Grace

I recently said to my Mom, “How is it that we don’t all go crazy?”  Have you listened to the news?  Have you read the paper?  Oh, my word!  There is too much to take in, too much discord and dissonance.  I can feel the world tilting some days, and it’s like we’re all sliding and grabbing for something to hold onto.  And I’m just wondering what you are holding onto?  What is keeping your boat afloat?  What encourages you to get up in the morning?  What makes you sing before you even realize you are singing?

Daily, I can name what I need to stop the sliding… but often what I name is beyond my reach.  I think I know what will answer my personal problems, but that one thing continues to evade me.  It can be quite frustrating and very taxing to one’s nerves.  I do cry sometimes, and have had a few brilliant temper tantrums with God.  Letting it out is beneficial to a point, but what is truly amazing is how something else always seems to step forward in these moments.  Something else exists to tie us over until the current storm subsides. Perhaps the best naming of this is grace.

Grace is a heartbeat, our sustaining heartbeat that tends us without our attention.  Grace is breathing and blinking and swallowing.  Grace allows sleep and wakes us up.  Grace stands present like air.  Grace believes in processes and deep, long walks towards truths.  Grace allows us to find our way, cheering us over and through the next obstacle.  Grace is colorful and musical and silent and grey.  Grace is God hanging over your shoulders like a soft shawl and sometimes the best kick in the pants you ever experienced.

Grace holds us and blesses us with or without our dutiful sweat, with or without our knowledge or request.  Grace is the Divine Life that ever trusts the power of all that is good within and without.

If we have a task in the midst of our tasks and fretting, it is to lean in.  We’ve got to trust that the empty hammock will hold us.  We’ve got to float upon the moving currents to arrive at the next destination.  And should the hammock rip or the canoe tip, we’ve somehow got to believe that the ground and the water will offer us new stories and teachings that we would have never known if we never leaned in.

I also pray.  I pray before, during, and after the storms, the hammock and river adventures, and in the midst of my daily routines.  It’s my way of staying open to God’s grace and instruction and hope.  The other day I was so exhausted by my worries that as I laid down to rest, I asked God to accept my body, still and quiet, as prayer.  And tonight, as I write down these thoughts… I am praying for you.  Maybe I know you, maybe not.  But we are here on this lovely Earth together feeling at times lost and afraid and unseen and undervalued, and I believe it helps to know that there are tiny, strong threads that hold us tight by the very act of praying for one another.  We are always connected in this way.  I talk with God.  I take God’s hand, and God listens.  And as we are visiting in this way, God reaches out to you, and takes your hand, and before we realize it, we find each other. 

And this is grace.  And this is all we really have.  And this is all we really need.