Grace
How then, shall we live? To grasp the essence of this question is two or threefold, or likely more. How shall we orient our hearts towards the world such that we can bear it and bear fruit into it? How shall we gaze upon our future and past, our friends and family, such they we can make sense of them? How shall we move through each dark corridor of life and choice we are presented, without being immobilized and caught in the trap of a thousand worlds?
Over the years the answer becomes clearer: it is only through grace. I cannot speak yet of what grace is, for it is delicate and I must not disrupt the trance it keeps me in. Yet, I can describe how to live with it, what small answers I have found. Grace transcends tragedy and it’s course will be presented to the seeking heart. You need only speak it’s name quietly to yourself when you are lost, and a thread will tug gently at your heart, showing you the way. It is found in how we move when we need not ask ourselves what the next step is, but have learned, for the moment at least, to listen to some deeper knowledge tucked inside us. Fill yourself with grace and the smallest task becomes beautiful, and carrying it out orders all the world around you. Struggle ceases to overcome you and something becomes clear. Your eyes, perhaps your heart.
It is not an easy thing to live with grace, and it is not as if it removes all chaos from us. It is in it’s nature to come and go, but we can hope to grow a home for it in our hearts and welcome it gladly each time it returns. To demand it’s presence would surely cause it to flee. It is the antidote to anxiety; grace casts this from our heart, and calms our worried heads. Face things as they are, for grace is the friend of truth. Through lies entertained, the passage it might take to us narrows. Grace is the gift brought to the man who expects to be beaten down, and knows that no worldly struggle can remove from him his dignity. Given all the curses and binds we encounter daily, which seem the marker of the modern world, it is a gift we should pray to find. If we should expect that peace be found outside ourselves, we will surely not find it within. Grace travels on the wings of angels, and should we awake one morning to find it on our pillows, we should not be surprised if it is gone the next.
For where we are, there it may come, and wherever we go it will not be lost to us. It will guide us home from the darkest mazes of our minds. Grace will calm our frantic reasoning as we attempt to close our eyes to the world and build it anew in our minds, and make the picture fit. For the tonic of reason soon ails us, and we find ourselves forgetting what we took it for. Simply do the dishes and dry them too. Ask for what you need and give freely what is needed of you. Live simply and know your heart well. Keep your place lovely such that you might always belong. Do not dwell in anxieties, and do not let your mind quiet the answers held in your heart.
Grace, daughter of love and sister to humility. Let her be welcome in your soul, and let your heart sing such that she may find her way back to you.
