What is Grace? Does it flow to me, and does it flow from me? I’m familiar with rare moments of grace touching me. Sometimes this happens unbidden, after some kind of inner work. Other times it comes as answer to a prayer, a heart-felt petition, or an un-named ache.
But this morning, I wondered if there is a grace that flows from me? When I consciously work, am aligned with myself, when words or actions come from the right place. Does a bit of grace flow out of me and touch another? Not of my doing, but because of my doing. Doing my work in that moment.
Grace is hidden in the sense that it can’t be seen or measured or proven. Yet it can be felt and known. In the rosery practice that I work with during these forty days of Lent, there’s a contemplation on “love for the inner hidden life of Grace.” The contemplation is given in connection with the story of Jesus, as a child, missing for three days. They finally found him in the temple probing the priests with questions. It was where he felt most at home.
I know that love of the inner life of Grace, yet it’s hard to describe what it is.
To know grace, I can’t expect it, or look for it, or want it. But I can be open to it. There’s an emptiness, a readiness. A love of the taste of it. Still, I must go about my daily work. I do believe receiving grace is connected to making efforts but does not come quid pro quo.
A Gift of Grace
Some time ago, I had a powerful experience with a morning exercise I’d worked on for years. It affected me so strongly that I felt propelled to present the exercise to a group that could work with it as a movement, since it involved arm and head gestures. This intention took me overseas to do something I had never done. Plus, I had no clear idea of how it was to be accomplished. Yet the urge to do this was clear, so I trusted. Trust was key.
One morning, during the ten days we had together, I entered the movements hall to prepare for morning exercise. Teaching the exercise was the first step towards fulfilling my intention of working at it as a movement. As I stood, alone in the early morning sun-lit space, something descended and flooded me with gratitude—both as a receiving and a giving. I knew I was being given permission, somehow, to be there. It was quite powerful.
My intention to work this inner exercise into a full movement has not yet been realized, but that is OK too. Grace entered me that morning, infused me with great joy, and that gift remains.
I have some suspicion of how we tend to use the word grace. In speaking about an experience as grace, I suspect this is my subjective reaction to the experience reflecting my value judgements, or preferences. It implies something good but, like certain folk stories where what appears to be a blessing turns out to be a curse, and vis-a-versa, can I truly know?
I am not sure why, but I have often viewed grace as related the Holy Spirit. Your saying ‘Grace is hidden’ correlates to this in the sense that it could be viewed it as third force.
Those in the work who experience Grace, would probably say “amen” to that, James!
After 50 years, my memory is a bit hazy, but perhaps you can ask one or two of the other third course students. We were waiting for Mr. B to come into the Library for a theme talk. I believe we were considering the 7 lines of Work. He came storming in, dropped heavily into his chair, stared at us with his piercing eyes and said, “There is only Grace!” rose and stormed out again. We all sat in silence for quite some time. Then one by one, we all got up to leave. A few of us went down to the Pub.
As Mr. B himself might have said, “Just so.”