Grace–mysterious and elusive.
In Nepal the words of Brennan Manning gave me new revelations about the
meaning of GRACE…
“The gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived.”
“Our culture has made the word grace impossible to understand.”
We have unfortunately created a do-it-yourself spirituality that has completely drown out the meaning of grace. And since we can’t seem to understand how to recieve grace, how could we ever understand how to give it?
Grace; the word has lost it’s raw imaginative power. It has been dulled down and watered down. […] Grace would not exist if we were not imperfect. And the bigger the imperfection, the greater the grace!
…”A moment of light breaks into our darkness + it is as though a voice were saying ‘you are acccepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, the name of whicch you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anythinng, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.’ If that happens to us we experience grace.
Let go of the good old days that never were-a regimented church you never attended, traditional virtues you never practiced, legalistic obedience you never honored, + a sterile orthodoxy you ne ver accepted. The old era is done.
We cannot will ourselves to accept grace. There are no magic words, preset formulas, or esoteric rites of passage.
We may be a long way from our goals, we may have more failures than achievements, we may not be wealthy or powerful or spiritual, we may not even be happy, but we are nonetheless accepted by God, held in his hands.”
