21 January

The New Era: Finding Grace Within.

by Jon Katz
Grace: The Virtuous Impulse

It seems we are in a new era, hopeful for some, frightening for others.

There are all kinds of personal challenges for everyone – what to do, how to feel – and the spiritual challenges are enormous as well.  Our civic world has abandoned spirituality for power and greed, but a spiritual life is my salvation.

In this new time, I thought deeply yesterday about grace, divine and otherwise, about grace within, and I believe it is grace that will carry me, lift me up and ground me.

I should warn you that I am not hear to tell you about the awful times we are living in, to shake my head in sorrow, to share my outrage with strangers, to despair. I am full of hope, the world is full of crisis and wonder and mystery, as always.

I had this mystical dream last night, it went on forever.

I was alone in a vast crowd of angry, jostling, frightened people, all shouting their grievances at one another. It was kind of Hellish scene, out of Dante, off of cable news, off of television: we were all doomed to shout at one another for all eternity, God is punishing us, we were told,  for our many shortcomings and cruelties, for despoiling the earth, abandoning the poor; he decreed that our arguments would continue forever and could never be resolved.

We were condemned to never listen and never be heard for all eternity.

That was our punishment for shedding empathy, for surrendering to hatred.

Only it was not God, of course, who issued those decrees. It was our country, our only world. It was the TV news.  And the most horrifying thing was that the dream went on forever, I believed it would never end.

The revolution begins, a non-violent one that turns sharply in another direction, towards grace.

Divine grace is a theological term present in many different faiths. it has been defined in many ways. In Christianity it is the divine influence which exists inside of human souls, and which brings the salvation of God and sanctity.

In almost all faiths, grace inspires virtuous impulses, and imparts strength to endure trial, avoid conflict, keep faith and resist the temptation to hate and despair. This is, after all, our only world, and we must all live together in it. That is what it means to be human.

Grace is the state of individual virtue or excellence, of strength and truth and compassion. For some grace is of divine origin, for others it is the rainbow at the end of the hero journey, the discovery of our true and beautiful selves. I have to ask myself, what do I want to be in this new time? Who do I want to be? Surely not in that Hellish dream, is that a conscious choice of any thinking person?

I want to find grace within.

Last night, I had dinner with a good friend, we were talking about the need to stand in our strength and truth, to do good when we could, to not be sucked into the hateful whirlpool of argument and division. To listen and grow and, if need be, to change.  How true, he said, I agree, that is important. Then, in the next breath, he said “but you must watch the Inauguration coverage, I think you will find it disturbing, upset. It’s important to watch.” And he began to recite the litany of angry things I know so well by now.

I took his hand, and said thanks much, but I don’t need to watch the inauguration coverage, I know the story,  I don’t need to hear the speeches, or make the arguments. I am not spending years of my life in that way, I will find a better way to deal with it.

Speeches are not important, talk is so very cheap.

Over the next years I wish to do my work, live my life, show up when necessary, be able to love and create and find peace as I enter this new and perhaps final phase of my life. I can do that without arguing or complaining or stirring up my lesser angels.

Living that way is a choice, not a sentence.

Grace is the other choice,  to live in peace and faith, to find the strength to endure trial, avoid conflict, do good and resist the temptation to hate and despair. Grace is the open mind, and the open ear. Grace is the art of  listening and hearing. Of learning how to state and hold my values and beliefs without denigrating or harming other people or pushing them away. To speak for myself, not to speak to tell others what to do or think.

Thomas Merton, whose live epitomized grace, wrote once of the monks he met before he decided to become a Trappist and undertake his hero journey and leave the secular world behind. He wrote of his idea of grace:

“I just remember their kindness and goodness to me, and their peacefulness and their utter simplicity. They inspired real reverence, and I think, in a way, they were certainly saints. And they were saints in that most effective and telling way: sanctified by leading ordinary lives in a completely supernatural manner, sanctified by obscurity, by usual skills, by common tasks, by routine, but skills, tasks, routine which received a supernatural form from grace within.”

Grace within. That’s what I seek, what i want,  what will ground me and uplift me and carry me forward on wave of virtuous impulse, to endure trial and conflict, to keep my faith and resist the temptation to hate and despair.

Grace within. It is not about the speeches others make, it is about the speeches I make, inside of my head, and to me, sanctified by obscurity, common tasks, small deeds of good.

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