"Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home." --Amazing Grace, by John Newton
We interrupt this sharp elbowed, kind of wacky, certainly bumpy, world right now to bring you…. a little…. grace.
Yes, grace.
No, not the prayer said at your Thanksgiving or holy day or holiday table, though God knows we could all use some prayers right now. Grace, but not the kind we see from a talented ballet dancer, or nimble gymnast, though I am amazed at how some folks are just so physically graceful.
The kind of grace I speak of us is about how we are treated by others and how others treat us, especially when we’ve screwed up or made a big mistake. It’s the quality of grace folks of faith often attribute to the God they know, as in a God who loves them unconditionally and forgives them absolutely. It’s the feeling of grace we experience if someone just gives us a break when we really, really need it. When we are at our worst for whatever reason yet still, a friend or a family member, maybe even a stranger, stays by us and helps us to return to our best.
Grace.
To say that our world, and Creation, need grace right now…. that’s an understatement. We are living in sharp and scary, stress-filled, and sometimes traumatic grace-less times. We all know the list, right? Pandemic. Civic separation and conflict. War. Inflation. Nasty politicians fighting in the sandbox.
In a recent Atlantic magazine article, “Why People Are Acting So Weird,” author Olga Khazan gives us the laundry list of today’s current social ills, seemingly everyone acting out. Rage in the skies and on airplanes as the masked and unmasked square off. Culture wars around issues like banning books. Public displays of incivility and downright meanness on the rise. Record numbers of car crashes. Increased drinking and drug use and overdose deaths, more than ever before. A national murder rate that’s increased in the past two years by almost one-third, the largest uptick ever recorded.
As Khazan asks in exasperation, “How did Americans go from clapping for health-care workers to threatening to kill them?” That’s not hyperbolic. Just last month white supremacists protested outside of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, with a sign that ominously read, “BW Hospital Kills Whites.”
WHAT THE…….!!!???
Time out people! Take a chill pill. Just breathe, ok? And maybe, most important of all, let’s try and treat one another with grace and show one another grace, in these high emotion, high stress, high fear times.
So, perhaps, don’t be so judgy about folks and their politics—I know I need to give some of my fellow citizens a break. I don’t know what it is like to walk in their shoes or to live in their lives. I’ve no idea what keeps them up at night, the challenges they are facing right now. They need some grace. Some space. Some kindness.
Grace: shown to the people I work with and the people I work for. They are worried about their bills, and they are worried about their kids and their health, and the health of their loved ones and they are exhausted from being whipsawed with all the changing health news and COVID news and war news that comes pouring out of their phones that they just can’t put down. WHEW! They must be spiritually exhausted after the past 104 weeks or so. They absolutely need a little grace and understanding.
And yes, grace needs to be shown to ourselves by ourselves. Like when you get cranky with the family because everything is so worrisome right now. Or when I beat myself up over the fact I’ve yet to lose that COVID extra poundage or I am watching too much TV to blow off steam and relax. Or how some days are just so hard---to wade back into the world, this very hard world and very sharp world. Give yourself a break!
Grace. When we receive it, there is nothing else like it. The grace of God comforts us. The grace of a neighbor heartens us. The grace of a loved one soothes us. Grace given, grace received just makes life softer, gentler, more beautiful and filled with hope for better tomorrows.
Grace: we all need it. Amazing grace.
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