Grace vs. Heart Thrash

As much as I'd like to finish the Year of Sundays project, that would mean I couldn't go to the to The Bridge every Sunday, which is where I've been for the past few months as part of my DO ALL THE THINGS mental health regime. Last Sunday, wild horses couldn't have kept me from being there (and not just for the free bread). Angie and Todd were on music duty again and they were so wonderfully loud, it somehow managed to fill in all my hollowest crannies. Which is some pretty fucking loud music. I loved it almost as much as I loved the sermon, in which Geoff did his best to explain grace, a concept a godless wonder like myself can only maybe sometimes BEGIN to grok on a good day. But one of my New Year's Resolutions is to LET IT GO and I can't stop thinking about how that might be the same thing as grace.

God-talk aside, I agreed with a lot of what Geoff had to say about how there's a difference between being a LOVING person and being a GRACEFUL person. I think it's possible to have love without grace. Love is something we need so much of that most of us are designed to give and get it pretty easily. It's impossible not to love our parents, our children, our partners, our friends. But most of the time that love has strings attached. Like, don't be an asshole. Don't hurt me. Love me back the way I need you to. Be there for me.

Grace, on the other hand, has no expectations. For Christians I think it's probably the idea of God having your back all the time so even if you fall, he always catches you. He fills in the gaps that you can't fill yourself. But since I don't believe in God, grace is pretty fucking terrifying for me. The way I see it, grace has no me. It's loving ANYWAY. It's practicing what Geoff calls, "extravagant benevolence," which is a beautiful way to describe a terrifying way of living.

After the sermon Joel described it as that moment Wiley Coyote runs off the cliff and realizes there's no ground under him anymore, which sums it up pretty damn well.

I'd like to think I've got the balls (or stupidity) to keep running off of cliffs. I want to be the girl who can catch herself when gravity sets in or at the very least, grab a branch to soften the fall. But here's a big shocker: it's not something I know how to do yet. I can love big and hard, but I also give my love about as gracefully as a linebacker. I'm not sure where I'm going with this or how it's all connected, but suffice it to say that I owe Joel so much grace that I'm overdrawn. I should be paying him interest.

But on the other hand when I think about how grace actually FEELS, I'm not sure I can do it. At least once a day I think, "but what if I'm wrong?" and my heart explodes in my gut so fast and so hard and so loud that the sound of my own blood thrashing toward my extremities makes my ears ring. My therapist asked what I call that feeling and I'm pretty sure it's heartbreak, but I don't know. Whatever I call it, I'm not sure I like it when my heart feels like a tsunami drowning me from the inside.

Is that the risk I take in pursuing grace without believing in God?

Whenever I think about that hovering moment of gravitational doom, I can almost hear that heart thrash murmuring from under my skin. I'm supposed to listen to my body, right? I just wish I knew what it was trying to say. Is it a warning? Some kind of emotional prescience? An omen? Or is it more like running - no pain, no gain. Maybe I'm just stretching my heart muscle in a way that's exquisitely painful because I've never used it before.

Gimme a hundred more miles or so and I'll see if I can figure it out.

Comments

[Kim]

Grace is that unconditional love you feel for your children. Because there truly are no strings attached. I shall love my children with all my heart until the day I die. I might not like them at times. I might be truly disappointed in them. But love is always there.

Love is collecting mug shot pictures of my children to haunt them with, knowing that I shall still be involved in their lives to be able to haunt them with the old mug shot pictures.

Love is throwing a wedding for a daughter knowing full well the guy is an ass and then helping her through her divorce and then being ready to support her through yet another marriage to a guy who, while not as large an ass as the first one, you still have doubts about.

Grace/Love Unconditional. No one loves perfectly, but Grace makes it OK.

[Canadian Rachel]

I, too, am an atheist, and I'm having thoughts on this subject, but it may take me a while to formulate them properly...

[Kris]

"But on the other hand when I think about how grace actually FEELS, I'm not sure I can do it. "

I know you don't believe in God, so it's weird following you talking about grace. Because as a Christian I believe that grace is a gift from God and doesn't come from me at all, and I'm always praying asking for it. So grace feels like running off the cliff, thinking I'm going to fall, then realizing, no, there's a net.

[Rachel R.]

You and I have similar issues and expectations in our relationships, but I've recently realized the beauty of "letting it go" or "grace." For years, I've slowly built up an understanding that Ben and I are different people with different needs and ways of expressing ourselves. Like you and Joel, ours tend to clash.

Over Christmas break, something just fell into place where I was relaxed and stopped being so angry about everything, and, in turn, Ben started being more affectionate and complimentary (not a lot, but enough to mean the world to me and make me secure in his love). While we've had setbacks, I've tried to maintain that feeling and take a step back with, literally, everything that makes me angry and anxious. Yesterday, Ben was thoughtless and went into defensive mode when I asked him to do something that he should have done. And I didn't care. It blew right over me. I felt nothing but calm and mentioned that it wasn't worth fighting about and that I would do it. Afterward, we were fine. I never got upset, and he made me a delicious drinking chocolate dessert.

What Kim wrote above is also how I view this. Lucia has started having tantrums. I still love and want to be around her no matter what.. Something similar can be said of "love" or "grace" or whatever you want to call it.

[Canadian Rachel]

OK, I guess for me (a fellow non-believer) grace is kind of the opposite of that you're saying. It's not so much about ME running over the cliff (although sometimes I do), but more about me walking around open-hearted and seeing when OTHER people are Wile E. Coyote-ing it over the edge. Sometimes I can help those people, people who can never repay me. And I do it because they are my fellow humans, and I love them, and I am in the right place at the right time, and I have what they need and am in a position to be generous with it.

So for me, grace is about holding the net, when and how I can. It requires me to be healthy and whole and not careening over a cliff at that very moment myself. I can't be so wrapped up in my own pain that I can't see anyone else's.

Remember the time I wrote a comment that you found particularly moving? I HAD to write that. It was a lightning-strike intuition, an overpowering feeling that I could make a difference, right that moment. I had the power and the knowledge and the words, the capacity and desire to be generous. There was no way you could repay me, and I would never ask for that. You owe me nothing. That's grace, to my mind. We come through for people when they need us.

You will be there for other people too. It's possible you can't hold the net right now because you're still tied up in pain, still falling, and that's okay. You will land. The world will catch you. And then it will be your turn to catch the world.

[Rachel R.]

I want to expand on something that both Canadian Rachel and I wrote. "Letting go" is exactly that; it's letting go of yourself. Self-analyzing and trying to understand what is wrong, etc. actually makes me miserable because I'm living in my head and not in the moment and not with those around me. I'm too caught up in how someone is making me feel and not the someone and how they feel. I'm too caught up in how sad or angry I am to notice how beautifully a bird drifts into the air or how carmelized onions taste or how music lilts. Lately, whenever the mood to go into my head or my emotions hits, I ignore it and focus on my surroundings instead. This may be the antithesis of therapy where they tell you to feel your feelings. But it makes me calmer and more present, which makes me happier. Now that I'm writing it, it also sounds like meditation.

[Canadian Rachel]

Rachel R, well put. I'm a big fan of meditation myself, and I really do think it increases my capacity for being open to the world around me, for noticing things and having compassion for others. Feel your feelings, yes, but then let them go.

[savedbygrace]

Grace is realizing that everything will turn out for the best, whether now or 20 years from now. That is the difference between Wiley Coyote falling and flying. Grace means knowing you will fly, that you were meant to fly, and that the only thing keeping you from flying is self-doubt, suspicion and fear of failure.