On Grace

Recently a DM reader asked me to write on grace.  I am happy to oblige. 

A number of years ago I was leading a workshop on the Cosmic Christ at a large conference in New York City.  Following the workshop, a group of five Jewish women came up to me and said, “We have asked our rabbi what grace means, and were unsatisfied with his answer.  How do you define grace?”  I replied, “Unconditional love, the flow of unconditional love.”  With that they all smiled, thanked me, and walked away.

Grace is a blessing, a gift.  The word “grace” is related to the word “thanks,” gratia, gratitude, graciousness and gratis.  Aquinas says, “Divine help is accorded gratis to human beings and as a result it quite fittingly took the name grace.”

Last night there was a huge and pounding rainfall where I live, weathermen call it “a river of rain”.  And it was.  And a blessing since the West is always needing rain these days.  I recognized grace in that river of rain.  Grace is like a gratuitous pounding of water and rain to the parched. 

Grace glistens. Like doxa or glory.  Grace is bigger than us—like rain is.  It comes from another hand and another place.  We do not make it or manufacture it, it is not rationed or in short supply.  Grace is abundant.  It refreshes.  It blesses.

Bad theologies have put a wedge between nature and grace but a mystic like Meister Eckhart recognizes that “nature is grace.”  Humans can be instruments of grace to one another and to future generations. 

I prayed last night that rain would drench the souls of ALL human beings at this perilous time in history when we must all wake up and grow up and out of our adolescent state as a species.  

Wake up to the common good, to the survival of the planet, to the crisis we are all sharing in, to the possibility of a future.  Wake up to our capacity for compassion, justice, forgiveness, for creativity and moving on.  That would be a grace for sure. 

To be continued.

See Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 156f., 277, 293, 308, 362, 379f., 443.

And Fox, Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 30-34, 40-45, 71-79, 91-94, 1-2-113, 576, etc.

Banner Image: “Rain Dance.” Photo by Alex Cheek on Flickr

Queries for Contemplation

What is your experience and understanding of grace?  Do you recognize humans as being a grace to one another?  Do you recognize creation as grace?

Recommended Reading

Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him.  He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French).  He  gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way. 
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake

Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart

Matthew Fox’s comprehensive translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons is a meeting of true prophets across centuries, resulting in a spirituality for the new millennium. The holiness of creation, the divine life in each person and the divine power of our creativity, our call to do justice and practice compassion–these are among Eckhart’s themes, brilliantly interpreted and explained for today’s reader.
“The most important book on mysticism in 500 years.”  — Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kissing Sleeping Beauty Goodbye.