spring

Who can afford to live without beauty? . . . If we get lost in dark despair, beauty takes us back to Center.

Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.

Grace comes when we are made to realize the futility and ephemeral nature of all things under the sun, and it is typical of human nature to resist this realization. When one thing turns to dust and ashes for us, we turn from it hopefully to something else, and so the restless search goes on. This seed of restlessness placed in the human heart is in reality a great blessing. For when we have discovered that all our fevered searching leads only to blank walls of disillusion, we begin to experience a new realization which makes way for God’s love in our heart.

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible.

Grace is an energy; not a mere sentiment; not a mere thought of the Almighty; not even a word of the Almighty...It is a divine energy; it is the energy of the divine affection rolling in plenteousness toward the shores of human need.

We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but the grace to transform them.

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. Yet, the choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious. Because every gift I acknowledge reveals another and another until, finally, even the most normal, obvious, and seemingly mundane event or encounter proves to be filled with grace. There is an Estonian proverb that says:

"Who does not thank for little
Will not thank for much."

Acts of gratitude make one grateful because, step by step, they reveal that all is grace.

There is a grace in life that can be trusted. In our struggle toward freedom we are neither abandoned nor alone.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

I want to leave enough room in my heart
For the unexpected,
For the mistake that becomes knowing,
For knowing that becomes wonder,
For wonder that makes everything porous,
Allowing in and out
All available light...

So I will stay open
And companionably friendly,
With all that presses out from the heart
And comes in at a slant
And shimmers just below
The surface of things.