Praying
"It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak. "
Mary Oliver
Grace is one of those words that people use in many different ways. My first reference for this word is that my mother's name was Grace. She was the kind of woman that was able to do a million things every day. When we would kid her, we of course would call her Amazing Grace. When you think of Grace, what comes to mind for you?
I wanted to start this blog to share with you the many ways that God can be in our lives, usually when we least expect it, and in ways, we might not imagine. I will also share those times of frustration and lament, times when our prayers seem to be lost in the wind.
During the middle years of my life, I had gotten away from the church and felt very distant from God. This was a marked difference from my childhood. With God's help during a very vulnerable time in my life, I was led back to my faith. I found myself in an Episcopal Church and fell in love very quickly. With that came a million questions. Some people just show up, not me. One of the first things I fell in love with was this idea of Grace from the Book of Common Prayer.
Grace is God's favor towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace, God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.
God knows who we are and knows those places that keep us stuck. Fear of growing and living into the persons God longs for us to be is more profound than we know. Through grace, God loves us, opens our minds, gets our attention by stirring our hearts, and giving us the courage to live a full-bodied faith.
Living a life of faith is not a fixed thing. Loving and living with God as our center challenges us, to always stretch, calls us to see beyond the edges of what we know about ourselves, and the world around us. For some that can sound really scary, but I want to offer up a different way to look at it.
What would it be like to think about our relationship with God as one that causes us to be really curious? The last year has forced us to separate ourselves from our lives as we knew them. A disease that we knew nothing about and did not understand has been the lens through which we have lived our lives. Central to much of the change in behavior was a fear that this illness would painfully affect our families and ourselves.
Many of us have heard the idea that if you have a deep faith you will not experience fear. That has not been my experience. I believe this is another way people can tell themselves they aren't doing "it " right. There has been much in the last year that has been scary. Everywhere we looked, everything we read, and the information that we received called us to change how we lived, moved, and have always had our being.
We now find ourselves entering the time when we can begin to go back to our lives. With vaccinations and more knowledge about COVID 19, we are being nudged out into the world again. What does that feel like for you? What are the grace-filled moments of connecting with family and friends? Are there things that you may have learned or discovered during this time that you don't want to lose or don't really know what to do with? We are all living this day differently.
My prayer is that as I share my reflections on faith, grace, and life, it will encourage you to do the same. In the wise words of Mary Oliver, may this be a "doorway into thanks," a window into the grace in our lives, and an invitation to listen and be present on this wild ride we call life.
