To pray is to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live... It is so embarrassing to live. How strange we are in the world and how presumptuous our doings. Only one response can maintain us: Gratefulness for witnessing the wonder: for the gift of our unearned right to live, to adore, to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.
Grace is what happens when openness to chance yields a deeper awareness of the cosmos or one’s place in it . . . when luck leads to spiritual insight . . . Proust called chance experiences "earth experience of grace."