Baptism
April 19, 2024 By 8 Comments

Baptism

In honor of National Poetry Month, I offer this poem.

Baptism

It happens sometimes
in early spring or fall 
or any bright day
when the air is chill
despite our star’s faithful burning.
I’m walking outside
and everything is shining.
Suddenly the sky –
- flowing around every bit of matter in its path -
transforms, and
I now walk through water
that yields just enough to let me enter.
With every step
I’m encased in a glorious glove of cool, liquid shine.
I can’t see the stuff sky has become,
but my heart quickens
and I must make an effort
not to fall on my knees.
I glance at other walkers and wonder
if they feel the same
or if this is a private miracle,
a baptism that opens my soul to morning’s glory,
that refuses to let me move on ungrateful.
I can’t remember the first time
I knew sky could turn into water
and back to breath again in an instant.
It doesn't matter.
Nor does how.
Content with mystery
being mystery,
when the moment passes
I emerge into air-breath,
changed as surely as if I’d been walking the beach
and waded into the water
and crouched beneath a wave as it washed over me
and rose up
renewed, awake,
in love with the world again.
© 2024 Mary van Balen

Photos: Mary van Balen

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Surprised by Wisdom
January 31, 2024 By 10 Comments

Surprised by Wisdom

Do you have storage places that hold treasures for years, tucked back into an overlooked corner or hidden beneath a pile of unused linens or clothing?  Something special enough to keep but long forgotten. While looking through my cedar chest the other day, I lifted a heavy item encased in paper and bubble wrap from beneath a stack of dishtowels. I carefully removed the packaging and caught my breath.

There was a red clay sculpture of cupped hands made by my youngest daughter decades ago when she was in middle school. It used to sit on an end table in our home, but after moving into a small apartment 13 years ago, I stored it along with other things I wanted to keep but had no place to display.

I held the sculpture and followed their easy curve with my fingers. As they moved over the red clay, a tightness that had taken up residence in my body and spirit began to loosen. Long fed by fear and worry, the fist curled up in my gut began to unclench. The hands offered an invitation: Relax. Open. I tried.

A cleansing sigh passed through my lips. Tears and laughter pushed each other about in their rush to respond. I sat back on a nearby chair, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. The sculpture conveyed a profound sense of receptivity. Solid and steady, they seemed comfortable with vulnerability. Something, it seems, often I am not.

What, I wondered, sustains such an attitude as I move through life? Trust, I think. Trust that in the end, good will prevail. Faith in a pervasive Goodness that enlivens and dwells within and without all creation. It is called by many names: God, Love, Ground of Being, and it persists even through suffering and dangerous times. How else to explain a John Lewis? The thousands of refugees risking lives to walk to our borders? Gazans who rise each morning determined to survive. People around the globe who endure disasters, both of natural origin and those brought upon them by systemic injustice, and people motivated by ignorance, fear, and hatred.

Many open-hearted people don’t just survive. They go forward to do good where they are. Somehow, they see beyond their current situation and trust that in the big picture even small efforts make a difference. They refuse to give into cynicism and despair, believing as others have that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

This desire to give is another gift of openness and trust.

You may see such people in a parking lot collecting petition signatures to demand change in gerrymandered maps and voter suppression or sharing food at a drive-through pantry. They are companions and, as Mr. Rogers called them, “helpers.”

This sense of embrace is another gift the cupped-hands sculpture offered. My neighbor felt it too. She came over for dinner and saw them sitting on the small stand that sits beneath a mirror at one end of the dining table. I had made space for them between a vigil candle, some poetry books, and a Galileo’s thermometer. She looked at them for a while and, not taking her gaze from them, said, “They are so welcoming.”

Yes. The hands expressed willingness to hold. To comfort and care. To simply “be with,” which isn’t simple at all. They conveyed not only openness but also hope. The little hands reminded me that I am held and loved and treasured for what who I am and what I have been given to share, when I’m up for it and when I’m not.

Detail of painting by Richard Duarte Brown
Detail of painting by Richard Duarte Brown

The sculpture encouraged me to open and receive whatever each day would bring. To trust that no matter what it was, that the Goodness and Love in the world, in people, in community, would hold it with me. To suffer. To celebrate. To work. To rest. I wouldn’t have to hold it alone.

It reminded me that sometimes I need the hands of others and sometimes I must be the hands for others, living with faith in Goodness even in dark times.

How did the small sculpture communicate all that? Did they always, and I was just too busy raising kids, working, and navigating a difficult marriage to notice? No. It is the gift of true art of all kinds. Art isn’t a static creation. It’s an encounter, a conversation. What the painting, drawing, words, or music communicate has as much to do with the one who experiences them as it does with what the artist has given. Different grace at different times depending on what the observer brings: Fullness. Need. Joy. Despair.

The little hands spoke to the need I brought. I’m grateful for the moment to hear them.

…yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world… Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Teresa of Avila
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Sinking Into the Heart
August 31, 2023 By 10 Comments

Sinking Into the Heart

Anyone else have problems being present to the moment? It’s the mantra of contemplatives and mystics across the ages, of all faith traditions and of none. Sounds simple, but it’s not.

Three months have passed since I last published a column. That was the time frame I gave myself before returning to “regular” life routines after having knee-replacement surgery.

During the early days of recovery, I lay on the couch feeling completely useless, dependent on my daughters for just about everything from getting up and down, making it to the bathroom, and walking around the house to fixing food, doing exercises, and icing the knee. Not surprising for the first week or two. But as weeks passed, I became impatient with myself, aware mostly of all the stuff I wasn’t doing.

No Zoom groups: London Writers’ Salon, Lectio, book club. No writing: journaling, columns, book project. No reading despite having a stack of Donna Leon mysteries sitting on the bookcase. I couldn’t sit long enough to get through a chapter. All the stuff that made me feel like I was accomplishing something. Connecting with people. Being a worthwhile human being. I could do none of it.

I dreaded nighttime. Sleep was elusive and when it came, it came in short spurts – an hour or two now and again. Depression inched its way into my psyche.

The challenge was to live what I write about: the grace of being open to the present moment. Easier said (or written) than done.

Woman standing on banks of York River looking at the Supermoon on the horizon
Supermoon over the York River

This topic recently came up during lunch with a good friend. Sipping hot coffee on a surprisingly cool morning at an outdoor café, I shared my struggle. She reflected on the role of surrender in prayer. “Surrender” is a word often found in contemplative literature. It’s not one I use. It feels old and uncomfortable to me, conjuring images of failure, domination, militarism, and patriarchy. Someone wins and someone loses. In my experience, God doesn’t require surrender but receptivity. I prefer something like “letting go,” or “opening up,” but understand the intended meaning here. It says “Sorry, but you’re not in control.” And don’t people mostly want to feel like they are in control?

I certainly did. I was faithful with all prescribed exercises and prompt for PT sessions. My daughter who cared for me during the first ten days created a chart to make sure medications were taken on time. The second daughter did the same for at home exercises. I didn’t miss a pill or a rep. I would be back to “normal,” whatever that is, soon, soon, soon!

Not so much.

My memory may be less than accurate, but surely, I recovered more rapidly after my first knee replacement. My daughter said, “no.” OK. With a nod to the physical changes that occur over a decade, I conceded that my older body needed a bit more time. But not too much more. Not with me in control, doing all the right things at the right times.

Be still and know I am God

Psalm 46:10

Eventually, reality wore me down until all I could do was what my friend named over salad and soup: sinking into the Presence within. Like theologian Howard Thurman’s “centering down.” Or 17th century Carmelite, Brother Lawrence’s admonition to “practice the Presence.”  It wasn’t so much a giving up of control as it was a recognition that I never had it in the first place. At least not of everything. We can decide how to respond in our immediate situations, but things happen that we have no power to change. I still did all my exercises, took medications on time, and went to PT. But I began to open to the grace of the moment and embrace some truths I knew but forgot:

– I needn’t be constantly productive to be worthwhile. Simply being is enough.

– My “work” for the moment was to heal, not to write the next column or book.

– Good, loving people filled my life, especially my daughters, family, friends, and medical staff.

– I am a human being with a body that is sometimes broken and that is always getting older.

– Life is a series of letting go and receiving.

– I can savor the life I have, the things I can do that bring me joy.

Orange Day Lily with sparkling drops of dew
Day Lily on a Morning Walk

And the one truth that encompasses all others: I exist, along with everyone and everything else, in the Mystery of Being, the Source, the Connector of all that is. It’s good to sink into that knowing, to lift my heart to Holy Presence all around and to find it within, no matter the name I give to it, content with being held and loved by Love itself.

Photos by Mary van Balen

References

London Writers’ Salon

Howard Thurman in Meditations of the Heart

Br. Lawrence Practice of the Presence trans. Carmen Acevedo Butcher

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Showing Up
March 25, 2023 By 4 Comments

Showing Up

Palm Sunday is but a week away. I look back over my Lenten observances and think, as I do just about every year, that I could have done better. Six weeks ago, as Lent approached, I went through a mental list of how I might observe the season: Do Lectio on the daily lectionary readings, spend more time in quiet prayer, read the four gospels, pray the morning and evening hours, keep a special Lenten journal, re-read Brother Lawrence. The list became long, and I struggled to make a choice. All the spiritual practices on my list were admirable, and a commitment to any one of them would bear fruit.

The longer I sat, the more difficult the decision. Suddenly, I knew what practice beckoned me: Simply be faithful. Show up, notice, and respond to the moment. Be open to the Holy One, however present, and be grateful.

It sounds deceptively simple, but showing up isn’t easy. For example, as I write this, I’m working in the company of writers from around the world who have chosen to “show up” for an hour each weekday to write “together” over Zoom with the London Writers’ Salon (LWS) folks. LWS turned three today and is celebrating with a 24-hour writer’s sprint. We can check in for an hour or two or more. No matter the time, the virtual room is open.

Any writer will tell you, showing up every day is what it takes to get the work done. Some days a lot is accomplished. Other days are more “stare out the window” times or a “jot down a few disjointed notes in a journal” day when little or nothing makes it onto the page. As unproductive as it might seem, something is stirring in the mind and imagination. Recognized or not, the writing process is happening, and one day, the fruit of that work done below the surface will spill out onto the page.

Spiritually showing up is similar. Like writers, those consciously traveling their spiritual path will have practices whose benefits are not obvious but are awakening something deep within.

Once while on a year-long writing residency, I had a conversation with Benedictine monk. We were on our way to the Abbey church for mid-day prayer. Both of us had been busy with writing projects, but when the bells chimed, we left our work in the library and headed for our work in the choir stalls.

“Sometimes I wonder,” my monk friend said, “if all these years of reciting the Psalms, day after day, over and over, really makes any difference.” I guess, if one’s been doing that for decades, they’re entitled to wonder.

I couldn’t answer for him, but I did know that whenever I joined in the monks’ shared prayer, it was a source of grace for me. It was one of many. The bell chiming throughout each day encouraged me to pause and remember that God is always with us. The natural setting was stunning: lakes, prairie, wetlands, oak savannas, and wooded hills, all filled with wildlife. Nature is the first revelation of God. Grace flowed through the people with whom I lived and worked: writers, monks, those who ran the Institute. We shared long conversations, impromptu meals, and more formal dinners. We supported one another through grief and difficult times and celebrated ordinary joys and writing breakthroughs. Some of us even shared a poetry reading, complete with tea and biscuits, in a fish house on a frozen lake! Spiritually showing up looks different all the time.

That is how my Lent looked: different all the time. Take last week. Some days were spent supporting a sick friend who had traveled a long distance to see a doctor. Fixing food, making sure there was hot tea brewing, listening, and just making the house welcoming was my joy and my practice. When the house was empty again, I decided to take a day and put myself “in a place where Grace flows’” for me. I did PT exercises for an hour, taking care of my aging, imperfect body, honoring its gift.

Next was Writers’ Hour. I worked on a children’s book telling the story of a friend who was a Black American pioneer in aviation. Knowing it is work that is mine to do doesn’t make it easy. But I showed up and felt renewed enthusiasm for the project.

When the hour was finished, I tucked a journal and fountain pen into my purse and drove across town to purchase Caste from the indie bookstore, Gramercy. I bought a cup of coffee at the café next door and headed outside to write. Journaling is prayer for me, often leading along meandering paths of thought to places within I hadn’t expected to go.

I spent some time gazing at a graceful young tree beginning to bud. It seemed out-of-place, planted between buildings along a sidewalk and a busy street, but that’s just where its mercy was needed. I couldn’t take my eyes off its lithe, narrow branches – calm beauty amid the bustle and noise of the city. The tree simply being “tree” was an eloquent prayer. Such is the gift of creation. It can’t be anything other than its holy self.

After writing, I walked around the college campus across the street, enjoying the sun and cool, clear air. Aware of the time and peaceful place to enjoy nature’s gifts, I did as Brother Lawrence suggests and lifted my heart to God, acknowledging Divine Presence right where I was.

I walked into the library and took the elevator up to the Schumacher Art Gallery on the fourth floor. The special exhibit presented photographs of Native peoples around the globe taken by Dana Gluckstein. A large panel filled with text by Oren Lyon (Faithkeeper, Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation) introduced the exhibit and detailed the long struggles of native peoples as well as the long-awaited adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations in 2007. Another panel featured words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu about the wisdom shared with the modern world by those peoples: “…the first law of our being is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of creation.”

Wandering through the photographs and the adjoining room filled with African sculptures, I became acutely aware of the tiny piece I am of the human family that lives on this planet. How multitudinous are the ways of life, experiences, and relationships with the Divine. I stood still, surrounded by the photos. I showed up.

“You are a beloved child of God,” I heard in my heart. “So are these. So are all, each and every one.” Humility stirred in my soul. How little I know, yet still am a part of the family.

On the way home, I bought a raspberry-filled cookie from a French bakery. The day was, after all, the feast of Saint Benedict celebrated by my monk friends, Benedictine monastics around the world, and others who, like me, find Benedict’s wisdom helpful as they move through life.

“Celebrate every little thing,” I reminded myself. It’s a way of being grateful.

Back home, after enjoying the cookie and a cup of tea, I began reading a new book, This Here Flesh, by Cole Arthur Riley. Like the photo exhibit, it provided accounts of encounters with the Holy One different than my own yet connected in the “delicate network of interdependence.” I prayed to be humble and open to receive and reverence it.

Ordinary life filled the rest of the day: fixing food, eating dinner, gathering virtually with a small group of women with whom I’ve been reading books and sharing thoughts, questions, and grace for two years. Nothing and yet everything was extraordinary. The practice of showing up. Of being aware. Of being open so Grace can flow in and through and out. That is always the call.

Pistil of Thanksgiving Cactus flower open to catch falling pollen
Photo: Emily Holt

Sources:

The London Writers’ Salon

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher   by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, Carmen Acevedo Butcher (translator)

Dana Gluckstein DIGNITY Portraits

This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

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Open-Hearted Presence
January 27, 2022 By 10 Comments

Open-Hearted Presence

And I always say, if there’s one thing you want to do as an adult to become a better listener, take a preschooler — someone who hasn’t gone to school and been taught how to listen by focusing attention, which is actually controlled impairment, but a preschooler who’s still taking in the whole world — hoist them onto your shoulders, and go for a night walk. They’ll tell you everything you need to know about becoming a better listener.

And if you have the good fortune of going for a walk up a nature trail with a child, the younger they are, the more pointless it seems to go any further, because the miracles are right here. Let’s just sit down, don’t worry about the exercise or the goals … Gordon Hempton*

Being the mother of three, now adult children as well as being an educator, listening to Hempton’s description of encountering the world with very young children elicited many wonderful memories of similar experiences. Days after hearing the podcast, I participated in a small Zoom book club meeting with friends who have been exploring topics of contemplative prayer and mysticism. During the conversation about what being a contemplative means, how one might “pray always,” and how to nurture the desire for God above all else, some offered images of hermits and cloistered nuns. Of Buddhists who can sit for hours at a time in meditation. Some expressed the impossibility of letting go “all things earthly” or emptying themselves completely.

These images made me restless. Not that there was no truth in them, but that they seemed to suggest contemplative prayer involved compete withdrawal from the world. The contemplative souls I have known, read, or studied did not fit those descriptions. Gordon Hempton’s description of a young child experiencing the world did.

Just as a child is schooled in listening by “focusing attention,” many of us have been “schooled” in praying by adopting prescribed practices, following rituals, or learning particular prayers. In elementary school, teachers told me that prayers came in three main varieties: petitionary prayers (help), intercessory prayers (help someone else or some larger cause), and prayers of praise (adoring God for being God). Of course, the church has a rich tradition of contemplative prayer, but other than the true but rather nebulous (to a nine-year-old anyway ) definition offered by the old Baltimore Catechism—prayer is lifting the mind and heart to God—what I remember being taught is the list.

Why didn’t I hear “God’s your friend who cares about you. Talk to God about anything you want.” Thich Naht Hanh wrote that the heart of Buddhist teaching is “I am here for you.” That’s the kind of God I experienced as a child. It’s where I was then. And by some grace, that’s where I’ve stayed. Of course, one’s prayer deepens and matures as one grows, but the basic truth remains: Prayer is relationship with God who cares. It is connection with the Holy One. With Love manifest in others and in all creation.

Being taught to narrowly focus attention, whether in experiencing nature or in prayer, is important at some point, but not at the expense of the wide, open-hearted approach to both. That’s what I loved about Hempton’s description of the young child in nature. Complete openness. Forgetting self and letting it all in. Drowning in the glory of it all.

The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the present moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh in You Are Here

Hempton’s observation that once on a walk, a very young child needn’t take another step “… because the miracles are right here” is another way of expressing the truth of the ever-presence of the Sacred in our lives. Grace is in the moment. Not tomorrow. Not even 15 minutes ago. Now.

And while I often imagine that God is more easily met on a slow walk along the ocean’s coast than in my apartment or neighborhood, the truth is that God is met not somewhere else, but HERE, wherever “here” is at the moment.  

Mystics and contemplatives of all ages and faiths know this. As Thornton Wilder reminds his readers, poets and saints recognize the beauty and mystery of every ordinary moment. I made a vow to myself in high school English class, the first time I read Our Town, that one way or another, I would be a saint or a poet. I would not let the glory of the moment slip by.

Decades later, I confess to not living up to that promise every day. But I do remember it, honor it as best I can, and when I fall short, remember that besides being a sacrament of encounter, life is also a journey. Step at a time.

May we learn from the youngest among us and not make it more complicated than it is!

PHOTOS: Mary van Balen

SOURCE: Gordon Hempton in conversation with Krista Tippett on OnBeing podcast: Silence and the Presence of Everything.

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James Webb Space Telescope and “Holy Curiosity”
January 2, 2022 By 4 Comments

James Webb Space Telescope and “Holy Curiosity”

Early Christmas morning, I shut off the alarm and lay in bed, still tired after a late night. My cell phone dinged. Ahh, a daughter checking to see if I were watching NASA’s coverage of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launch. Events like this are a family thing, shared virtually, often with a toast to celebrate success. I texted back, “Just getting up. Turning on the computer.” Too early for wine, tea was my drink of choice.

What a Christmas gift! After three decades of imagination, development, and global teamwork, the deep space telescope designed to give humanity a glimpse back in time to the beginnings of the universe was ready to launch. The European spaceport is in Kourou, French Guiana, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest near the equator. NASA TV provided stunning images: The Arian 5 rocket towering above the trees. A fiery liftoff. And a final a view of the James Webb, separated from the final stage of the rocket and moving past the earth toward deep space.

Humanity’s Last Glimpse of the James Webb Space Telescope
 Credit: Arianespace, ESA, NASA, CSA, CNES

Watching broadcasts of space missions is always emotional for me. In 2017, twenty years after beginning its journey of discovery of around Saturn and its moons, the spacecraft Cassini sent its final images as it dove into the planet’s atmosphere. I stopped preparing dinner and gave full attention to my laptop perched on the microwave, streaming coverage. When the last image disappeared and Cassini burned up like a meteor, I cried.

Watching the JWST launch was no different. The scope and complexity of the mission. The passion to explore the universe. The cooperation of thousands of people and space agencies around the globe. The perseverance to work through setbacks. The vulnerability of broadcasting the event despite possible failure. These things stir the soul.

Imagine, a telescope so big that it was folded like intricate origami to fit into the faring that protected it as it punctured a hole in the atmosphere. Imagine, a giant mirror over 21 feet across and a multi-layered sunshield unfolding like butterflies emerging from their chrysalises.

NASA: Animation by Adriana Manrique Gutierrez

Imagine. Someone did. Lots of people did. Their curiosity, skill, and determination led to the launch of the telescope that won’t stop until it reaches a spot along the sun-earth axis over a million miles away.

Images of the launch and NASA’s informative videos have stayed with me, feeding my sense of wonder. During the past week it drew me to poetry, books, and podcasts that explore in different ways the secrets of the universe, our place in it, and the mystery of faith.

After the launch, I pulled out an old coffee table book, The Home Planet, a collection of magnificent photos and reflections of space explorers who have orbited the Earth. Many wrote of a heightened appreciation of the interconnectedness of all things on earth and the overwhelming beauty of our planet after viewing it against the black emptiness of space. Looking through its pages, I marveled at the evolution of space exploration, culminating in JWST’s million-mile journey. Will its revelations move humanity closer to acknowledging the interdependence of all creation? Will it move those on earth to take better care of the planet? Will this encounter with the inconceivable immensity and complexity of the universe foster humility as well as expand knowledge?

Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, said after the launch, “The promise of Webb is not what we know we will discover; it’s what we don’t yet understand or can’t yet fathom about our universe. I can’t wait to see what it uncovers!”

I wondered, in my own life, how willing I am to admit that I don’t understand? Not only the workings of the universe, but closer to home, realities at work in everyday life. There is much I don’t know or can’t even imagine. For instance, the history and effects of systemic racism and oppression of the marginalized in this country. Am I delving deeper? Educating myself? How willing am I to listen to the truth spoken by those kept on the edges of society? Do I have the humility to hear, to listen with the ear of the heart? To be transformed by it?

Poetry was my next reading stop. Mary Oliver’s “Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?” speaks of looking long and deep:

There are things you can’t reach. But

you can reach out to them, and all day long…

… I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking, I mean not just standing around, but standing around

     as though with your arms open…

I imagined the arms of the JWST open wide, gathering energy of the sun. The giant golden eye of a mirror, looking out, slowly gathering in light from billions of years ago. And I thought of my standing with open arms and open heart, ready to receive the Grace of Divine Presence. It’s often not visible or obvious to me, but God is no less present for my inability to perceive. The important thing is to develop a practice of openness “all day long,” never being done with looking.

When it arrives at its destination almost a month after launch, JWST will be carefully positioned in the second Lagrange point that allows it to orbit the sun while remaining in the shadow of the earth. In this place, JWTS’s sunshield will protect it from heat and light from the sun, earth, moon, and even from itself! This is critical for the collection of faint infrared light, a process easily disrupted by other sources of light or heat.

I often think of a comment made by Michael McGregor, author of Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax. When asked if Lax would want others to emulate his life, McGregor was quick to respond. No. What was important to Lax was that people find a place where grace flows for them and put themselves there often.

Grace flows in different places for everyone. Even in different places at different times in a single individual’s life. Putting oneself there is important. The “place” could be simply silence or meditation. Time in the woods, along a beach, taking long walks, or gazing at the night sky. It could be working at a food pantry or homeless shelter, or having conversation with a good friend. Journaling. Painting. We need to spend time in places that shield us from too much “interference” of all types—even from ourselves. To be free of things that hinder the reception of Love, constantly shared, drenching creation.

Sometimes finding that place is not going somewhere. It’s just a matter of turning the heart.

In a conversation with Krista Tippett, Jeff Chu shared some wisdom from the new book he worked on with Rachel Held Evans and which he finished after her death in 2019. Wholehearted Faith was published last month.  Speaking about the need for more love, tenderness, and fierce advocacy for justice, he said, “… And so many of us just need a little reminder from time to time that love is there. Love is there if you pay attention. Love is there if you turn your hearts just a little bit.”

Standing under the night sky allows me to “turn my heart,” to open to Love.

In his comments after the launch, Bill Nelson recalled the words of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament shows his handiwork.”

Indeed, God’s splendor is on display in the stars and galaxies and mysterious beauty of the cosmos. The incarnation celebrated during the Christmas season, this embodied Presence, has inspirited creation from the moment the universe began and continues in every person, creature, and bit of matter here or millions of miles in space.

Just as we cannot imagine how the discoveries of the JWST will affect humanity’s science, spirits, or way of living, we cannot imagine the transforming power of the ongoing incarnation.

The human drive to explore the galaxies, using every bit of human knowledge, skill, and talents is fueled by curiosity and wonder.

Searching our hearts and all that is around us. Paying attention. Looking for the Sacred in our midst. This passion is driven by the longing for meaning, for God, and by the desire to know that we are part of a story far bigger than ourselves. One we can never fully comprehend.

As expressed in Wholehearted Faith, “… many of us have found a renewed sense of possibility when we’ve realized how much of God’s beauty remains to be explored — and that the life of faith is also a life of holy curiosity.”

Thank you NASA and its global partners for an extraordinary Christmas gift, one that reminds us to wonder, to search, and to expect the unexpected. Not only in our universe, but also in our experience of God-with-us.

SOURCES AND RESOURCES

Books

The Home Planet: Conceived and edited by Kevin W. Kelley for the Association of Space Explorers

“Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?” in Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver

Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu

Online

OnBeing with Krista Tippet 12/23/21 Jeff Chu: A Life of Holy Curiosity

NASA JWST Sites – Follow links for more information, images, and videos of the JWST

James Webb Space Telescope Homepage

NASA’s Webb Blog where you can keep up with new information

JWST launch:  Official NASA Broadcast on YouTube

James Webb Space Telescope: Goddard Space Flight Center

Where is Webb

About Webb Orbit

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