Thereby for the Grace of God go I: What Grace? What God?

Linda Reith, September 21, 2008

Grace

Equinox:  night equals day.  Let us pause and notice the balance.  Let us feel the grace and elegance of the universe.

Grace is all about timing, flexibility, confidence, humility.  Grace comes when we give ourselves permission to be exactly who we are, where we are, how we are.  Grace is the opposite of awkwardness and awkwardness comes from shame.  Grace comes from pride.  The Pride parade is a political action whose greatest outcome is grace, because it pushes back shame.  Pride graces life.

Grace is also about developing skills.  We all have the potential to be graceful and are often graceful naturally, but we can also be graceful intentionally.  We can develop mindfulness, so that more of our awareness is in the present moment.  We can develop clear speech, so that we say honestly what we need to say.  We can focus on understanding the world as it unfolds, not clouding our minds with false assumptions.  We can develop perspective, so we are not so anxious, so sure that whatever is happening is all about us. We can be kind to ourselves.  Let’s begin now.

Settle in your chair and rest your body. Feel your weight.  Notice your breath.  Let your spine straighten, your collar bones lift with each in breath, your belly contract as you breathe out.  Now with on the in breath, let your left hand lift and as you breathe out, let it settle on your breast. Breathe in and lift; breathe out and let it rest in your lap again.  Breathe in and let your right hand lift; breathe out and let it settle on your breast.  Breathe in and lift; breathe out and let it return to your lap. Now breathe in again and let both hands rise and on your out breath bring them to your heart.  As you breathe, notice the ease of kindness and compassion, you to you.  Feel the power of that kindness resonating in the people all around you.  We are in a community of grace.

How rare is tenderness?  Especially tenderness to ourselves?  How severely have we been taught to hold the reins tight?  To strive to be all that we can be?  We fret that we will stand out and suffer the judgment of our peers.  We are trained to doubt, to try harder.  Grace is an invitation to relax, to allow, to flow, to trust.>

I’m going to share a poem I found in the Canadian Unitarian.

Anne  by Marilyn Raymond

I wasn’t expecting grace when it arrived at church this morning.

A small rounded woman, heading into the second half of her century, carried it in.

She looked tired, but easy. Lovely in her calm middle-aged confidence. Unpretentious and solidly real.

She stood at the front of the church and lit a candle.

She smiled.

“I must tell you my hard news,” she said gently.

“I have Alzheimer’s and I thought you should know/”

Shock rippled a sudden squall; through the church.

Images of raging and wailing and sodden self pity struggled in my clenched fists.

How will this be?

Falling into mindlessness

Memories and meanings turning off,

Lights going out

 An empty house

 Bare floor boards

 Windows Looking into formless colours and meaningless shapes.

How will this be?

Falling into ”Who are you? Who are you? Disoriented, frightened, lost. Everything, everything abandoned.

Where is the soul, when the self is lost?

And she knows that this is the future that is rushing toward her.

This loss.

What is it about this woman that called up grace in the mind of Marilyn Raymond?  Was it the simplicity with which she spoke?  The humility that allowed the woman to accept her fate so calmly?  The thoughtfulness she showed in letting her congregation know what was happening in their midst.  Her dignity in claiming her community and using ritual to help everyone have grace in her hard transition. She knew she was part of the community gathered there.

I can imagine no greater challenge to my ability to respond with grace than the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.  My sense of my right to exist is painfully linked to my ability to serve or at least be witty. That was deeply challenged when I was thrown on my head five years ago by a car hitting me as a pedestrian.  For weeks I was stupid and listless, unable to function in all the ways I love.  I felt humiliated.  But we do not earn our right to exist, to be loved and cared for.  That is our birthright, our entitlement.  It is divinely ordained.  It is the privilege of the people nearest and dearest to us; they are the eyes, hands, mouth and arms of the divine.  However, many of us have lost our sense of the divine and now we live in fear.

 Fear is the ultimate enemy of grace.  Its allies are shame, arrogance, denial.  The list goes on.  Grace lives in ease, luxury, freedom, humility and flow. Sometimes grace comes naturally: a child running to catch a ball, a caress spontaneously given. Grace can come from intention as well and that is our focus this morning.  How can we have it? Be it? Share It?

“There, but for the grace of god, go I.” Humility allows us to know we could be the person, we are tempted to judge, Humility grows from an awareness that we are not in control of our lives.  Most of whom and what we are, is determined by the circumstances of our birth.  The simple fact of skin colour is the element most likely to determine our comfort in living.  The darker your skin, the more likely you’ll be poor.  The more likely you are poor, the larger your waistline, the weaker your health, the shorter your life. Yet we blame ourselves.  A big boned voluptuous woman avoids mirrors, because she thinks somehow she should be slim.  A person awkward with words stays silent rather than stumble.

Anne, the subject of Marilyn Raymond’s poem, had the rare gift of acceptance. Her sense of worth does not seem to be conditional.  Surely that is true for all of us, if we could only feel it. We are all part of the miracle that is this world.  Each one of us, vital to the flow and beauty of the whole.  As global warming collides with carbon fuel scarcity in a time of increasing demand for food, we are transforming our relationship to nature.  Earth based spirituality will be the default position soon, if only because we are learning a new and transformative respect for nature.  We are in awe of the ability of the earth to rebound and in her dynamism we dare to imagine our own.  As we align with change instead of fighting it, we open to grace.

Join me in a Meditation on Grace

Remember a moment of grace. It can be our own grace, the grace of another, or grace in relationship, grace in nature.

Notice your body as you open to grace. Notice your attitude. Notice what you experience when you attend to grace.

Let me pass this Rumi lotus bowl and gather an offering of grace. Put in a word or a phrase or a silence reflecting the moment of grace you have just remembered. Let us again share grace.

Did you recognize grace in the words of others? Did some of their offerings of grace surprise you?

I think grace is being exactly who we are, in the present moment.  Drift forward or backward in time and we are off the beat. Strive to hold onto this stage, this phase, this reality and we become rigid.  We become afraid which tempts us to grab for control – so graceless.  So dangerous, actually. A fall from grace can have serious consequences for us and for everything around us.  That’s why we need to learn to tune into the divine, so we can align and be graceful.

We are graced by other people.  Sometimes all that’s needed is to be in the presence of a person who is full of grace.  They say to be in the company of the Dalai Lama is to feel transformed oneself.  I remember a teacher who graced my studies, sharing his wisdom with generosity, seeing me for who I was and could be.  The centre of my work as a therapist is the inspiration I experience as the people I work with open to grace.  With great courage they risk allowing themselves to feel, to connect, to be vulnerable, to speak up for themselves, to be more of who they can be.  Their willingness sparks willingness in me, to hold myself more generously, more tenderly, with more interest. We need to be intentional about the company we keep. We need to surround ourselves with people who support our connection to grace. We need to know ourselves in all our parts, so we can support our vulnerable selves with kindness and compassion.  That‘s more easily done if the people around us are practicing the self awareness too.

We are helped to be our best selves by so many elements that we cannot begin to be conscious of them.  But we can be grateful. Gratitude is the shortest path to grace.  Appreciation spreads reverence inside and out.  When we stop to savour a colour, a flavour, a sound, we change our whole body chemistry in gracious ways.  Of course, the corollary is also true that bitterness and resentment poison us and lead us closer to the hell of self centeredness. On a planetary scale the balance between creation and destruction shifts and changes in awful ways.  We urgently need to attend to our own states of grace, so that we can be part of creation rather than destruction.  When we are aligned with our divinity, we are more resourceful, more energetic, more intelligent, more involved, more alive.

Let us be centered in ourselves, so that we can be in grace. Let the miracle of our breath be our ever present resource.  Attend to breath. Let the in breath bring connection to all that is and the fabulous resource of this resilient world.  Let the out breath remind us that we are creators, moving energy, transforming ourselves and the world in every moment. The gift of breathing is always there to bring us into grace, acceptance of ourselves gifts and flaws alike and faith in our place in a process more amazing than we can comprehend.