grace – Page 2 – Southwest Conference Blog

That Voice

Do you know the lyrics to Amazing Grace?

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.

Some folks in my faith community don’t like ‘wretch.’ And I see their point. For too long, the church used shame as a weapon, particularly against women, to encourage compliance with moral norms. But are we, in fact, wretched whether we like it or not?

I’m a big fan of Disney’s The Lion King. With its wonderful music and animation, Shakespearean themes, and redemption narrative, there’s a lot to love. At one point in Simba’s journey, he experiences a vision of his dead father. The message of Mufasa is short: “Remember who you are.” The strength of this vision compels young Simba to return to his family and assume his rightful place. Cue “The Circle of Life”.

The message Simba needed to hear, “remember”, is a common refrain in the Bible. Remember, you were once slaves and sojourners. Remember, you are the people of God. Remember, you are part of the body of Christ.

One of the best expressions of this remembrance is in the Psalms:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.

On the one hand, what are these puny humans that our Creator is mindful of our existence? And yet, we are just a little less than divine, crowned with glory and honor. In other words, ‘wretch’ and daughter of God!

So the problem (to circle back around) is not that slave trader and clergyman John Newton thinks that we are all wretches. Simultaneously, the problem is not that we in our human arrogance think of ourselves as the pinnacle of creation. The problem is that we have such difficulty holding both ideas in the proper tension.

Wretch, yes!

Crowned with glory and honor, yes!

On good days, on days of amazing grace, we remember. Thanks be to God!

The Gentle Rocking of Peace, Part 2

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

We are called to love. We are called to love those around us. What about this, though: Those around us are who we are called to love.

This removes the fantasy element of all of this. Now we are dealing with names, dates, places and times. We are dealing with life in real time. This is a different discussion all together because it is the marrow of life, the relationship aspect of our dwelling together. And it’s where everything can get messed up. There are so many moving parts that often require intention and care.

Anne Lamott says that we are on this Earth without a manual because this is forgiveness school. Wouldn’t that be something? If my purpose on this Earth was to be able to forgive? My access to self-forgiveness and my access to forgiving those around me often get in the way of my call to love. Now my ability to recount every wrong that someone has done is amazing. Where others may have athleticism, I have this down pat. If the Olympics offered resentment as a sport, you’d want me representing you there! And I am certain I am not alone in that. I am certain we could spend just a little time observing the world around us and find some Olympic quality resentment. And we don’t even have to observe the world around us; we can simply observe the world within us.

This is lived experience. Lived experience is often far different from imagined experience. It is in the lived experience that we get to have access to realities that change the very fiber of our being. Those around us, right now, are who we are called to love.

The recounting of wrongs, resentment embracing and the tit for tat lived experience does not allow access to grace. It allows access to what is due, not what is healing. A lived experience in which we keep record of wrongs and the score card limits our own access to grace. There is something so life affirming in affording someone else grace when the score card is full. In my own spiritual development, I have recognized that when I turn toward forgiveness and choosing love, I am turning toward that in my own life as well. I open that door to you and suddenly that door is open to me. I have access to a lived experience that before was completely blocked. I have access to the very love that I long for because I have offered it to another.

Richard Rohr speaks eloquently on this topic in his book, “Breathing Under Water” which is his description of choosing a life lived in spirit. He says this, “Grace will always favor the prepared mind.” It is not that grace isn’t extended to all. It is. Grace is all around. The love of God is all around. Our ability to have access to this grace and love is often in direct proportion to our willingness to turn toward love.

I lived in South Africa in the late 90’s. I was a 7th grade school teacher. I moved there at age 18 so I was a baby teaching babies. I was having it out one day with one of the students, Akhona Mvandaba. We had argued and argued and argued that year. I offended him. He offended me. Our score cards were oh so full! I don’t remember what triggered the moment of change, but something did. He said something that I didn’t like and we were on our way to the principal’s office. He had his angry face on and so did I. We were huffing up the way when our path was blocked by a Mama. Her name was Esther.

She asked why we were angry. I let it out, listing his bad parts that were just not acceptable. Then he let it out listing all the reasons why I just was not good people. As we took turns, Esther took my hand in her hand. She then reached for his hand. We continued as she held our hands. She began to say “Peace. Peace. Peace.” I responded to Akhona’s last sentence with furvor and anger. She started to rock with a sway, side to side, “Peace. Peace.” It went back and forth as she swayed. And the quiet began to rest on me. It began to rest on him. Peace. Peace. I cried. He cried. It was such a hard year. “Peace. Peace.”

She blocked our path to anger and spoke peace into our beings. And something changed fundamentally. There was no anger left, just sadness at all the moments we didn’t love each other. We swayed with her and the gentle rocking presence of God rested on us. Peace. Peace.

Those around us are who we are called to love. As Richard Rohr so eloquently put:

“Grace will always favor the prepared mind.” But then he continues, “Maybe we can sum it up this way: God is humble and never comes if not first invited, but God will find some clever way to get invited.”

Look around. The invitation is right in front of you.

Peace.

Image above: My students at Valley Dawn Christian School in Willowvale, South Africa. Akhona is in the back row second from left. – Dax

The Gentle Rocking of Peace, Part 1

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

We are called to love.

The belief in God has never been something that I have struggled with before. Even as a young child, it was just something that made sense to me. I was able to see a flow in life. I had a pretty clear understanding of kindness, compassion and love. I gravitated toward those who operated in these fruits of the spirit. My grandma would whisper messages to me as she rocked me to sleep and I would absorb them. She told me I was precious to God. She told me God loved me. I believed it without a second thought. What this gave to me was the belief that I was in this world for a reason and that reason had something to do with being loving.

I have a dear friend that describes her faith in a way that is simply brilliant. She has given me permission to use it publicly as it is something that I love so much and I come back to quite often. She describes herself as a children’s Bible thumper. Isn’t that fantastic? When she expands on this more she talks about really getting behind the God of the children’s Bible. The children’s bible has an overarching message. You were created by God and you are so very loved. Nice.

Then we hit puberty and we are all lost. Just utterly lost; rough stuff. Nothing that was is now. Along with that, suddenly, the message changes. The children’s Bible gets dark. It becomes more like Grimm’s Fairy Tales. For many faith communities, all of our desires and thoughts and wishes become somehow bad in some way; something to be denied and certainly to be controlled. The children’s bible will no longer do! For me, this is when intense shame entered the picture for me. My sense of belonging also became challenged as I walked toward the fringe, afraid if those people who say they loved me really knew what I thought and felt, I would be cast out.

The children’s bible version of life is often something that we can get behind. It doesn’t take too much to get us there. We seek to be loved and it feels mighty good when we experience love ourselves. I recently found out from a segment on 60 minutes about dogs that my dog likes to look at me. I have a pit bull mix that I have had since she was teeny tiny. She stares at me. A lot… Like all the time. I honestly have felt burdened by this because I thought she wanted something. Does she need to go outside? Does she want to play? What does she want?

It turns out she just wanted to stare at me because it is enjoyable to her. When she stares at me, her brain releases oxytocin. We like oxytocin. So we do things that will allow us to feel that chemical change. We are called to love and that is a good, good thing. We desire that feeling of love. It moves us and changes us to love.

So we are called to love. Yes, we can get behind that.

Let’s add to that now. We are called to love those around us.

One of the perks I have found in coming to church is that I get to imagine doing “better”, whatever better looks like given the topic at hand. We get to sit in our pews and chairs, listen to a message and apply that message to imagined circumstances. We can have imagined conversations where we put into practice some fundamental spiritual discipline. I can just see myself being loving next time I encounter whatever made it difficult last time. I am going to rock being kind and forgiving at the office on Monday. It’s going to be good.

I can create scenarios with a sense of ease in my head where I am either the hero or I am the regretful one, ready to do it different next time. But I am still imagining. I am running through scenarios, making minor promises to myself that I will do it different next time. I will really do it well.

We are called to love those around us. There is a small human that I know and love. He has been on this earth for about a decade. He is the son of two of my friends. Since his first years of being able to express himself, he has expressed a deep love for others. His ability to empathize is simply incredible. One aspect of him that is true over and over is his desire to see equality and fairness throughout the world. He has just been baffled by America’s reticence to accept all adult couples who desire marriage. It simply did not make sense to him. In June, when his mom told him the news that marriage equality had happened in America, he was thoughtful. And then his response a moment later, “Mom, now they have to be able to marry in the rest of the world.”

We are called to love those around us and the world was all around him. We can imagine as we sit here, loving others. And I do believe that is a powerful tool. The ability to imagine ourselves in a situation is often a step in living into that situation. So, as we sit here in this moment, reading these words, we are likely able to get behind the concept that we are called to love those around us.

Let’s sit with the spiritual gift of imagined experience. Spend time holding onto that and let’s check in again on Wednesday because there is more to this than a simple imagined experience. There is lived experience.