Grace is lying to despair. Bookner was a novelist and Presbyterian pastor known for writing about faith with sincerity, wit and wonder. He once noted that most religious words are very shopping, so they barely register –Exclude For blessings. Grace wrote, “You can never get it, but you can only be given. You can’t get it. You can bring more than the taste of raspberries or cream, and your own birth.”
God’s grace, in his words
“Here is your life. You may never have been, but you are, because without you, the party would not have been perfect. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. We cannot separate ourselves.
Only one thing is asked. “Like any other gift, Grace only makes sense if you reach out and take it.”
It’s easier to do something than to receive it without an explanation. Even in words gift You can feel suspicious, like debt hidden in packaging. There’s nothing disarming about the idea that there’s nothing to do. It opposes everything you learn from school, family, religion, or work. Most systems are built on effort and rewards. Grace breaks that pattern. I don’t follow the rules. It gives you something that cannot be purchased and ruins the logic of exchange.
There is also the issue of recognition. Grace is often unlabeled. It may look like a break or a moment of slipping without notice. It may be the one who appears when you are least expecting. Or a busy, thoughtless silence. Or released from what was once believed to be essential. What appears to be a collapse can be a relief. And what appears to be a threat may actually be a bounty.
There are stories that are often told about a man chased by a tiger. A tree growing off the cliff breaks his fall. Hanging by one arm – the tiger above, the jagged rock below – he screams. The voice replies, “Yes?” The man weeps, “God, God, is that you?” Again, “Yes.” “I will do anything,” the man pleads. “Help me,” God says, “Now let me go.” The man pauses and calls out, “Is anyone else there?”
We deserve the courage of our beliefs only if we have the power to let them go.
Hemingway called courage “great under pressure.” But sometimes, greater strength is simply accepting it. As Buechner says, “It’s also a gift that you can probably reach out and take it.”
The woman undergoing chemotherapy agrees to stop fighting the prognosis and spend the last few months at home with her child. Or, in the middle of a divorce, the couple sits down one final conversation at a time. Rather than reconciliation, it’s about speaking clearly without taking responsibility for many years.
Grace is recursive. Multiply with every breath. It’s about taking a deep breath before jumping at judgment. It can look like surrender, or silence, or two people tell the truth too late to change the outcome. Grace is about putting it in and letting go, and often the courage to let go.
Notes and reading
Rene Magritt (1898–1967) was a Belgian surrealist painter known for his unstable images that challenge perception and suggest hidden meanings. An unexpected answer It suggests a normal violation. An unexpected opening that appears to be impossible to pass through.
Frederick Bookner – Beyond words: Daily Readings at Faith ABCS (2004). –
Ernest Hemingway – The term “great under pressure” first became famous in 1929, when Hemingway used the phrase. New Yorker A profile piece written by Dorothy Parker, “Artist’s Rewards.”
Talk – “please help me..” from Extreme acceptance -Tara Brach (2004). Blach is an American psychologist, author, and Buddhist teacher who founded the Insight Meditation Community in Washington, DC.
[“My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God’s grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word. . . it’s that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit.” – Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint (pbk 2021). Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran minister and public theologian—an acclaimed mainline preacher—both traditional and maverick.]
Tip #202 – After Strongman
Tip #201 – True Comedy
Approx. 2 + 2 = 5
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Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
