All we need to do is set our sails.
I love this quote from a 19th century Indian mystic, and for some odd reason, it brought to mind the image of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. I saw this masterpiece first-hand when visiting the Sistene Chapel when I was just 11 years old. My father surprised my mother for her 50th birthday by flying five children and my soon to be brother-in-law to meet them in Rome.
I can now recall moments of grace during the entire trip, which I did not recognize at such a tender age. My wandering off near the Spanish Steps – captivated by the numerous Italian merchants as well as tourists – and being lost for what must have seemed like an eternity to my parents (immediately prior to their instituting a “buddy system”); my older brother, Johnny dangling me off the Leaning Tower of Pisa and then bringing me back to “terra firma”; my father not strangling me when I did an immediate about-face at the statue of David in Florence to fulfill my single-minded desire to feed the pigeons in the piazza; and in Paris on route home, being literally “star struck” when the ceiling of the infamous Lasserre Restaurant opened up to reveal the most brilliant night sky I had ever seen.
Sometimes you don’t hear messages until you’re ready . . . I suppose I’ve been primed for some rather poignant ones on grace of late.
Frederick Buechner defines it this way: “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 . . . 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 the same 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.”
So grace seems to be somewhat of a “transaction” as I read recently, a two-way street if you will, necessitating a giver AND receiver. We all seem to be on the “trajectory of God’s grace” as I heard on Sunday yet according to Beuchner, we must do our part.
Our part is to show up and pay attention, to listen for the whispers and see with the eyes of our heart, to maintain a state of breathless expectancy and readiness, and ultimately – in keeping with a recent column – to board the train . . . Or, if you prefer, nautical imagery, hoist the sail and receive.
In receiving the gift of grace, we receive life and thereby, miraculously, become life-givers to others.
There’s simply no more beautiful “transaction” than that in my view- one which can reap ever-lasting dividends.
If you allow the “clever North wind” (Chocolat) to fill your sails, it may set you on a different course or keep you right where you are. I believe we will always be wandering spiritually, however, until we reach out and touch the one Being who “can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart” and our soul finds its true home.
The winds of grace do blow all the time.
Are you ready?
– Caroline Watkins