It occurs to me…

Grace

My on-line dictionary defines “grace” as “free and unmerited favor from God.”  I looked the word up this morning as it came to mind last night while watching the NCAA Championship Game between Georgia and Alabama.  In that game the Alabama kicker missed a relatively short last-second field goal that would have won the game.  Georgia kicked a field goal in overtime to go ahead, but Alabama won minutes later with a touchdown pass in overtime.  With that ending the Alabama kicker had some “free and unmerited favor” pass his way, or more colloquially, had the weight of the world lifted off his shoulder.  His missed field goal was transformed from a potentially crushing blow to a necessary piece of a miraculous ending.  I mean, if you are going to be remembered as the guy who missed the field goal in a story, you want this ending, not the other one the game was headed to.

Thinking on this, it occurs to me that while not to this magnitude, life is full of grace.  Often, quite often when I think of it (IF I think of it), when things appear to be headed one way (toward the shitter) some “free and unmerited favor” appears and things head the other.  That is, if/when I think on it, I recognize that my life is grace-full.  And for that I am grateful – or should be.

From Joan Chittister – Uncommon Gratitude: —

[T]he vagaries of life give us all a chance over and over again to do today what we did not do last year or in another place or yesterday. Life, however interrupted, is one long moment of coming to be the best we can be. Life, we come to understand, is simply the process of growing into God.  But the growing is not linear. It is at best a process of stops and starts, of moments apparently without meaning and times that test the fiber of the soul. Growing into God is not so much, then, the process of becoming perfect. Perfection is a human ideal, an arrogant one at that, but it is not a human state. Perfection is not ours to have. On the contrary, to aspire to perfection is to doom ourselves to the kind of failure that can lead either to depression or to despair—neither of which is healthy, both of which only distract from the real purpose of life.”

Whew!  That takes a load off.  “Perfection is not ours to have.”  Rather, it “is a human ideal, and arrogant one at that.”  I’ve been arrogant for quite a while, and you’d think after so much time and effort at perfection, I would have come to this conclusion on my own.  Of course, that’s where the arrogance comes in.

Back home from three days in near zero and below zero temperatures, I find myself grateful just being warm.  Sitting in a warm room and knowing that cold, at least THAT kind of cold, has lost its grip on me, what comes to mind is classic Joni Mitchell: “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you got ‘til its gone.  They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

I don’t know if it is human nature to take things for granted (a friend will tell me there is no such thing as “human nature”) but it sure comes easy to me.  Sure, it is easy to be grateful for big, good things that occur.  (I swear, God, I’ll be SO grateful when I win the Powerball Lottery!)  What is difficult is being grateful for, hell, even just noticing to be grateful for, those small things I take for granted.  Things like warmth, wellness, water to drink, a roof over my head, a job, an easy breath, movement with no aches and pains….

So here’s to warmth, a dry pair of socks, and life below the Mason-Dixon line.  (Can you still refer to the Mason-Dixon line these days?)

“If, in an hour of noble elation, I could write a bit of glorified prose that would soften the stern ways of life, and bring to our fevered days some courage, dignity, and poise – I should be well content.”  Max Ehrmann

Ehrmann wrote this years before Desiderata, which never really “took” in his lifetime.  In fact, in the tenure of his life he would likely be properly classified as a “failed poet” assuming there is such a thing (I am a believer that there is not).  In any event, the quote stands strong on its own, but stronger knowing that Ehrmann accomplished his goal.   It occurs to me that there’s something to be learned there.

I read this beautiful piece of writing in Uncommon Gratitude by Joan Chittister:

“Rosa Parks died quite recently, the black woman who refused to give up her seat all those years ago on a bus in Alabama: the incident that really sparked the final and greatest phase of the civil rights movement. She was a humble person, even dare we say it, a good sinner. She knew that she was caught up in a system of unreality, not by her fault or choice; she knew that she ought to be asking a question about it; she knew that there was, all of a sudden, a choice about whether she would let daily absurdity and injustice go unchallenged. And she was too tired to argue with her intuitions. She took her responsibility because, as a good sinner, she knew that whatever in her life was marked by a selfishness or idleness she could change if she wanted was somehow connected with the evil of the world around—and that therefore there was a possibility, an extraordinary possibility, of acting as if that evil was not the last word. If she could decide about something no one expected her to decide about, what might become possible for others? She didn’t know, and I don’t for a moment imagine that all this sort of thing went consciously through her head—but she acted as if the world was bigger than she or her society had thought.”

Two thoughts catch my attention there – That the thought that evil is not the last word, and the thought that I can change myself, we can change the world, by acting as if the world is bigger than I/we had thought.

“There are joys which long to be ours.  God sends ten thousand truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.”  Henry Ward Beecher

Oh, the joys/birds I have missed!  But wait, what’s that singing I hear?

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”  Proverbs 27:17

Yes, the friction of two things, each against the other, can sharpen, but can also dull.  The abrasive quality of a whetstone can sharpen a knife, but if not properly used, it can also dull the knife’s edge.  Similarly, communication between two people with varying ideas and ideologies can sharpen each, but their communications can also “dull” each.

All this to say that in dialogue today we seem to have more dulling than sharpening going on.  We don’t have “dialogue” so much as “argument.”  The vision that often comes to mind these days when engaged in or watching others engage in conversation is that of two fighters in a ring who step into the middle and beat on each other, then retreat to their respective corners and glare across the ring at the other.  Thus, this from Joan Chittister’s Uncommon Gratitude is instructive and insightful:

“Being able to think differently from those around us and being able to function lovingly with people who think otherwise is the ultimate in human endeavor. It requires three things: a heart large enough to deal with conflict positively, enduringly, and kindly; a keen sense of personal purpose, the notion that there is something on the horizon that is worth debating; and a soul sensitive enough to transcend the tensions of the immediate for the sake of the quality of the future.

I like that, the thought that the meaningful sharing of ideas “is the ultimate in human endeavor.”  I like less the thought that to engage in that endeavor requires something of me – heart, purpose, and a sensitive soul.”  But then, it occurs to me that the outcome is worth the effort, or, as one of my mentors used to say, “the juice is worth the squeeze.”

“Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”  Luke 12:15 (KJV)

“Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have….”  Luke 12:15 (The Message)

This caught my eye and mind today because this is the time of year for tallying things up – on many fronts.   We are inundated with year in review “Best of” and “Top Ten Lists.”  It is also a time, in my profession, and I assume others, where ledgers are balanced and the year is analyzed in the fiscal sense.  In the vernacular, it is a time when the pie is split, and human nature being what it is, everyone wants as much pie as possible.

As such, it is a good time to remember that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” or, “life is no defined by what you have,” no matter what or how much you have.

Of course, it is always a good time to remember that.

“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.”  Alphonse Karr

This points out the duality of gratefulness and grumbling, both sides of the same coin.  The reality is that despite my insistence on doing so, it is difficult to judge, in the moment, the “good” or “bad” of the consequences of a given event until its impact plays out in time.  Don’t get me wrong.  Some acts, some events are genuinely “bad,” but they seem to somehow “turn out alright” in the end, at least when viewed from a distance, over time,    In the context of the quote, am I focusing on the thorns or the roses?  Each time I start thinking down this path I think of Radney Foster’s tune – Half My Mistakes:

Half of my mistakes I swear I should’ve known better
Half of my mistakes were just amongst friends
You get a little distance on it, the truth is clearer
Oh, and half of my mistakes I’d probably make ’em again

 

We can search to the point where only wonder will do or we can turn the spiritual life into some kind of corporate strategy aimed at storing up rituals in return for heaven.”  Joan Chittister

Chittister notes that all faith leads to some doubt, or at least to “the point where only wonder will do….”  Faith that leads to certainty, particularly faith that seems to suggest that I have figured it all out (and THEY haven’t) isn’t really faith at all.

In any event, I like that phrase – “the point where only wonder will do….”