PHOTO: Mary van Balen
After nine hours of selling bras and underwear and cleaning out dressing rooms, I looked forward to getting off my feet. Hot humid air blew across the parking lot as I looked for the little Civic with an Obama/Biden sticker on the bumper. I collapsed into the driver’s seat, turned the air conditioner on “high” and started the long drive home.

Traffic wasn’t bad. I popped a voice therapy CD into the player, started taking deep breaths, and progressed through the four exercises that are helping combat chronic hoarseness. Eleven minutes and miles later I was cooling off and feeling less like a dishrag and more like a person.Energy seeped back into my bones and I decided to stop by a friend’s apartment instead of driving straight home.

Unbelievably, she was home! Despite trying to meet for the past three months, we had been unsuccessful unless you count the one time we ran into each other at a shopping strip and exchanged promises not to give up on finding a day we were both free.

Pat and I met when I was taking elementary education classes. Principal of the school where I was placed for a quarter or two plus student teaching, she was impressive not only because of her six foot frame and booming voice, but also because she was passionate about helping kids learn. She remained fearless in the face of critical state inspectors who shook their heads in disbelief when her teachers’ lesson plans did not follow instructions to divide school days into minutes required for every subject, and knew nothing about “child-centered, informal education” or why it was a better way to teach her young charges.

She traveled with some of her teachers and a couple lucky student teachers (myself included) to New York City where we observed Lillian Weber’s “Open Corridor” concept. In crowded public schools, classrooms spilled out into the wide hallways, creating areas for all kinds of learning: art centers, reading nooks, woodworking benches or dramatic play.

After a day in the schools we sat up late into the night talking about how we might do something similar once we returned home, and then, hungry, we walked through Harlem to find a place where we could buy something to eat. Fearless.

That was years ago. Yesterday, sitting in her small living room at the retirement center, I took off my shoes, curled up in a recliner and enjoyed a glass of ice water along with her candor and sense of humor. Our conversation wound around a variety of topics: books she is reading, my loose-ends life, her twenty-year-old cat, Taz, and aging.

A few hours with Pat always leaves me affirmed, ready to dive back into life with more energy and faith than I brought with me. My women friends are like that: No pretense, no tension, and communication that flows like a spring, dispensing wisdom, humor, and hope.

Defying social convention of the time, Jesus hung around with women as well as men and didn’t hesitate to strike up conversations with them when he met them on his journey. Women numbered among his closest friends and disciples.

Another friend of mine, a contemplative nun, told me a story: A man had been coming to talk with her for months, seeking her counsel. During one meeting he said, “A pity you were not born a man. I imagine you regret that. You could have done so much.”

I don’t know how my friend kept from laughing out loud. “A woman,” she told me, “maintains the center, has tremendous capacity for relationship and love, and being with.” She laughed. No regrets.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

Photo: Mary van Balen
Thirty minutes of sitting quietly in God’s Presence doesn’t sound difficult, but when I am out of spiritual shape, I can’t do it. Signs of spiritual laxity have been evident for a while: lack of energy and focus, interior turmoil, and dwindling hope. Yesterday I decided to do something about it.

First, I decided to let myself sleep until I was rested, a simple thing I have consistently neglected. After a wonderful Father’s Day lunch with Dad, my sisters, brothers, spouses, a nephew and his fiance, I drove home to a quiet house. Resisting the list of “to-dos” that shouted at me, I lay down on the couch and slept for a couple of hours. When I woke up I managed to fix an egg salad sandwich for dinner and take out the trash for pick-up on Monday.

“Catch up on laundry! Run the sweeper! Straighten your office!”

I turned the TV to news, thinking I should listen to updates on the Gulf clean up. My brother-in-law and I had had a spirited discussion about the $20 billion fund required of BP and the way Obama secured it. I had made a mental note to do a little research on precedents and options, but after ten minutes of trying to focus on news, I gave up, changed the channel to a crime solving drama, and fell back to sleep. At 11pm I woke up, climbed the steps to the second floor, and crawled into bed.

By 8:30 this morning I was up and ready to go. I had a mental list: quiet prayer, Lectio, bake the overripe banana into bread, post a blog, finish laundry, buy groceries, and attend a scientific conference to hear my daughter deliver her first academic presentation on her research.

Quiet prayer sounded easy. First, I had to decide where to sit. Before moving into Dad’s house, I had a regular prayer place at home; just moving into it signaled my brain to slow down. So far, I haven’t found one here.

I settled on the living room and a blue chair that was not soft enough to lull me to sleep (a problem with trying quiet prayer when I am exhausted) but was still comfortable. I looked at the clock: 9am. Take slow deep breaths. Relax neck and shoulder muscles that are usually tight. Empty my mind of thoughts…

Try as I might, I could not banish the cacophony. More deep breaths. A glance at the clock: Only 9:05? OK. Close my eyes and try again. And again. And again.

Once, at 9:15, I realized that I was actually gripping the arms of the chair and leaning forward, like I was poised at the starting line for a race, waiting for the gun to go off…or in this case, for the big hand to land on the “6.”

I smiled. My life has become a race of sorts lately but if quiet prayer was any indication, I was not going to finish well.

Thirty minutes never seemed to pass so slowly, and when the half hour was up, I had managed but a moment or two of quiet inside my head. I trust God was pleased with the fact that each time I was ready to move on to something else, I forced myself to sit down and try again.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen
Some days when life seems overwhelming, I am drawn to the bane of healthy eating and common sense: Comfort Food! We all have this unique food group that spans those recommended by nutrition czars who devise pyramids and pie charts to keep us on the straight and narrow.

One of my all time favorites is grilled cheese with bread & butter pickles. Grilled cheese sandwiches come in many varieties. Last week, while staying with a family in Delaware, I was treated to a delicious, homemade grilled cheese with Mozzarella, pesto, and sun-dried tomatoes on generous slices of multi-grain bread. Delicious and packed with lots of healthy ingredients, it kept me going until my arrival back home.

My comfort food grilled-cheese boasts only of white bread and, yes, American cheese. (Is that phrase an oxymoron? I mean is “American Cheese” cheese at all?) The secret ingredient that makes my grilled cheese special is, as in all comfort food, memories.

My mother used to make these sandwiches in a griddle that smooshed the margarine slathered soft white bread until melted American cheese began to ooze out around the edges. The elementary school I attended was four or five blocks from home, so I often walked home from school for lunch, and grilled cheese was a favorite. I did not like school, and an hour at home was a welcome break. Growing up Catholic gave our family weekly opportunities for meatless meals and grilled cheese along with a bowl of tomato soup was often on the menu.

I don’t use the griddle or margarine for my sandwiches, but every bite takes me back to the kitchen of my childhood where mom and my grandmother, Becky, fixed meals, and baked cookies, pies, and cakes. They taught us how to mix flaky pie crusts (which mom insisted was one of the easiest things to make), cutout cookies, and anything else we wanted to learn.

I have other comfort food favorites: Buttered toast and tea when I am hungry before going to bed, chicken noodle soup and saltine crackers when I am recuperating from the flu, and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with sugar. No matter how I try to reduce my consumption of red meat, a regal rump roast with mashed potatoes and gravy remains a treat. I loved sopping up the drippings left on the meat platter with white bread.

Whatever the food, calories, or cholesterol, the most important nutrient delivered by comfort food is the love and the people who wrapped me in it. It is the smile of my mother, her hugs, and her cool hand on my fevered forehead. It is my grandmother sitting with me late at night when I was sick, telling me stories of growing up. It is the family gathered around the dinner table, sharing a chip-chopped ham sandwich with my father.

When I eat comfort food, I don’t count calories; I savor memories.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

Watching dark plumes of oil and gas rise like dirty clouds from the broken pipe at the BP oil site makes me sick. My stomach turns over when I think of millions of gallons of oil fouling the earth every day. The thought that this will happen day after day for months is unfathomable.

Anger rising from my heart is as dark and dirty as the oily clouds. I don’t trust BP or its statements, and I want them to pay, BIG. I want lawmakers voted out of office who take big oil money and don’t insist on stringent requirements to protect the environment. Why didn’t organizations charged with oversight of the drilling for oil in deep water insist on numerous back-up plans to deal with a collapse of the oil rig and subsequent catastrophe?

A sizable chunk of the earth is being polluted to death. People who live and work on that coast are watching their way of life disappear. Oil-covered sea turtles struggle to the beach to lay their eggs. That probably won’t happen. Thick sludge is washing into salt-water marshes, called “nurseries” for fish and shrimp.

Along with millions of others, I am outraged by the largest environmental disaster in the history of our country, and I want to see those responsible for it identified and held accountable.

Continuing to follow the story, I become uncomfortable. I realize that I am among those who share culpability for this outrage. I consume plenty of petroleum products and am part of the demand for them that necessitates drilling offshore or in Alaska, as well as importing oil from the Middle East.

I use my car to travel to work, grocery stores, and the bank. I drive hundreds of miles to visit my children and friends. I don’t walk or ride a bike to run my errands; I hop into my car and drive the couple of miles instead. True, it is a Honda Civic, purchased with environment in mind: the car gets great gas mileage. Still, my lifestyle is far from “green.”

Being angry with BP feels better than facing my part in creating excessive demand for their product, but if I am honest, I must accept my immersion in an oil-driven economy and standard of living. We all must.

That is not to let BP and other businesses and government oversight agencies off the hook for cutting corners and looking the other way. Investigations and charges should be pursued where appropriate, but I must look for ways to be faithful to God’s trust in me to care for the earth.

Will this event make US citizens more supportive of research into alternative fuels and to accept taxes to fund it? Will we move away from SUV’s and other gas-guzzling vehicles? Will we walk more or ride bikes for errands? Will we take our responsibility seriously and make sacrifices for the greater good, for the survival of the earth that sustains us?

Easier to be angry at BP. Jesus never said being faithful would be easy.

PHOTO: A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Employee

Waiting for Dad to don pajamas and prepare for bed, I sat on a couch tucked away in a nook off the nursing home’s wide hallway. I checked voicemail, made a few calls, and then looked out the window beside me and watched a spider working on her web. She was large, her bulbous abdomen marked underneath with an orangey hourglass shape, and her long legs were darker at each joint. She waved them about until they detected a strand of silk, then she hurried along it to the end. Once there, she dropped quickly to another point along the window frame where she attached the new thread, then began waving her legs around again.

I looked at the web from a variety of angles but could see no pattern let alone the familiar radiating design I expected. Three messy spots looked like a tangle of threads spun around a hapless victim, but other than those bits, nothing hinted at purpose or method.

Curious, once back home, I Goggled “dark jointed brown spider” and tentatively identified her as a brown widow and learned the web she wove was typical of her kind. A reader had posted a blog about the brown widow spider and observed that while the web was a mess, it got the job done.

I empathized with that busy spider, thinking my life, with its unexpected twists and turns, could look messy to an observer. My eight-legged friend reminds me of Wilbur, even though the spider in question is female. She is definitely not a Charlotte. Charlotte was organized, knew what she wanted, and planned ahead. In the book, “Charlotte’s Web,” Wilbur eventually prevailed not because of great foresight and planning but rather because of his great heart and determination. His path to a secure long life was full of unpredictable events. He bumbled along, doing the best he could at each juncture, and with Charlotte’s help, avoided ending up on someone’s breakfast plate.

My spider friend approaches life similarly, plummeting to whatever place gravity takes her once she reaches the end of a silken thread, and begins again. The blog writer was correct: In the end, the spider caught her prey and lived to spin another day.

I sympathize with those who feel lost and unsure of their next step. Paths usually do not continue as planned, and they challenge us to embrace our new situation and move forward from that place. That happens to all of us in one way or another. Some people may have lives that appear elegantly designed, but we never know what lies beneath the surface: Spinning is difficult no matter the outcome. The brown widow fashions the web she is made to spin, following the instinct born within her. We are inspirited with Divine life, and each of us walk the roads we are given, listening for and trusting the Spirit born within. In the end, difficult as the journey may be, we each will arrive at the place we are made to be: the all encompassing embrace of God.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTOS: Mary van Balen
While helping me clean my old house, a friend asked if I would miss it when I moved. There are plenty of things I will not miss: non-stop noisy traffic, a one-person kitchen that managed to hold four or five people when the children and I were baking or we hosted a party, and a narrow hallway with four doors that all opened into each other. Of course, all homes have drawbacks.

As I stopped cleaning for a moment and considered her question, a number of thoughts came to mind. The bedroom walls I was washing had been decorated with a glow-in-the-dark moon, Monet, dinosaur, and Einstein posters, as well as awards and original art. The décor changed as the room’s occupants matured from infants and toddlers to “home only on breaks” college students. The walls had heard secrets and private tears. The other upstairs bedroom held its share of secrets and memories, too.

True, every room in the house was witness to the lives of a family of five as they lived, loved, and grew, but so was I. The memories are mine to treasure no matter where I make my home. They reside in my heart and mind, and do not depend on a particular location to survive. However, some things will remain in the place I am leaving, and I will miss them.

For over twenty years, when looking out the window over the kitchen sink, I saw a deep yard filled with trees and a gurgling creek that separated our place from a small woods full of wildlife. Below the dining room window in the front of the house is an herb garden bordered with bushy lavender and a crumbling sandstone wall. Whenever I walked past the plants, I ran my hands over its leaves as I passed by, releasing a sweet pungent fragrance that filled the air and lingered on my fingers.

There are abundant spring flowers, so lush and varied that an artist friend who lived above a downtown shop once shared his envy: “I would love to have a garden like yours: a bit wild and colorful like an impressionistic painting.”

Blue bachelor buttons, lavender, flowering sage, red and orange poppies, deep magenta peonies, purple flocks, pinks, chives, yellow yarrow, and purple larkspur never again look as lovely as they do after late spring rains and cool nights. I will miss them along with Christmas ferns that spread out near my small office, thick, and deep green, all from a single plant given to a daughter on the occasion of her first communion.

These are the things I cannot take with me; gifts that have blessed me and fed my soul for years. I bequeath these grace-full bits of creation to those who move into this place, whomever they will be. May they be open to wonder and joy so freely given.

© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: “MEMORY SYNAPSES” – SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE “How Our Brains Make Memories”
A few days ago I had the unusual experience of watching my vocal chords in action. Chronic hoarseness and some difficulty breathing sent me to an ENT specialist. I had gone to one decades before when singing in coffee houses, churches, and at sing-a-longs pushed my voice past its limits, but this time technology had a new tool to offer: a rigid stroboscopic endoscope, or in layman’s terms, a long silver tube with a camera that takes a video with soundtrack of one’s vocal chords while the patient follows the speech and language pathologist’s directions for holding pitches and taking deep breaths through the mouth.

The procedure was painless, and the results were amazingly clear.I marveled at the two small muscles that moved, stretched, and relaxed, allowing me to make sounds that become speech when they are strung together. For almost sixty years, my vocal chords have worked with my brain and lungs as I moved from a crying infant to a toddler learning language, to a singer, teacher, and public speaker. I called my children for dinner, whispered sweet words to my love, and chanted with choirs of monks. I have moaned and groaned, cheered and yelled, laughed and cried. I watched the video in the pathologist’s office and wondered that those two whitish strips of muscle had vibrated and produced an infinite variety of sounds.

After the fascinating session, while waiting for the doctor, I flipped through a Smithsonian magazine and found an article on the plasticity of adult brains and changing of memories. The brain is the most mysterious and complicated part of the human body. Mesmerizing images of neurons, cells, and synapses accompanied the article. I will have to find the issue in the library because the doctor was ready to see me before I had reached the end of it.

Since the doctor’s verdict was that my vocal chords were healthy, but needed strengthened and “beefed up” with proper diet and exercise, I will have the opportunity to see if voice therapy has changed as much since my former experience as the tools used for diagnosis have. Meanwhile, I have been reminded of the wondrous creation that is the human body. Its existence is a miracle; its myriad of working parts something most of us take for granted until one of them don’t work as well as we would like. I have no way of imagining the glory of the One who set in motion the matter and events that led to such a creation.

© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen
Where do you find a room full of enthusiastic authors, poets, and storytellers celebrating life together? At the Ohio Literacy Resource Center’s Writer’s Conference. For twelve years, the OLRC has sponsored a writing contest for adults enrolled in Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) classes throughout Ohio. From hundreds of submissions, the conference committee chooses poetry, memoir, fiction, and non-fiction stories and puts them together in a softbound book.

The published authors are invited to attend the daylong conference that from its early days has featured Lyn Ford, a nationally recognized storyteller who draws on her Native American and Black American heritage to mesmerize attendees with tales of wisdom laced with humor. This year’s keynote speaker, Ray McNiece, is a poet, actor, and playwright who, as he says, makes a humble living following his call and passion: words. He moved through the audience, picking people to help with a poem or skit. One shy young man from Jamaica was puzzled when Ray chose him to pantomime the part of Casey in the well-known poem, “Casey at the Bat.”

Despite knowing nothing about baseball, the Jamaican was a good sport swinging mightily each time the “pitcher” hurled a ball his way. While McNiece’s energy and delight in poetry was contagious, it was matched by that of the authors for their work and for the celebration. A variety of ages, races and nationalities were represented, as were native and non-native speakers of English. For some, the Writer’s Conference was a new experience. Others had been honored by publication of their work in years past. Sprinkled among the guests were proud teachers, family, and friends.

Throughout the day, honorees were invited on stage to share their stories, either ones that had been published or thoughts and poems written as part of the morning’s activities. I have had the honor of attending this conference numerous times, and I am always moved by the honesty and beauty of the writing. People entrust to others important moments in their lives, wisdom gained, pain endured, and loss mourned. I am also moved by the reverence with which the stories are received. The authors had plumbed the well of life’s nitty-gritty and found treasures; those who listened accept them with respect.

Storytellers, story hearers, we all savored the feast of lives shared. Story empowers those who tell it and are heard, claiming their experiences and journeys as worthy of being told. Story also empowers those who listen, connecting them to the larger web of life that makes family of us all.

Listening to Lyn Ford, I knew I was connecting with a native people in a way more intimate than any book could offer. Relishing word and rhythm with Ray McNiece, I knew joy in poetry and wondered how I had dropped the habit of reading a poem every day. Witnessing the strong sense of self that radiated from yesterday’s honorees, I renewed my commitment to tell my stories and to encourage others to tell their own.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

I always liked walking into an elementary school building an hour or so before classes began, when quiet covered every classroom and office, inviting unhurried reflection as well as preparation for the day. Occasionally I saw a janitor pushing a wide mop down the old wooden hallways and making them shine. Now that I work at a large department store, I find similar calm when I arrive before its doors open for business. I also see the people who work behind the scenes to make most American department stores shine.

On Mother’s Day, I walked in the employee entrance and made my way downstairs to clock in at the register. I passed a number of workers, women mostly, wearing full aprons, pushing mops and buckets down wide aisles that reflected the dim lights of the early morning store.

“Good morning. This place always shines in the morning. Thank you,” I said to each as I passed by in a simple attempt to reverence their work, their personhood.

They nodded acknowledgment. Some smiled. Some responded with a tired “Good morning.” Some don’t speak much English. I opened one of the registers at my station for the first time, counting and recounting coins and bills to make sure I entered the correct numbers. Two more registers to go before the store doors opened to customers.

“Good morning!” came over the speakers. “The morning meeting will be at the fine jewelry counter today…” I stood at the meeting, thinking of the remaining registers I had to open and wondering if I could do it before opening. Maybe I didn’t have to. I wasn’t sure. A smiling associate interrupted my thoughts as she handed me a corsages; there was one for each mother working that day.

“Happy Mother’s Day,” she said. The carnation and greenery looked cheery perched above my nametag. I left the meeting a bit early to finish opening. My thoughts were with the women who had been cleaning the store. I wondered how early they arrived to do their jobs. I wondered how many were mothers. I wished I had carnations for them.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

Once again, I spent part of my day substitute teaching; this time it was language arts. The students were quiet as they took a long vocabulary test and then opened “With Every Drop of Blood,” a Civil War novel by James and Christopher Collier, reading until the period ended. I took advantage of the time and read the novel myself. It tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a Southern boy, Johnny, and one of his captors, a Black Union soldier named Cush Turner. As the boys become friends, they realize the erroneousness of many stories and stereotypes about Blacks and Southerners they had learned growing up.

At one point, after Cush ‘s fierce desire to learn to read and his reverence for Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address surprised Johnny, he began to rethink his assumption that Black slaves were inherently inferior to their white masters, and realized that he had never considered anything from the point of view of the slave. Through conversation with Cush, Johnny was able to do that, and what he learned surprised him. Johnny was thoughtful and honest with himself and the experience changed him.

The Southern born fourteen-year-old’s openness to seeing the world through someone else’s eyes makes me aware of the growing lack of such openness today. Particularly, some current events come to mind: The arrest of Faisal Shahzad brings terrorism again to headlines and news programs. How to understand what motivates such a person? How do we perceive Muslims in general after an attempted terrorist attack? How good are we at looking at ourselves through the eyes of others?

The immigration bill in Arizona is another red flag signaling the need for each side to view the concerns of the other with a biblical social justice perspective so the problems of immigration can be addressed humanely.

Other issues point to continued polarization within this country. One of the most surprising was the statement made to Neil Cavuto of Fox News by former FEMA director, Michael Brown: that the oil spill was “exactly what they (the Obama administration) want, because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, ‘I’m going to shut it down because it’s too dangerous.’ While Mexico and China and everybody else drills in the Gulf, we’re going to get shut down.”

Mr. Brown is upset that President Obama ordered new drills to be halted until the cause of the spill and the possibility that modifications in the technology used might prevent future spills. This seems reasonable to me. I am quick to write off opinions such as Mr. Brown’s as inflammatory and purposely divisive. What might I learn looking at the situation through his eyes? I don’t know.

I don’t imagine many people on either end of the political spectrum in the US will be inclined to consider the other’s viewpoint. As Mr. Obama pointed out last weekend in his address to University of Michigan’s graduating class, civility is missing in public debate. The atmosphere is toxic (My words, not his), poisoning attempts at compromise.

Issues of race, states’ rights, and economics sat at the heart of the civil war. What sits at the heart of our present predicament of animosity and distrust? Is if fear? Fear that we will need to change? That the “other” will take these things from us? Fear of the unknown “other?” Perhaps, like Johnny and Cush, being thrown into life-threatening circumstances that demands cooperation for survival, will be the only way we will develop openness and transcend our fear and suspicion.
© Mary van Balen 2010