On Grace

“All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.” 
                                                                                  Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

Very early this week I found out that I might learn something about grace. It started with grace I received unknowingly at one particular moment and then it went on showing me its various ways and colours!

What is grace? Grace, the basis of not only Christianity, other religions but also philosophies and to some extent even our common sense. Grace, defined as simply as I can despite its complexity, is a gift offered to us unexpectedly, unknowingly, undeserved! And I write "offered" because to be offered and to accept are two very different things. Acceptance requires free will, another major pillar in many religions, and humility.

So besides not being in control of how or when we can be presented with grace, we most likely won't even know what to expect in the package. And with that comes an incredibly important state we need to acquire in order to receive and recognize it - openness, willingness, and gratitude! 

Brian Gray talks in his lecture on Compassion and Forgiveness how grace not only frees us from our own karma but it frees higher spiritual beings from having to weave the threads of karma for us and so enables them to nourish all of life. 

However, in relation to our own karma, grace does come as a result of our intention to overcome ourselves, our own small world and our choice to give what we withheld, provide what we didn't, forgive others and ourselves trespasses because we simply didn't understand one another. 

When we learn to love, we learn to nourish one another and create space for grace to fill in, not for ourselves only, not for one another but for the whole world.

And after all, whatever I wrote in this post, trying to summarize briefly the power and way of grace, it still is the act of God and He does give generously and especially to those who haven't set their intention on healing themselves or others, who don't earn it, who are confused or lost, who trespass against us...and I believe it could be that such "wanderers" unknowingly carry that void within; the soil for the grace to take roots!

Whether they recognize the grace that filled their void, however, and take it to others, is another story.

Nevertheless, it will be given generously until, one day, we all do.