he referenced a recent column he had read in the Catholic Times and wondered, hoped, that I had written it.

I had. It presented the confusing stance of the Catholic Church on ordaining married men. As recent events had indicated, it was ok if the man had not started out Catholic, had been ordained in another denomination, but then converted to Catholicism. No such luck if you happened to be Catholic all along. Still baffling.  

Bob and I stood on common ground. Over the years, I ran into him when he spoke at gatherings on Martin Luther King Day, or I’d see him at his book signings.

Speaking to my students

In 2005, I gave him a call and asked if he’d be willing to speak to my class of adult students in Even Start, a family literacy program that served low income families most in need of services. He and Jeannie were happy to come around Martin Luther King Day. It was a big event for us.

Our students invited the mayor and others in the community and planned refreshments. In class, we studied the Montgomery bus boycott and the civil rights movement and read sections of Bob’s book, Montgomery, A White Preacher’s Memoir.

The big day arrived, and Bob and Jeannie spoke to a group that included our students and staff, the mayor, leaders of the very small Black community in our city, a newspaper reporter, and a few other guests. The Graetzs shared their experiences and spoke eloquently about not only the Montgomery bus boycott but also the continued struggle for civil rights on many fronts: racism, sexism, discrimination against the LGBT community, and the increasing economic disparity between the rich and the poor.

The students were riveted, listening to every word, and as I would discover later, also watching every move.

Bob and Jeannie Graetz Jan. 25, 2005
Photo: Mary van Balen

The cough drop

When the talk ended and time had been given to answering questions, everyone mingled, enjoyed the snacks, and had pictures taken with our guests. Cleaning up our classroom after the event, my students started talking.

They were impressed that Bob and Jeannie stood up for other people when they didn’t have to. They were White. They could have moved somewhere else, they said. But The Graetzs stayed and put their lives on the line.

The students kept talking.

“Did you see how she took care of him? How she slid that cough drop across to table to him when he started coughing?” “Yeah,” someone answered. “You can tell, they really love each other. That was so cool.”

“Really,” I thought to myself. “A cough drop?” That such a simple act of thoughtfulness had captured the students’ attention pierced my heart with the realization that they likely had known precious little, if any, of such kindnesses in their lives. Why else would Jeannie’s sharing a cough drop have made such an impression?

Most had grown up in abusive homes. Some were in abusive domestic relationships at that moment. A number of them struggled with addiction. They had all slipped through the cracks of our education system. And while none were Black in our almost all-White community, they knew generational poverty, discrimination, and the hopelessness they engender.

As we finished up, one of the students suggested going to Columbus that Sunday when Bob would be preaching. “Yeah, can we take a trip up there? I want to hear him preach.” Not many attended church, but they all wanted to go.

Unusual field trip

Bus Rosa Parks rode when she refused to give up her seat
On display in the Henry Ford Museum
Photo: Mary van Balen

So we did. A conspicuously White group in that Sunday gathering, we attended the service and heard Bob preach. In the course of the sermon, he asked questions about the bus boycott. My students waved their hands in the air. He smiled and joked that he wouldn’t call on them since he was sure they knew the answers.

They were thrilled. I doubted they had heard those words very often during their school years. But in that moment, they were the ones “in the know.” They glowed on the way home.

That was years ago. Not too long after that, our program closed, having lost its funding. Occasionally, one of our Even Start staff hears from a former student, but that isn’t often. I once received a thank you letter from a young woman we helped escape from her abusive husband, taking her children with her.

Small acts of kindness – courage

We don’t know what effect our work, let alone our small actions or off-hand comments have on others. Today, as I read about Bob’s amazing life and work for social justice, I thought about Jeannie and the cough drop. Of all the things that couple has done in their lives, I’m sure some of my students, to this day, remember the cough drop, right alongside the couple’s courage and faithfulness in the face of injustice.

Today, we face the real danger of losing our democracy to a leader focused on retaining power at any cost. He has plenty of enablers. Building on fear, fomenting anger, violence, hatred, and divisiveness seem the modus operandi.

Centuries-old systemic racism is increasingly uncovered. Consequences of a warming climate are ravaging the globe. And the pandemic adds another layer of suffering and complication to it all.

What can I do? I struggle with this question. I write columns and postcards to voters. I wear a mask, inside or out of public buildings. I try to be thoughtful and kind in the interactions I do have with others. I pray, trying to remember that I am not alone in this walk, that the Holy One, as well as other human beings, are with me in it.

Will I be as courageous as the Graetzs if I’m called to publicly stand up against injustice? Will I find strength in faith?

I’m not sure. But I know, such courage doesn’t just “appear” in a moment. It is something we nurture throughout our lives: with prayer, in our actions large and small. They are related. I remember that the couple who braved threats and bombings also noticed simple needs. They slipped a cough-drop across a table.

© 2020 Mary van Balen

Books by Rev. Robert Graetz

 A White Preacher’s Memoir: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (first published as Montgomery: A White Preacher’s Memoir)

A White Preacher Message on Race and Reconciliation: Based on His Experiences Beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

I have always contended that the absence of fear is not the point. What you do when you are afraid is what makes the difference. We often had good reason to be afraid.

Rev. Robert Graetz
Letting the Light In

Letting the Light In

close up of crack with light shining through itFull disclosure: I’ve tried to write this column for weeks. Thoughts and notes spill across my journal pages; drafts of documents sit on my laptop. Prayer and vigil candles are spent. Life feels heavy. Sometimes overwhelming. The state of our world and our country is revealing the dark, shadowy side beneath our comfortable façade. And cracks in that façade are everywhere.

Leonard Cohen’s lyric from Anthem comes to mind: “There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” True enough. But cracks can also make things fall apart – as some must do – before they are put back together or something new is made. In the process, it’s often the cracks we see, not the light.

You may find that true today. The world struggles to find responses to climate change and the will to implement them. The the pandemic brings not only sickness and death, but economic crisis, causing millions to struggle to survive. It challenges the world’s “normal” which, really, hasn’t been working all that well.

Our country, fractured by political turmoil, division, and fumbled responses to COVID-19, must also recognize the racism that is staring in our collective face. The video of George Floyd’s murder by policemen was a tipping point, coming closely on the heels of other senseless murders of African Americans. Protests erupted across the U.S. and the world and continue today. They must. They make us look. They reveal cracks that have crazed our nation even before it was born.

“What can I do?” I ask myself. I don’t have answers; I have questions. It’s time for white people to look deeply at their own stories and those of their ancestors and recognize how they have benefited from systemic racism for generations. We can educate ourselves. Reading and discussing the book Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving, is jarring as our group listens to the long history of racism and slavery in our country from the beginning, hearing how early it was codified into our laws.

Truth illuminates the cracks. It’s the light that gets in. And once it does, we have a choice. The line before Cohen’s famous one quoted above is this: “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering.” Our efforts will not be perfect, but they must be made.

close up of stenciled words on sidewalk "Black Lives Matter"Words stenciled on sidewalk, "You Can Do Hard Things"

We all must do the hard work of hearing the truth and making changes in our lives and in the laws and practices of this country. On a walk in my neighborhood I noticed two messages painted on the sidewalk: “Black Lives Matter” and “You can do hard things.”

These unprecedented times demand we recognize the truth of both. There is much in our world and in our nation that requires doing hard things for the good of all.

This year, July 4 presents an opportunity to reflect on our country, to consider its history through an inclusive lens, and to work for its future. When I pondered the Roman Catholic Lectionary readings for this holiday, the one from Philippians spoke to my heart:

Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things…

It is hopeful. It reminded me to look for what is good in the world, in one another, in our dreams and values. To focus on justice and truth. To hold tight to them. To look for the light coming in through the cracks.

But that wasn’t all. The reading continued:

Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.

What have we seen in Jesus? Love. He was all love. Love of God. Love of neighbor. He stood with the poor and marginalized. He challenged those who abused power and were greedy, concerned only with their own comfort and well-being. He told the Good Samaritan story: everyone is our neighbor; we must take care of one another. He never saw anyone as “other.” Everyone belonged. In the end, he was murdered by a world that couldn’t accept such radical, inclusive love.

This reading calls us to hope and also to act, like Jesus, keeping our hearts set on what is good and just. On Love. To use our hands and feet and minds and talents to bring more of it into this world. And, as the reading ends, Then the God of peace will be with you.

©2020 Mary van Balen

 

Proximity and Hope

Proximity and Hope

“Nocturne Navigator” Alison Saar, 1998
Collection: Columbus Gallery of Art “…commemorates those involved with the Underground Railroad…The figure’s billowing skirt, illuminated from within, shows the constellations of stars that would help guide the fugitives on their nighttime journey, while her heavenly gaze and outstretched arms suggest a mix of anguish, prayer, and gratitude.” (from museum signage)

A movie or book can be transforming. For Black History Month, I’m sharing an experience with both. In January, I attended a movie with friends: Just Mercy.

Based on the book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, written by Bryan Stevenson and published in 2014, the movie centers around Stevenson’s representation of death-row inmate Walter McMillian, appealing his murder conviction.

Stevenson is a Black public interest lawyer who, after graduating from Harvard Law School, went to Alabama to represent those who had been illegally convicted or poorly represented at their trials.

Just Mercy is powerful and sometimes difficult to watch. If you don’t think racism’s roots are deeply embedded in this country when you walk in, you’ll be questioning your assumption when you walk out. But the movie isn’t only about the fear, hatred, and oppression that has been visited upon Black Americans since their forced arrival as slaves. Or how fear and ignorance disfigure the oppressors. Its main message is about accepting truth, about hope and the possibility of change.

The movie includes Stevenson’s 1989 founding of the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), located in Montgomery, Alabama. According to its website, EJI is “… committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.”

In talks across the country, Stevenson names hope as one of the four things necessary to effect change. He calls it a “superpower” and the enemy of injustice. “It is what makes you stand up when someone tells you to sit down.”

He names another element necessary for change: proximity. In a speech at Penn State in Abington, Stevenson gave this advice: “We need to get closer to people who are suffering and disfavored so we can understand their challenges and their pain. We can’t create solutions from a distance. Decide to get closer to people who are suffering, marginalized, disadvantaged, poor. Only in proximity to those who are suffering can we change the world.”

Reading this, I thought of Pope Francis’s call, early in his pontificate, for priests to be close to the people they serve: “This is what I am asking you — be shepherds with the smell of sheep.”

Jesus lived that out. He spent time with ordinary people and those on the margins. He counted fishermen and tax collectors as his early followers and included women in his close circle of friends and disciples. He ate and drank with sinners, much to the dismay of religious leaders who kept their distance.

I’ve also been reading Howard Thurman’s book, Jesus and the Disinherited. A Black theologian, pastor, and spiritual mentor to Martin Luther King Jr., Thurman reminds us that Jesus was marginalized. He was poor, and he was a Jew in an occupied land. Jesus knew the suffering of those on the edge, or as Thurman might say “those with their backs to the wall.” He devotes a chapter to fear and its effects on people.

But Jesus’s response to marginalization was not fear. It was not violence. It was love. It wasn’t separation from those who were suffering. It was proximity. He showed us how to love and to serve our neighbor—who is everyone.

He spoke the truth. He healed on the Sabbath. He said the Kingdom of God is within us. He had hope and faith in the One who sent him and in the power of compassion. He stood up when he was told to sit down.

This month is a good time to reflect on our history, the state of our country, and the divisiveness that is increasingly expressed in violence against “the other” – not only Blacks, but also Jews, LGBTQ+ people, the poor, and immigrants.

If you’re able, see the movie (or read the book). Read Howard Thurman. They invite us to ponder how we can, as Isaiah admonishes, remove oppression, false accusations, and malicious speech from our midst; to ponder how can we share our bread with the hungry and give shelter to the homeless.

They challenge us to follow Jesus’s example of walking with the marginalized and of love, to believe that love will cast out fear and bring hope instead.

© 2020 Mary van Balen

Deeds Come First

Deeds Come First

Peter Claver, a 16th century Spaniard, was canonized by the Roman Catholic church as a saint in 1888, but he is not well-known. He was born in 1581 and entered the Jesuits there in 1601. In 1610 he went to the missions in America, landing in Cartagena, a port city in what is now Columbia, that was a major stop for slave ships. He was ordained in 1616 and spent his life serving the 10,000 enslaved Africans who arrived every year.

Claver considered himself a slave to the slaves and began ministering to them from the time the ships docked. He made his way into the hold, encountering people who had survived the most horrid conditions imaginable. (About one-third of them didn’t.)

The image I have of Peter Claver is one of a man moving among the people, providing food and water, medicine and care as he treated their physical wounds. “Deeds come first, then the words,” is a quote attributed to him. His life bears that out. It was attention to basic human needs that came first. Only later, using translators and sometimes pictures, would he try to communicate with the Africans some ideas of Christianity and God’s love for them.

Through his deeds and words, Claver treated people with respect, honoring the dignity due every human being. No exceptions. That’s the lesson of his life that stays with me today.

While 400 years have passed since the first slave ship arrived on our shores, the repercussions of slavery remain. Racism is deeply embedded in our country and continues to deny this most basic right to our African American sisters and brothers, challenging us to respond.

Dehumanizing people, marginalizing them is all too easy. The list of “reasons” is long: People look “different,” speak another language, embrace a faith different from our own. Fear of difference, threats to one’s way of life, ignorance—These are on the list, too.

Painting by Laurie VanBalen, Project Director and Producer of Columbus Crossing Borders Project

As I thought of Peter Claver’s instinctive action to first alleviate human suffering, the plight of refugees at our Southern border came to mind. They come mostly from Central and South America, fleeing unspeakable violence, poverty, and fear for their lives. How are they met?

I spoke with Sister Barbara Kane, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace in Columbus, Ohio. She and others in her community have traveled to El Paso to serve as they could.

She spoke of refugees’ long waits in enclosed areas (some liken them to cages) until they have their Credible Fear Hearing (when the refugee states what has driven them to seek asylum.)

“The enclosures have concrete floors, are kept at 60 degrees, and are so small people are packed together, unable to lie down to sleep,” Sr. Barbara said. People receive little food. Yet, despite the great needs, no one is allowed inside to help.

After the Credible Fear Hearing, people are sent back to Mexican cities to wait again until their sponsors can be reached, and background checks run. The cities are not equipped to house so many refugees whose stay can last for weeks or months.

Once sponsors are contacted and cleared, the asylum seekers come back to the U.S and are placed in hospitality houses. The Annunciation House is where Sr. Barbara served.

“That’s where volunteers finally meet the refugees and offer help. We provide a hot shower, clean clothes, food, and a bed to sleep in,” Sr. Barbara said. Eventually, volunteers drive the refugees to the airport or bus terminals as they begin the journey to their sponsors. With fewer people making it through to this point, volunteers may have time to listen to the refugees’ stories.

“I came away convinced that the vast majority of these parents just want their children to be safe and secure and to have a future,” Sr. Barbara added. “They’re not gaming the system. They’re not bad people. They’re good, loving parents.”

If you, like me, are unable to go to the border to help in person, there are a variety of ways to support those who do. A quick Google search will provide many options. Sr. Barbara offers these suggestions for donations:

  • Donate directly to the Annunciation House at their website: annunciationhouse.org/contact, or send a check to 1003 E. San Antonio Ave., El Paso TX 79901-2620.
  • The Diocese of El Paso ministry, Diocesan Migrants and Refugee Services, Inc. accepts online donation: dmrs-ep.org; or mail a check to DMRS, 2400 Yandell Dr. El Paso TX, 79903.

© 2019 Mary van Balen

Rev. Graetz: Standing Together for Justice

Rev. Graetz: Standing Together for Justice

Rev. Robert and Jeannie Graetz Photo: Mary van Balen

I browse New York Times (NYT) headlines in the mornings even though the news is often depressing and stirs anger and frustration rather than wonder at new-day possibilities. But one morning in August, I was surprised by a headline and photo of an old friend, Rev. Robert Graetz. “Bombed by the K.K.K. A Friend of Rosa Parks. At 90, This White Pastor Is Still Fighting,” it read. The article, by Alan Blinder, included an interview with Robert and his wife, Jeannie.

After being ordained a Lutheran minister in Columbus Ohio, he was assigned to his first pastorate in 1955—Trinity Lutheran, a predominantly Black congregation in Montgomery, Alabama. There he was practically the only white minister who publicly supported the bus boycott and as the NYT headlines reveal, he and his family paid a price. According to Jeannie, threats began “As soon as the Klan and the Klan-type people knew that we were involved.”

Back in Ohio

The Graetzes moved back to Ohio a few years later. They lived in a simple house nestled in the woods of southern Ohio. Robert wrote a monthly column, part of the “Point of View” series that ran during the 70s and 80s in the Catholic Times, the diocesan newspaper of Columbus, Ohio.

I knew Robert from reading his columns (and his first book, “Montgomery: A White Preacher’s Memoir”), but in October 1992, we met at an alternative observance of Columbus Day. The 4-day event was led by Indigenous Peoples. Covering it for the Catholic Times, I saw Robert, and we shared lunch and good conversation.

Rev. Graetz spoke at some Martin Luther King Jr. Day services I attended over the years. So, in the early 2000s, when I was an adult educator for a family literacy program severing poor, mostly single, young parents, Robert was my first choice to be an MLK Day speaker for our students.

Rev. Robert and Jeannie Graetz addressing a group of students

Photo: Mary van Balen

He and Jeannie came and shared stories, not only of their time and roles in Montgomery and the bus boycott, but also of their continued work for causes of justice and equality. It included the fight against racism and embraced other forms of injustice: sexism, income disparity, oppression of minorities based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, or anything that separates persons as “other.” Their message was written large on a tablet displayed beside them as they spoke: R.A.C.E.– Respect All Cultures Equally.

It wasn’t only the “big” message that touched my students. It was the little things. “Did you see how Jeannie slid that cough drop across the table to him when he started to cough?” they asked. Her simple act deeply moved those young parents who had been abused for most of their lives. They insisted that we drive up to Columbus to hear him preach at St. Philips Lutheran Church.

I enjoyed reading the NYT article that morning and learned that the Graetzes now live in Montgomery. It was good to remember people who inspired. Who walked the walk. People who did their best to love as Jesus loved and to take a stand against oppression and injustice when they saw it, despite danger to themselves and their family.

Divisiveness, violence, and hate that swirl around us today are disturbing. When asked for his thoughts about what was happening in Alabama and across our country, Robert said it’s “…one of the most dangerous periods of time I’ve ever been through in this world.” Sobering from one who has lived through tumultuous years of the Civil Rights Movement.

Hope

Photo of the bus Rosa Parks was riding when she refused to give up her seat.

The bus Rosa Parks was riding when she refused to give up her seat. Now at the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI.

Yet there is hope. During a 2011 PBS interview, Robert observed that many people thank Jeannie and him for what they did. He’s quick to point out that it wasn’t only what “they” did. He gives credit to the Women’s Political Council made up of Black American women who started the bus boycott and all those who were involved. “It was 50,000 Black people who stood together, who walked together, who worked together, who stood up against oppression,” he said. “If it had not been for this whole body of people working together, this would not have happened.”

At the end of the NYT article, he said that seeing two people getting together and smiling was a source of optimism for him.

I take these two thoughts to heart. Today we need to “be peace” where we are, in the little moments, showing love and support. Like Jeannie and the cough drop, you never know when small kindnesses will touch someone’s heart.

But we also need to work together as we speak out and stand up for justice today.

© 2018 Mary van Balen

Similar column published in the Catholic Times, Columbus, Ohio. 9.9.2018

Celebrating Alabama

Celebrating Alabama

This morning I stopped at my favorite local stop for tea, quiche and scones—The Cambridge Tea House—for quiche and an order of bacon.

“I’m celebrating Alabama,” I said. The cashier smiled. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Home, I read the paper’s headline story and enjoyed my breakfast while perusing The Washington Post’s
Preliminary exit poll results: How different groups voted in Alabama.”  It’s worth a look. And before I hurry off to work, I have to say “Thank you,” to the Black Alabamian voters for overwhelmingly casting their ballots for Doug Jones. The number of women who voted for Moore baffle me. Well, to be honest, anyone who voted for Moore baffle me at some level.

Still, it’s a victory to savor. The former U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted two of the Ku Klux Klansmen who bombed the small church in Birmingham in 1963 bested the outspoken, bigoted Roy Moore. After work, I’ll take a closer look at the Washington Post’s informative infographics. For now, I’m walking with a little spring in my step.

Doing What We Have Learned

Doing What We Have Learned

Abstract painting of people of all colors embracing

Painting by Richard Duarte Brown

Originally published in The Catholic Times  Oct. 8, 2017

Perhaps it’s because I’m weary of the divisive speech that is becoming more commonplace in our country and of the racism and ignorance of the “other” that undergird it. Maybe it’s hearing hateful comments, seeing intolerance, and recognizing that choices are being made to stoke fear and anger rather that to encourage true listening and dialogue. It’s these things and more that make me read and reread Paul’s words this Sunday, healing, like balm on an open sore:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4, 8)

A friend at work gave me a flyer about a unity celebration being held at a local Episcopal church that Sunday evening. I’m glad I went. It was something gracious and lovely that reminded me of the many good people who, in ways large and small, are being love in the world.

A woman opened the celebration with a drum call to gather everyone, including the ancestors. I thought of my parents. Of people who have gone before, working for civil rights. I thought of the communion of saints.

The rector welcomed us and read “Blessing When the World is Ending” by Jan Richardson. It finishes on a hopeful note:

This blessing/will not fix you,/will not mend you,/ will not give you/false comfort;/it will not talk to you/about one door opening/when another one closes./ It will simply/sit beside you/among the shards/and gently turn your face/toward the direction/from which the light/will come,/gathering itself/about you/as the world begins/again.

A young Syrian refugee, 13 when she arrived speaking no English, 17 now, shared her powerful poetry. A woman pastor reminded us that while we look different on the outside, we are the same on the inside and pointed out the fact that human beings are made with two ears and one tongue, perhaps indicating we should listen more and talk less.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Two young women in flowing white dresses gracefully danced their prayer to the One we can’t live without, expressing with their movements the prayer in my heart. An Imam spoke of Islam and respect for all prophets. We listened and learned.

A folksinger led us in “We shall not be moved,” a song loosely based on verses from Jerimiah about one who is like a tree firmly planted by the water surviving drought and yielding fruit. A young girl called out that we should sing for peace. And we did.

A Jewish rabbi considered that we have many names the for same Holy One. She spoke of the prophets of old and wondered about today’s prophets. About being prophets and being bold.

A soloist shook the rafters and sang about God breathing on us, and I felt the Spirit-breath.

A community organizer pulled wisdom from each presentation and put them into questions for us to ponder.

Afterwards, we shared food, listened to stories, and wondered why all churches don’t have evenings like this.

Paul’s final words in that verse from Philippians—Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you—prompted me to consider that what we learn from Paul, he learned from Jesus. What have I learned and heard and seen in Jesus that transforms me?

painting: The Good van Gogh Samaritan, by Vincent

The Good Samaritan by Vincent van Gogh

In the gospels, I have learned that love, not power, is important. That one’s life doesn’t consist of possessions. That everyone is my neighbor, and I must take care of them. I have seen Jesus heal the sick, feed the hungry, hang out with those on the margins, and eat with outcasts. He was welcoming, patient, and merciful. He was a man of prayer. On his last night on earth he prayed “…that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me…” I watched Jesus wash his disciples’ feet and instruct them to do the same. He spoke truth to power, faithfully lived that truth, and was murdered for it.

I heard him say that whatever we do to the least among us, we do to him. And when it came right down to it, when someone asked him what was most important, he had two things to say: Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself.

These are the things we need to keep on doing, each of us bringing the God of peace who dwells in us into our times and places. Through all people of peace, God transforms the world.

© 2017 Mary van Balen

A Confluence of Events

A Confluence of Events

Originally published in the Catholic Times September 10, 2017

Sometimes disparate events come together, touching a common place in my heart. Only after reflection and usually some writing, do I understand their connection and what they are saying.

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White supremacists clash with police (36421659232)

By Evan Nesterak

Protests and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the responses that followed uncovered what we’d rather avoid. Racism, anti-Semitism, and white supremacy raised their ugly heads reminding us that, no matter what we thought or what we want to believe, anger and hatred based on race, ethnicity, and fear of the “other” remain a blight on our country’s soul.

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Pencil drawing of Blessed Fredric Ozanam

Blessed Fredric Ozanam

Perusing this week’s liturgical calendar, I discovered Blessed Fredric Ozanam (1813-1853). He moved to Paris at 18 to study at the Sorbonne. Conditions were wretched for the poor and working class. As a result of its old and public alliances with the aristocracy, the Catholic Church was attacked by intellectuals as oppressive and harmful. Ozanam had a different view. The Church was more than its hierarchy. It was all, clerics and lay alike, and he understood service to the poor as central to the call to discipleship. Actions must accompany words. He organized debates and argued that the Catholic Church had brought much good to the world.

There is a story that during one of these debates, when challenged to show what the Church was doing to help the poor and suffering in Paris, he had no answer. A few days later, Ozanam gathered a small group of Catholic students and together they began what would become the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. They were helped by Sister Rosalie Rendu who served the destitute in the Mouffetard area of Paris and insisted that the young students visit them in their homes and learn what was truly needed.

painintg of Saint Peter Claver surrounded by African slaves

Saint Peter Claver

I read about St. Peter Claver (1581-1654), a Spanish Jesuit who found his life’s work in Cartagena, a hub of slave trade, in what is now Columbia. When slave ships arrived, he managed to get into the hold and minister to them with food, water, and medicine.

“Deeds come first, then words,” he said.

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NASA photograph of the total solar eclipse taken at Oregon State Fairgrounds by Dominic Hart

PHOTO: NASA

I joined two daughters, a friend, and other family to experience the eclipse in Columbia, South Carolina. We gathered with others in a school’s athletic field. The mood was festive and people moved in and out of the green space to observe the moon sliding in front of the sun. But, with fifteen minutes to go, they found a spot, put on eclipse glasses, and didn’t move.

When totality arrived, glasses came off. People clapped, shouted, cried, or stood in awed silence as the black disk of the moon covered the sun, revealing its brilliant corona. For those two minutes and thirty seconds, we were one people, small creatures on a single planet in the vast universe.

Of course, it didn’t last. Totality passed. Eventually people picked up their chairs and coolers and walked home or to their cars. The one family became tribes again.

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Photo of poet Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni

Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast featured an interview with poet Nikki Giovanni. Tippett describes her as a “revolutionary poet in the Black Arts Movement that nourished civil rights.” Now in her seventies, Giovanni is joyfully alive, a professor at Virginia Tech, and still writing.

“…race was a bad idea 200 years ago, 300 years ago. It’s a ridiculous idea today,” she said in the interview. “Hatred was a bad idea, and it’s a ridiculous idea today. We’re on the third planet from the yellow sun. We have got to come together to see—and how to make sense out of this…How do we find a way to make the best of us?”

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How indeed. How to root out hate and anger? How to stand with the marginalized and oppressed? How to bring Love into this time?

Ozanam, Rendu, and Claver saw what is often forgotten: Every person is a child of God deserving respect and love. They responded to physical needs as well as spiritual ones; actions accompany words. We are called to do the same, recognizing all are God’s people—Black, White, Latino, Indigenous people, refugees, LGBT, Jews, Muslims, prisoners, the poor. All one family on this planet. No exceptions. As Giovanni said, there is no place to go but forward. We do what we can. We love. We speak the truth we have been given. Bit by bit, we let go of what separates us and hold on to what binds us together. We listen. We pray. Like Mary, honored this week with the feast of The Nativity of Mary, we are called to birth Christ into the world.

© 2017 Mary van Balen

Fountain Fullness and Good Stewardship

Fountain Fullness and Good Stewardship

éFirst published in The Catholic Times  July 16, 2017 issue

Close up of fountain at the Vatican

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

And since the nature of goodness is to diffuse itself…the Father is the fountain-fullness of goodness.        Ilia Delio

Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights.      Pope Francis

Standing Rock is everywhere.   Chief Arvol Looking Horse

 

Water has been on my mind. As Ilia Delio, O.S.F. writes in Simply Bonaventure: An Introduction to His Life, Thought, and Writing, the 13th century saint whose feast we celebrate on July 15 referred to the first principle of the Godhead as the fountain-fullness of goodness. (Bonaventure referred to this self-diffusive Goodness as “Father,” not in a biological manner, but in the sense that God is generative, Delio explains.)

I first heard this phrase over fifteen years ago while attending a lecture by Delio. When she made time for questions, I was unable to formulate any but sat in silence allowing some of the imagery and expansive thought she presented to find a place within me. The image of God as infinite fountain-fullness, pouring out Divine self, has always remained.

Niagra Falls

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

I’ve thought of it while standing at Niagara Falls, getting soaked in a rainstorm, or while drinking a refreshing glass of water: God, ever-flowing outward, creating and sustaining all.

In his encyclical, Laudato Si’, from the conviction that “…everything in the world is connected…” Pope Francis reminds us that fresh drinking water holds primary importance because “… it is indispensable for human life and for supporting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.” As with the effects of other instances of environmental degradation, the lack of clean water and the consequences of that fall most heavily upon the poor.

He addresses the people of the world, calling for a change of lifestyles of consumption and immediate gratification into lifestyles of sacrifice and sharing. Pope Francis quotes Patriarch Bartholomew’s eloquent words saying we all need to repent since in some ways we have all harmed the planet.

That realization deepened for me when I recently viewed a water bill for my apartment. The amount of water used was surprising.

I began to notice that water usually runs while I wash my hands and brush my teeth. Without a dishwasher, I often fill the sink with soapy water, even when only a few plates and glassed need cleaned. As weeks passed, water and my consumption of it became an exercise in mindfulness. A big water drinker, I usually find two or three half-filled glasses on tables or counters at bedtime. No longer dumped down the drain, the extra now waters my plants. In a month’s time, my water use decreased by half.

Who would’ve thought that such small efforts would make a difference? Patriarch Bartholomew realized that we all “generate small ecological damage.” Some is unavoidable; some is not.

Water came to mind again this week when a longtime friend sent a copy of an article published in the June 26 issue of America Magazine. “The Spirituality of Standing Rock: Activists see a moral imperative for protecting our water” by Eileen Markey begins with the historic gathering of Native Americans and their supporters from around the globe at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota to prayerfully protest the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline under their water supply.

“Water is life,” the women said. While oil now flows beneath their land, the stand to protect the environment, particularly the water, continues as groups and individuals across the country carry on the protests, calling for action from governments, corporations, groups, and individuals. The setback at Standing Rock was not the end of the issue.

“Standing Rock is everywhere,” Lakota chief Arvol Looking Horse said in the article. Indeed, it is.

Summer, with its long spells of hot, dry days interspersed with sudden storms or a day or two of soft showers, is a good time to reflect on water and how we use it. To change wasteful habits. To stand with Pope Francis in his call to work together to move into lifestyles that reflect reverence for the earth and recognition of the importance of good stewardship, especially as it affects the poor. And it is a good time to join our voices with that of Saint Francis, in thanksgiving and in praise of the Creator, the Fountain-Fullenss, the source of all that is.

© 2017 Mary van Balen

Connecting through the Columbus Crossing Borders Project

Connecting through the Columbus Crossing Borders Project

Project Director of the Columbus Crossing Borders Project speaking to audience

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

People gathered at the Martin de Porres Center last Sunday to see the traveling art exhibit, Columbus Crossing Borders Project, and to hear Project Director/Producer, Laurie Van Balen, share its vision and mission.

She spoke of the refugee crises around the world and in our country and the need to welcome the “other” into our spaces: our country, cities, neighborhoods, and home.

Before and after her presentation, people viewed the exhibit of 34 paintings by Ohio artists whose work draws the viewer into some aspect of the reality of the refugees’ journeys, hardships, and successes.

a mother and daughter viewing an art exhibit

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

People took their time, reading the artists statements that were posted below the paintings. Pointing out how some element of each painting crossed over into the space of the painting to its right—crossing borders and creating a powerful visual testimony to the love, strength, and resilience that sustain those who must flee their countries and build a new home in a strange land.

“I had to move away from the group of people looking at the painting with me,” one woman confided. Her eyes were filled with tears. “I was afraid they’d ask me something, and, well, I just couldn’t speak. It’s overwhelming.” She paused for a moment and then said, “How could anyone think these wonderful people have nothing to offer to us, to our country? How many gifts they bring!”

Conversations like this or the longer ones among artists, refugees, immigrants, and others gathered around the tables or standing in clusters in the room, are one of the most important result of this amazing exhibit. It opens hearts. It opens doors. People share and get to know one another. Like the title of this project suggest, they cross their own borders and leave enriched and changed in some way. Come, and experience it for yourself.

the logo for the Columbus Crossing Borders Project shows silhouettes of immigrants, men, women, and children, against a blue clouded sky.

The Columbus Crossing Borders Project is currently being exhibited at:  the Martin de Porres Center, 2330 Airport Drive, Columbus, Ohio through June 30.

Next exhibit: Schumacher Gallery at Capital Univeristy, 2199 E Main St, Columbus OH from August 28 – September 2 with a reception on August 31.

For more information visit the Columbus Crossing Borders Project website