GRACE

“Son, you have no idea how good this decision is.”
Almost exactly six years ago on the first of January,
I heard a faint grace-filled voice inside me, enveloping me
when walking my daughter’s huskie, Luna
to let go,
to descend,
to step into the unknown. 

Grace descended as I decided to descend.
My calculating mind does not understand grace
but the submissive soul just needs to stand under grace,
with my head tilted, eyes looking up and my hands stretched wide,
the grace the tangible and the powerful
forged a new way of living and being in the world.

I have learned that I must live my life,
not my ego’s projection,
not what others expect of me,
certainly not what the systems of power tell me.

I have learned that descension and even darkness can be gifts, too
gift of discernment,
gift of dependency,
and the gift of grace,
experiencing God as the ultimate lifter and salvation.

I have learned to be in wonder and astonishment,
the wonder of how everything is connected,
the wonder of how nature simply is,
the wonder of my true desires,
and of course, the wonder of God, the Grace Giver.

This poem needs little explanation as I try to summarize the last six years’ journey. My life's most important “decision” came with the call to descend. It was not a call to an invitation to step up. The paradoxical “falling upward” phrase Richard Rohr coined rings true after six years of looking at my rear-view mirror. I am not even sure whether I would distinguish words like desolation from consolation and vice versa. Desolation can usher in consolation. Consolation can also quickly be submerged under desolation.

Perhaps the invitation is to welcome them all as guests with great gifts. Because consolation is the grace of immediacy. And desolation is consolation in disguise of grace to come. No matter what, grace is the constant.