Saying Grace...Giving Grace
Poetry Friday
Beloveds,
My grandparents used to say, “Let’s say grace” and we knew it was a signal for us to bow our heads in prayer. When I was growing up there were 8 kids and two adults around the table. The kids used this time of grace to position our hands (or forks) strategically around the table so we were ready to grab the food as soon as the prayer was over.
A couple of days ago someone said to me, “Thanks for giving me grace”. I’ve been curious about this meaning. Is it another meaning for the word grace or is “saying grace” and “giving grace” connected? I recently listened to a short clip of Eckhart Tolle. He said something like this —the reason people have a hard time with clearing their mind is because thoughts keep coming and we allow them to disrupt our process of mindfulness by being annoyed by them or giving them attention. I was surprised when he said he never understood the term frequently used: “clearing your mind”. I have a hard time with that too so I was interested in what he was going to say next. Tolle said that he understood mindfulness as more of letting the thought be there with no judgement. Then just letting it go. The letting go makes space for God or the Divine presence. This makes sense to me. The act of leaving the thought there without judgement or response and moving on does make space to be present to the now.
For me, making space is what I do when I give grace to someone or to some event I wasn’t expecting. It doesn’t erase anything but it is there in abeyance. And I can see now that in saying grace we made space for God before our meals.
What do you think? I consider giving grace and saying grace to be forms of suspending time and letting go of judgemental thoughts. It allows for purposefully making space. A space where the Spirit can have presence. In that conscious act, there is a silence that can be present in all forms of grace. I also think this works to put a pause on our ego self as well. We don’t need our ego involved in making grace. It also invites humility.
There are times I need to give grace to myself. In that act of grace I am holding myself right in the authentic feelings so I can be more curious of what it holds for me. Yes, giving grace to yourself is important, not as an excuse, but as an acknowledgement of making space to experience what you are feeling in the present moment. It also invites God to be present and a curiousness to what will transpire. When there are times I can’t be authentic to myself or to those around me it sure helps to give grace in those situations.
As an act of suspending thought we can be fully present to be curious and deepen into our heart space. I don’t have the answers as to how grace and worth are mingled together but I suspect that the more we accept our own worthiness, the more we are able to accept others grace and our own without excuse, just receive, give, and be grateful.
peace in the sweetness of summer,
Jace (they/them)
Grace givers are “Angels of the Get -Through” and grace receivers are survivors living in the grace-filled moments freely given.
Talking to Andrea
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I do not understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.
—Anne Lamott
With every cell, I listened
to her familiar voice,
her thoughtful silences,
her precision with verbs,
and though we spoke
of showerheads and
grocery shopping,
elections, underbellies and
standing beneath the moon,
we spoke only of grace, every
sentence somehow stitched
with the most stripped-down
kind of praise, the kind
that doesn’t sparkle,
doesn’t sing, doesn’t
shimmy, doesn’t offer
sweet perfume, the kind
of praise that is so naked,
so plain, so bare
there is nothing at all
between us and the
sheer magnificent truth
that we are here.
I long to name such aliveness,
at once composed
and uncontainable,
but it slips my attempts—
it’s like trying to fit a dress
on a sunbeam.
But I felt it, how
as we spoke I went
from being stone
to being sky. Oh glory,
with my everything,
I felt it.
Spelunking of the Soul
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I woke in the cave of my heart,
a slim shadow nested inside
an unbounded shadow,
and there, after decades of chatter
and prattle, I found you, silence.
Or more truly, after my clanging
and crying, my praising and soothing,
silence found me.
Quiet comforter.
Place of no promises.
Infinite cradle. Infinite womb.
An endless invitation to wake
forever.
I woke in the cave of my heart
being tuned to join a song I knew
but had never been taught,
a song ringing inside every cell.
Whatever I’d thought
was my own voice was one silken thread
in a warp made of silence,
a weft made of song.
I met there all the beauty I could bear.
Is it here even now as I sit in my room
with the low hum of lights
and the long list of things to do?
I close my eyes,
empty my pockets of certainty,
listen for what is real.