Grace is a word that I love, but it’s a hard word too. Finding a definition of grace that enfolds the power, potential, and beauty held within the word is difficult. There is the religious definition of "unmerited favor." But, all too often, the words "unmerited favor" becomes the focus. Suddenly the potential, beauty and transformative energy of the word is left gutted by a transactional concept.
Grace also means moving with ease and beauty, simple elegance.
Grace, as in “grace period,” is allowing space and time to comply with a law or condition.
Grace, as a verb, is honoring someone with another's presence.
St. Teresa of Lisieux said, "Everything is grace," and George Bernanos said, "Grace is everywhere."
Fredrick Buechner is who I often turn to when looking for a better definition of words that hold power but seem to have lost their way. Buechner writes about grace…
After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.
The grace of God means something like: "Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.
Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you."
There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.
~originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words
So what if, with Buechner's grace in our hearts,
we expected grace and found grace at every turn?
What if, instead of setting an unattainable bar for success, we gave ourselves the room and grace that we hand out to others?
What if we accepted that our best was indeed our best?
What if we just kept doing the next right thing and didn't second guess or go back and rewrite history out of our favor?
What if we gave ourselves the benefit of the doubt?
What if we said "no" more often?
What if we said "yes" to ourselves better?
What if. . .
A grace-full blessing
May grace surprise you.
May grace astound you.
May you offer yourself and others grace upon grace.
May grace periods be for you and those you interact with.
May you live in grace.
This week marks the official beginning of autumn (Sept 22, 2022). Wendell Berry says, “the summer ends, and it’s time to face another way.”
You might say we are in a grace period between the end of summer and the beginning of fall for the next few weeks, when, at least in Idaho, it will be hot one day and cold the next. Is there a grace-filled practice you can embody this week to experience grace and the changing seasons?
I’m planning to walk a labyrinth as a reminder of the changing of seasons, directions, and, as Berry said, the invitation to “face another way.” Maybe it’s noting two or three moments of grace or gratitude at the start or end of the day. Perhaps it’s a soothing cup of tea. Maybe it’s starting a photo collection of leaves from the season…
Recently finished…
unbelieve: poems on the journey to becoming a heretic by Marla Tavinao
I loved this heartfelt book of poetry. In many ways, it was a sort of lyrical autobiography. It was more than poems; I feel like I know a piece of the author's story. The books contain a mix of short poems (haiku, too!), longer poems, and quotes from books and authors that spoke to her along her journey. The poems were profound, simple, witty, and hopeful. I loved this book!
but you can’t just
watch
me
I was flipping through Woman Prayers: Prayer by Women from Throughout History and Around the World. And found this prayer/reflection by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I don’t know much about the author, but I love these words on moments of real grace.
Read her words slowly, feel the words, and let the words flow. Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you. Spend some time with that phrase, jot it down in your journal or on a piece of paper, and ponder it when you go for a walk. Is there an invitation-a grace for you in the words?
Once in a while, we are given moments of real grace.
Sometimes, during my early-morning meditation, a place within me opens and parts of myself let go that I did not even know were holding on. In these moments I feel all the hard places in my heart and body yield to a great softness carried on my breath, and I am filled with compassion for the part of me that is always trying, always organizing, problem solving, anticipating. And my mind stops and simply follows my breath. A great faith washes through me, a knowing that everything that needs to get done will get done.
My shoulders drop an inch, the small but familiar ache in my chest eases, and the moment stretches. There is enough: enough time, enough energy, enough of all that is needed. A great tenderness for myself and the world opens inside me, and I know I belong to this time, to these people, to this earth, and to something that is both within and larger than all of it, something that sustains and holds us all.
I do not want to be anywhere else. I am filled with commitment and compassion for myself and the world. [...]
This is the reality we live: aspiring to be at our best, longing for and sometimes finding meaning and connection within ourselves and with that which is larger than ourselves, we are undone by messy bathrooms, traffic jams, and burnt toast. I am not interested in spirituality that cannot encompass my humanness. Because beneath the small daily trials are harder paradoxes, things the mind cannot reconcile but the heart must hold if we are to live fully: profound tiredness and radical hope; shattered beliefs and relentless faith; the seemingly contradictory longings for personal freedom and a deep commitment to others, for solitude and intimacy, for the ability to simply be with the world and the need to change what we know is not right about how we are living.
--Oriah Mountain Dreamer