These Bowls
February 29, 2024 By 14 Comments

These Bowls

Reflection inspired by the Calabash Bowl series in I And My Miles: A Talle Bamazi Retrospective on view from January 1-March 27 at the Schumacher Gallery, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio.

Note: Gallery closed March 2-10 for midterm break

painting oil on linen By Talle Bamazi of yellow calabash bowl floating in field of color
My Dwell, oil on linen by Talle Bamazi Photo: Mary van Balen taken at I And My Miles: A Talle Bamazi Retrospective at Schumacher Gallery

These Bowls by Mary van Balen

The calabash wide open,
drips move  
down the canvas
source unseen,
around the bowl
into the bowl
heading toward a shelf of color.
 
Sitting on a bench
I am present
to a ribbon of bowls
running along the wall
like favorite cards I clip
to a string draped
from door hinge to door hinge
across my living room wall
reminding me
of friends
and moments
and hope.
These bowls - 
gourd gifts 
which first are food
then hold sustenance
after their flesh is eaten
and their shells dry -
receive again
and again
whatever comes,
offering
to those who scoop
or drink
or taste
what has been given
to be given.
 
They're brave,
these bowls,
taking what comes
letting go what’s needed.

Resources

Talle Bamazi: Bio

Talle Bamazi Retrospective on display at Schumacher Gallery, Capital University in New Americans Magazine blog

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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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Grace Finds a Way
December 10, 2023 By 14 Comments

Grace Finds a Way

Who knew that a tiny moth larva could turn my house upside down?  Emptying, scrubbing, and bleaching that one, packed closet and reevaluating which items I wanted to keep took all day. Rearranging what remained led me to take a closer look at other closets, cupboards, and storage bins in the basement. More cleaning, trips to donation centers, and filled trash bags.

A couple of days before Advent, my house was still a disaster. I began the morning with quiet time, determined to make mental and physical space for the simple practice. There I was, sitting in my favorite meditation space, unable to stop thinking about what cleaning task to tackle next. Of course, thoughts always bounce around in one’s head during quiet prayer time. The practice is not about keeping all thoughts out but in acknowledging them and letting them go. That morning each thought came with an irresistible hook, and before I knew it, five or ten minutes filled with imagined schedules and jobs had passed.

No surprise, then, that Advent arrived with no room on my table for an Advent wreath. “Surely,” I thought, “if I work hard enough, the table will be clean by day’s end.” Not so much. My choice: wait for another day, or two, or three, until the table was straightened up and ready or push enough stuff around to place the wreath in the center.

So, when evening arrived, there it sat, in the middle of the mess

As I watched the first of four candles flickering in the handblown glass, the appropriateness of the setting suddenly became apparent. If Advent is a season of waiting and watching, it is of waiting, watching in the middle of a mess. Isn’t that where I encounter the Holy One anyway. From right where I am?  

I can imagine myself organized. (Well, that is a stretch!) “Doing” the social action stuff that calls out for people to be involved. Writing all the letters. Making all the calls. Someday I’ll be on track, reading the books on my list of important reads. I’ll paint more. Write more. Eat healthier. Never miss a day of exercise. I can imagine… But really? Maybe one at a time. But all at once? Not likely.

If I had to wait until everything was just right, from my house (spiritual and physical) to the world order, I’d never be open to the Sacred. I’d miss out on the transformative encounters that offer themselves every day, every place, every minute. Isn’t that the meaning of the Incarnation? The Holy One meeting us right where we are?

Persistent Love trusts that eventually, there will be moments when I’m particularly receptive to the gift of Divine Self always being given. Even when I’m not aware, Grace seeps through cracks in the shell of busyness, fear, and doubt that often encase my heart. The Holy One finds a way to be with, as promised … always.

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An Eclipse Unobserved
May 21, 2022 By 10 Comments

An Eclipse Unobserved

Sunday night, May 15, I slept through a total lunar eclipse. Usually, I send email reminders to family and friends a day or two before the event. When the night arrives, I set my alarm and stand on my driveway or in the backyard at any hour, no matter how late, to witness the cosmic display. Eclipses, lunar and solar, have inspired several posts on this blog in the past. (See here, here,  here and here.) How’d I miss this one?

I didn’t notice the date on my wall calendar or date book. (Yes, I still use the paper ones.) I passed over the EarthSkyNews1 email alert. I even missed the second text sent that night on our family thread. I saw the first, at 10:02. Uncharacteristically, I was already in bed. “Don’t forget to check out the Blood Moon tonight,” it read. I pulled off the sheet and walked outside to look. It’s edges and light were softened by misty, wispy clouds, but the full moon was just clearing the apartments across the street, headed for open sky above. The text reference to “Blood Moon” was lost on me. The pale orb looked lovely, but nothing red about it. After five minutes or so, I headed back to bed and to a long night of much needed sleep.

When I awoke late Monday morning, I reached over to the bedside bookcase, pulled off my phone and reading glasses and checked for messages. (I’m way too tied to that phone!) Ah. There was another from Sunday night. It arrived at 10:04 pm while I was out in my PJs and bare feet looking at the moon. “The partial eclipse begins at 10:30.” There it was.

A matter of two minutes made the difference between my watching a stunning total lunar eclipse and my sleeping peacefully away for ten hours! “I needed the sleep,” I rationalized, but didn’t feel any better about missing the experience.

The dance of planet, moon, and sun governed by laws of physics never disappoints. Sunday night, the full moon blushed a deep red as it moved into the earth’s shadow. With feet planted on the ground, anyone with a clear sky above could have looked up in wonder at the spectacle that played out nearly 240,000 miles away. It was glorious—whether or not celebrated by human beings.

Creation continues to do what it has been doing for eons, regardless of our attention—evolving, expanding, birthing new stars, galaxies, and realities we can’t imagine. It’s a work in progress. Occasionally the veil of distance, time, and space is drawn back just a bit, and we catch a glimpse. (Did you see the first photo of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy2?

Image Credit: X-ray – NASA/CXC/SAO, IR – NASA/HST/STScI; Inset: Radio – Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

As I lamented my missed opportunity, I thought of Psalm 27 that reminds us that God’s grace comes even as we sleep and took some comfort in the knowledge that beauty released into the universe blesses even when unnoticed. The splendor of the Blood Moon, the incredible workings of our solar system that produced it, the ongoing evolution of the cosmos in which we live, are all expressions of Love constantly given away.

A child asleep in her mother’s arms is no less loved than when the little one is awake and aware of the affection. My sleeping through the eclipse didn’t diminish its wonder. As I slept those ten hours away, I rested, cradled in the arms of the universe and the creative arms of the Mother-God in whom it unfolds.

Awareness doesn’t change the reality of Love-shared, but it can enlarge the hearts of those who notice with appreciation and openness to receive.

In Mary Oliver’s long poem “From the Book of Time,”3 she writes of beginning a spring day at her desk but being drawn by birdsong into the outdoors where she noticed the grass and butterflies moving above the field.

“ … And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening / is the real work. // Maybe the world, without us, / is the real poem…”

Surely, the cosmos doesn’t need us to be what it is, to be the “real poem.” Yet since we are here, we are invited to help with the composition: a word, a phrase, a comma or full-stop. We contribute, knowingly or not. How and what depends on each of us. A bit of glory here, a bit of sorrow there. Love. Hate. Compassion. Fear.

While I trust in Holy Presence, whether cognizant of it or not, I will pay more attention to special events that can open my heart and the eyes of my soul. November 8, the next total lunar eclipse of this year, is already circled on my paper calendars. I might even add an alert on my phone.

Meanwhile, no need to wait for an eclipse. The universe is always spilling over with unfathomable creativity. The jots we are privileged to witness point our minds and hearts toward the Holy Mystery that is far beyond comprehension but is the life force in all that is. This Mystery showers us with goodness and love, even if we, unaware, sleep right through it.

Sources:

1 Subscribe to EarthSkyNews newsletter

2 The Milky Way’s Black Hole

3 “From the Book of Time” in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, p. 234

More info on the Black Hole: Sagittarius A

The Milky Ways supermassive black hole

Here’s How Scientists Turned the World Into a Telescope (to See a Black Hole)

Black Hole Image Makes History

Feature image by Ulrike Bohr from Pixabay

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Simply Enough
April 30, 2022 By 10 Comments

Simply Enough

At last, after two-and-a-half years, this weary pilgrim again headed to the coast, putting myself in a place where grace flows. Always. Every breath of salty air pulled into my lungs; every shock of cold water closed around my ankles draws me into the rhythms of the place. The infinite horizon. The boom of crashing waves. The gull cries. All of it. Grace sinks deep and soaks my spirit’s tired, depleted spaces with life. On this trip, gentle tears greeted my first steps through the dunes. The place spoke: “Welcome home.” My soul sighed with gratitude.

Bundled in a winter coat, hat, gloves, and scarf, I happily walked the ocean’s edge with my daughters, strong wind making the air feel much colder than its 38-40-something degrees. Following along the frothy seam that joins water and sand didn’t disappoint. The vista changed by the day, or by the hour, from blue skies and sun-sparkled water to dark, low-hanging clouds threatening rain. From smooth, glassy sea to turbulent waves. Birds covered the dunes and beach some days and were barely present on others.

I’ve become wiser over the years, happy with any weather and grateful for whatever the ocean offers up for my attention: The sun glinting on a broken shell. An interesting piece of driftwood. Sandpipers speeding along the tide’s edge, their short legs a blur of motion. Willets standing on one leg to preserve warmth on a cold day.

It might be sighting a dolphin’s fin in the distance while walking with my daughter or a windstorm that left its fingerprint on the sand.

Photo: Emily Holt

Despite gleaning some wisdom on my beach walks, I don’t always heed their lessons.

Arriving home, I wondered how to share the experience with my readers. I searched for a topic, but found no over-arching theme. Instead, thoughts that emerged were of small movements of grace offered in every moment. Simple. Not requiring connection to something bigger for significance. Enough in themselves:

Looking for beach treasures to fill a lamp. Examining feathers on the sand. Learning that what looked like gray, rubber litter was actually a moon snail’s egg collar. Deciding that the walk to an old Coast Guard station was too long to complete before the park gates closed and enjoying the sunset instead.

Photo: Kathryn Holt

There were many small pleasures found off-beach: A morning of shared painting and writing. The delight of sipping our first Vietnamese egg coffee: dark espresso topped with egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk whipped into a thick cream and sprinkled with cinnamon. A walk to the small downtown area and chatting with a local artist at the indie bookstore.

I bought honey from the beekeeper around the corner, and as always when on the coast, I relished freshly made crab cakes.

Wild ponies foraged along the road and a young, great blue heron seemed to preen for the camera. We marveled at a lighthouse and the engineering and skill required to build it in the 1800s. I savored the sweet smell of marshlands, so different from salty ocean air. We laughed together at Ted Lasso episodes while binging on Island Creamery homemade ice cream or white-cheddar “cheesy-poof” balls.

Each moment complete. Lovely. Overflowingly enough.

In her poem “Snow Geese,” Mary Oliver offers the wisdom of loving what does not last, calling it our task “…and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.” Being present to those fleeting moments open us to their gift. They might find their way into memory or stir hope or joy, but only if we are attentive. As Oliver’s poem continues, “…What matters / is that, when I saw them, / I saw them /as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.”

Returning from the ocean is always difficult for me. While I love family, friends, and familiar routines, I am a reluctant inlander. Once home, my challenge is to be as attentive to moments here as I was to moments on the island. Not with expectations, but with openness. Not looking for something that completes a larger picture, but simply moments that are, in themselves, grace enough.

It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a Soul, and a moment. And the three are always here.

Abraham Heschel

Photos: Mary van Balen unless otherwise indicated

© 2022 Mary van Balen

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