As Lightly As A Feather: A Few Words About Grace
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(Lose the Net by Rasmus Faber Courtesy of Epidemic Music)
How amazing it is that good questions lead us so naturally to good answers, and that beautiful questions lead to even better answers! When we open ourselves to the things we don’t know, we’ve opened the doors to discovery and wonder and greater understanding.
I’m Scott Lennox and you’re listening to The Beautiful Question, a consideration of things that matter every day.
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It’s easy to think about grace in spiritual or religious terms, we’re used to hearing that, but what about the grace that’s found in everyday things or the grace between people and the grace we show ourselves.
Join me this week as we look at ways of recognizing grace when it is offered to us, and ways of setting it into motion in our own lives.
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When I look at roses or as I watch the flowers opening in my garden each Spring, I’m reminded of the many ways that Grace continues to unfold in my life, petal by remarkable petal.
In so many ways, these podcasts have grown out of my increasing awareness of Grace and the countless ways my life is and has been blessed. Some of the blessings have come as I have walked through life’s hardest challenges. Some of them seem to have come out of nowhere. And there are some I still can’t put into words.
I don’t discount my own efforts to live in meaningful ways every day, yet, each time I think about the grace I witness and experience, I drop into a space of the deepest gratitude. I know I haven’t received good things because I “earned” them. They don’t happen to me because I’m “good enough” or because I have “done enough” or because I’m “better” than anyone else.
They happen because grace is built into the rich fabric of life that’s enfolding in us and around us in every moment.
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Sometimes—as lightly as a feather, and usually when we least expect it or tell ourselves we don’t deserve it—grace comes to us through a word or gesture or an event. It can also be a slowly unfolding thing that reveals more and more of itself with the passing of time.
For example, in the years since each of them has passed from this world, I know with increasing clarity that there was abiding grace in the love my parents and younger brother had for me. I experience the same depth of grace now through the love my three sisters continue to show me. The love our family knows is unbending in its nature and reveals more and more of itself every day. As we hear of other families fighting or arguing or treating one another badly, that painful contrast shows us once again how richly blessed we are.
I know grace in the ways I am unconditionally loved and accepted and cared for, exactly as I am. There are gifts of the heart and mind and spirit that are impossible to put into words or give voice to, regardless how hard we try. Creating a “mashup” of the words “immense” and “inestimable,” I call such gifts “immenstible” as I bow my head in gratitude and wonder. Immenstible gifts. Immenstible grace. An immenstible life.
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Grace is also something we can show ourselves through mindful self-acceptance and self-forgiveness and intentional self-care. In small ways as well as large ones, there are no limits to it, and it can be demonstrated that those around us will benefit from the ways we love ourselves. Think about it, when we’re intentional about keeping our own inner tank full, we have so much more to offer those we care about.
I think of Patanjali, an ancient sage from India, who wrote that when we are steadfast in keeping ourselves from all thoughts of harm toward ourselves and others, all living beings will cease to have fear in our presence. I want that in my own life and I know that making such a resolute choice and carrying it out is part of putting grace into action in the real world.
For a moment, imagine what will happen when you offer yourself and those around you the grace of suspending judgment, of the grace of open acceptance, of the grace of forgiveness and the grace of the cancelling of resentment, or in what the author Greg Boyle calls “extravagant tenderness.” Let your mind rest on that idea for a while and watch what happens.
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I hope this week’s Beautiful Questions will serve to inspire your consideration of grace in action. Write and tell me what you discover. Here are my questions.
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Question One: In what ways has grace been shown to you in your own life, perhaps recently?
Question Two: What changes took place when you received it?
Question Three: In what ways will you show grace to yourself and to others this week?
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I look forward to hearing how you’ll do that.
As I say each week,
My Light with Your Light!
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I’m happy we can engage this way as we consider things that matter and what to do about them. If nothing else, I hope you feel inspired to look more deeply at ways of caring for yourself.
You can be further inspired by visiting my friends at Kosmos Journal. That’s K O S M O S Journal. Their mission is to inform, inspire, and engage global transformation in harmony with all life. You can easily find them online at Kosmos Journal dot O R G.
And at thebeautifulquestion.com, you can read the illustrated transcript of each podcast as you listen. We’ve also included an archive of all previous podcasts, including guided relaxation audios that can help you practice letting go on a daily basis.
If you find these podcasts useful, I encourage you to share them and tell others about them. That’s a great way of helping me get a voice of calm and collaboration and balance and encouragement out into the world. It’s a great way of spreading peace.
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I’m Scott Lennox, and this has been The Beautiful Question.
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The Beautiful Question is a One Light production, written, produced, and engineered by Scott Lennox at HeartRock Studios in Fort Worth, Texas, as a way of paying forward to life, being fully present, becoming better engaged with things that truly matter in a complex world, and committing to a healthier future for all of us.