blessings, benevolence, and beauty

I just taught a short story by James Joyce at my field experience in Granville High. The name of the short story is Grace; it's in the collection of short stories called Dubliners. Joyce defines grace as basically the unmerited love of God toward mankind. Ironically, the whole story is about a group of drunk men who misunderstand faith and make many comical errors about the Church.

Who cares, right? Well, maybe it's just me. I'm completely impacted daily by literature, music, and film. The "secular" and religious realms are blurred in the sense that I find spiritual in the stereotypically un-spiritual. It just amazes me that a century ago Joyce struggled with the concept of grace as much as I do now.

I picked up The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross this summer. It was less than six bucks at B&N and I thought it would be an interesting, but easy, read of a little more than a hundred pages. Of course, though, it left my head spinning. St. John describes how grace permeates the essence of who we are. In giving grace, God lovingly elevates your inmost being. You are not simply better than you were -- as if God added some quantity of natural goodness to all you already had. God has changed the very quality of what you are in your humanity. Now you have a different way of existing.

Grace. The word is thrown around a lot. Sometimes I lose insight and understanding because I can't grasp the concept.

I don't easily show grace to those who wrong me yet I expect it without hesitation from God. This is when I imagine Him in His heavens, sighing with exhaustion from all my demands. Yet, He will still be the grace-bearer to me. Always.

It's a paradox. I don't show grace and, yet, because I expect grace I feel I don't deserve grace.

“From His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

{John 1:16}

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I met Grace at a food pantry in San Diego. She was waiting for her free shoes and bread.

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