Grace in Disguise

Some thoughts on grace from one of my favorite writers, Kathleen Norris:

"If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it’s because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change."
From “The Grace of Aridity and Other Comedies,” The Best Spiritual Writing 2004

"For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn’t know we needed and take us places where we didn’t know we didn’t want to go."

From  Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life

Hat Tip: Liberate

Twitter Gleanings

Some more gleanings from my Twitter feed:

"The beatitudes aren't prescribing how to achieve a better life; they're describing what happens to those that God kills & makes alive." - Tullian Tchvidjian @PastorTullian

There are two paths in life: The path of discipline and the path of regret. One or the other - Your choice. And mine.

 We long for more & God's promise is that there is more awaiting us. More to delight us than we will ever exhaust. @CSLewisU

“All who live with any degree of serenity live by some assurance of grace.” – Reinhold Niebuhr RT @TheIDShift

 "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it"- Chinese Proverb. RT @bcloritts

 "Religious people obey God to get things; gospel people obey God to get God." - Tim Keller RT @DailyKeller

 "Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier." --Kathleen Norris

Modern "statements of faith" lack the depth of thought & eloquence of language found in the great historic creeds of the church. @BrianZahnd 

We should be as generous & lavish in forgiving others as we want God to be generous & lavish in forgiving us.

Glory in Ordinary Things

"To go to communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives Him glory too. To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dung fork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give Him glory too. He is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean that they shall."

-Gerald Manley Hopkins, quoted in Acedia & Me by Kathleen Norris, page 191

(Picture from Wikipedia)

Receiving the Little Things

"We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts...How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Acedia & Me by Kathleen Norris, Page 190

People Who Need People...

"Over time , I have learned two things about my religious quest: First of all, that it is God who is seeking me, and who has myriad ways of finding me. Second, that my most substantial changes, in terms of religious conversion, come through other people. Even when I become convinced that God is absent from my life, others have a way of suddenly revealing God's presence."

Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace. page 294

Not Doing, But Being

"Prayer is not doing, but being. It is not words but the beyond-words experience of coming into the presence of something much great than oneself. It is an invitation to recognize holiness, and to utter simple words -'Holy, Holy, Holy' - in response."

Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, page 350.

Surprised by a Jealous God

"Any relationship, to remain alive, requires at least two living participants. In this case, a God who does not exist as a convenience, magically giving us what we want, or feel we deserve, but a God who simply IS- the ground of being, the great "I Am." And with this God, experienced by the prophet Jeremiah as "the true God... the living God" (Jer. 10:10), we can come into our own, no longer in fear of "being nothing,"but people who can listen, who can change, who can be surprised. Even surprised by a jealous God, who loves us enough to care when we stray. And who has given us commandments to help us find the way home."

(Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, page 87)

Idolatry Makes Love Impossible

"Idolatry makes love impossible. Perhaps that is why it is the first of all the commandments that God gives to Israel... If we break any of the other commandments, the ones that (literally) get prime time, we have already broken the first one. We have already elevated ourselves and out perceived desires above all else."

(Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, page 88)

Am I Antichrist?

Kathleen Norris once asked her pastor about the Biblical character Antichrist.

"What the pastor said was so simple that it will remain with me forever. 'Each one of us acts as an Antichrist,' he said, 'whenever we hear the Gospel and do not do it.'" (Amazing Grace, Page 15)

If that is true, than I must confess: At times I am the antichrist.

Detachment

"The word 'detachment,' valued by early monks as a virtue, has almost lost its positive connotation. Nowadays it is most often used in a negative sense, to mean the opposite of a healthy engagement with the world, and with other people. It conveys a sense of aloofness, a studied remoteness that signifies a lack of concern for others. The monastic interpretation of 'detachment' could not be more different: in this tradition it means not allowing either worldly values or self-centeredness to distract us from what is most essential in our relationship with God, and with each other. One sixth-century monk, Dorotheus of Gaza, describes detachment as being 'free from [wanting] certain things to happen,' and remaining so trusting of God that 'what is happening will be the thing you want and you will be at peace with all.'"

Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace, page 32

Introducing Kathleen Norris

For a couple of years now I have enjoyed occasional forays into the wonderful writings of Kathleen Norris. Norris is a poet and essayist living in South Dakota. After turning away from faith as a college student in the sixties, and working in the poetry and art world of New York City in the seventies, she returned to her family roots in Dakota, and to her grandmother's Christian faith and membership in the Presbyterian Church. She later became a lay oblate of the Benedictine Order, but without converting to Catholicism. Norris has written several books on Christian spirituality drawing from the ancient sources through Benedictine spiritual tradition.

Over the next few days I'll be posting some quotes from her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. I hope you enjoy them.

Let's start with this on, quoting a child in one of her writing classes:

"Silence reminds me to take my soul with me whereever I go." (page17)

Priceless!