Consider the direction of your grace.
-Barbara Kingsolver
This line from a Barbara Kingsolver poem “How to Cure Sweet Potatoes” in her book How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lesson) caught my eyes a few months ago. It's such a simple line, with so much to discover. I'm taking a small line, just six words, and looking deeper to see what I might find.
I'm a word person. I love words, their meaning their usage. My favorite method to deepen any text is to think about individual words and see how they are defined. I'm always surprised, challenged, and enriched by looking at definitions.
Consider: I like the word consider; it feels a bit more reflective than decide or watch. Consider is a grace-filled word. It doesn't include any elements of judgment. It's just an invitation to think about or ponder. It's a gentle word. One definition of the word said to "think about something and be drawn toward a solution." I love that. It's a surrender to the flow of life.
The: The is a word that we use so often, but it's interesting to really watch the word the. It implies one, a singular event or idea. It's not one of many; it's one. Another definition of the is to point forward to a defining clause or phrase. To point forward, I like that.
Direction: Direction is about focus. Direction also implies movement. Things move in a direction. Direction only matters if there is something in motion. Direction also means the management or guidance of something.
Your: Belonging to you. Your implies uniqueness; it also focuses on self. Not other, not culture, not a political party, not church affiliation, it is uniquely you.
Grace: What a word. It's so simple and used a lot, but it's interesting to dig a bit deeper. Out of curiosity, I looked up grace in as many different dictionaries as I could find. I was struck but the number of definitions and ways that various dictionaries defined similar concepts, including mercy, pardon, approval, favor, privilege, reprieve, charm, virtue from God, simple elegance, refinement of movement, courteous goodwill.
Consider the direction of your grace- with the definitions in mind, it changes this invitation. I've been sitting still for a few minutes, playing with the phrase adding emphasis on different words, and seeing how the focus changes the meaning.
CONSIDER the direction of your grace: This is a gentle invitation to think about and be drawn towards watching where my grace flows.
Consider the DIRECTION of your grace: The invitation shifts from a thoughtful overview to questions of direction. Does my grace flow inward? Does it flow outward? Up? Down? What is the direction of grace? It also stirs up the question is grace even in motion in my life?
Consider the direction of YOUR grace: Suddenly, the phrase becomes so much more personal. My grace. Do I have enough grace? What is my grace?
Consider the direction of your GRACE: Of all the ways grace is defined, what resonates most with me? Favor, charm, movement, mercy, reprieve. Do I practice these elements of grace?
Consider the direction of your grace. I find it endlessly fascinating to take apart words, phrases, and definitions, dig deeper and discover what promises and challenges might be found.
Consider the direction of your grace.
I wrote a Haiku inspired by this line. You can watch our monthly Haiku Talk here to hear more thoughts and reflections on this and two other fantastic Haikus.
Currently Reading:
Father Melancholy's Daughter/Evensong by Gail Godwin
A friend pressed this book (Father Melancolys Daughter) into my hands and told me I would love it. She was right! It's told in the voice of a young woman, looking back on her childhood as a parish priest's daughter after her mother left. It's so well written, and the story unfolds slowly, with care. It's all that I love in a book: solid character development, observations, and passages that stand alone with their wisdom and thoughtfulness.
Evensong is the follow-up when Margaret has grown up and is a priest in her own parish. I'm just starting this, but I already love it as much as Father Melancholy's Daughter.
"But not until we accept our shortcoming can we do God's will in the world. Each person has a specific shortcoming to accept and endure and try to work on. It's that person's task, it is my task. And however painful or shameful or just plain aggravating it is to me, or to you, that very shortcoming is a part of my destiny: it may even be inseparable from why I will have been valuable to the human community. Because, by bearing it, learning it from the roots up, letting it speak its message to me, offering it my mind and body in which to work itself out, I may be doing my part to heal what is split in the world."
-Gail Godwin Father Melancholy's Daughter
A Book I’m Glad I Read:
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski Ph.D., Amelia Nagoski DMA
This was a fascinating book about stress and how women experience stress differently from men. I found it a super helpful and relatable book. One thing that I loved was each chapter ended with a TL;DR list. (Stands for; To Long: Didn't Read.) It's a super concise summary of each chapter.
Rest is, quite simply, when you stop using a part of you that's used up, worn out, damaged, or inflamed, so that it has a chance to renew itself."
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Each month two friends and I write Haiku. We share the Haiku with each other. We respond to the Haiku. This is a practice called Haibun. We started recording these sessions 15 months ago and it’s become the highlight of my month. We have such interesting conversations and synergy. You can check out our July 2021 Haiku Talk here.
(I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and put them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
“There are two kinds of people. One kind, you can just tell by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves. It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more surprises from it. Whereas, the other kind keep moving, changing... They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive. You must be constantly on your guard against congealing."
― Gail Godwin, The Finishing School
"There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls."
― Howard Thurman
"When you are cruel to yourself, contemptuous and shaming, you only increase the cruelty of the world; when you are kind and compassionate to yourself, you increase the kindness and compassion in the world. Being compassionate toward yourself- not self-indulgent or self-pitying, but kind- is both the least you can do and the single most important thing you can do to make the world a better place...the world is changed when we change."
― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Seek only the knowledge
The unties the problems
Of your life
Seek it soon
Before
Your number is up
Leave alone
What seems to be
But is not
Seek what
Seems not to be
Yet it might
-Rumi
