Cathleen Falsani Quotes

Outside, it feels like there is less standing between the Creator and us. There is a lingering visceral connection we can hear and see and smell, reminders of the bond between Creator and creation, like the mountain sage crushed up in the pocket of the sweatshirt I was wearing on a short, muddy hike the other day. “In

Sometimes grace is having the strength to persevere through the storm.Sometimes it's having the guts to rebuild, to take a chance, to follow your nose and your heart rather than your head.Sometimes grace is finding out that your preconceived notions are dead wrong. Sometimes it's being surprised by joy. Sometimes grace is something you can feel even if you can't see it. And sometimes it's a bowl of watermelon gazpacho when you were expecting Taco Bell.

Everyone experiences grace, even if they don't realize it. It's kind of like Moby's music. You could ask your average sixty-something-year-old retired banker in Connecticut if he's ever heard of Moby and/or his music and the response you'd receive more than likely would be a resounding, “No—what's a Moby?” But if you say, “Remember that American Express commercial where Tiger Woods is putting around New York City? Remember the song playing? That was Moby.” “Oh, then, OK. I guess I have heard Moby,” our theoretical retired banker in New Canaan might say. “So … what exactly is a Moby?” That's like grace. Not that grace is a pretentious vegan techno-rocker, but you get the idea. Grace is everywhere, all around us, all of the time. We only need the ears to hear it and the eyes to see it.

We're so worried about the legal details of crossing doctrinal t's and dotting sociopolitical i's that we miss the big picture. The love picture. The one thing Jesus was really clear about: LOVE. If we could just get that one thing down, I believe the details would take care of themselves.

Some theologians argue that one kind of grace is better than another, and that some people think they're experiencing “divine” grace when it's actually just “common.”To me, that's like bickering about what color God's eyes are. (They're hazel, in case you were wondering.)

Trying to explain or define grace is like catching the wind in a cardboard box or describing the color green.

Such arguments remind me of a scene from Woody Allen's movie Manhattan, where a group of people is talking about sex at a cocktail party and one woman says that her doctor told her she had been having the wrong kind of orgasm. Woody Allen's character responds by saying, “Did you have the wrong kind? Really? I've never had the wrong kind. Never, ever. My worst one was right on the money.” Grace works the same way. It is what it is and it's always right on the money. You can call it what you like, categorize it, vivisect it, qualify, quantify, or dismiss it, and none of it will make grace anything other than precisely what grace is: audacious, unwarranted, and unlimited.

God can and does use anything God chooses to get our attention. Who's to say the hawk wasn't sent as an agent of grace to catch my wandering attention and quiet what Buddhists might call my “monkey mind,” which is more often than not swinging wildly from branch to branch on intellectual and emotional trees. On the way back down the hiking trail after my encounter with the hawk in Big Sky, I stopped thinking and started looking and listening. That's when I realized winter was turning into spring before me. Change was happening. Creation, and perhaps the Creator, was speaking. I just needed to be outside to hear the voice.