What happens when you’re the only one at church? – A Beautiful Blessing in Disguise of course!!!

I heard the familiar footsteps of my partner coming to the downstairs entrance of the space we had rented for Church That’s Not Church. “It looks like no one could make it today honey. Wanna go get groceries?”

I paused for a moment feeling a tightening in my throat…” No” I said with tears in my eyes, “I think today is meant to be about me.”

Seeing the confusion in his face I said, “Today’s reflection was really hard for me to write…I feel like I still need to read it out loud in this space - just for me. Will you stay and listen?”

He sat down next to me on the sofa that forms part of our regular circle for people coming to this new community. Together, we explore spirituality from the perspective of individual experience instead of any kind of religious practice. The space has come to hold a beautiful sacred energy for me, and I could feel the immensity of that energy fill my heart as I pulled out the two-page reflection that had taken me several hours to craft.

“Today I’d like to talk about grace,” I started from the top of the first page. “But first I’d like to describe what I think grace means.”

“Grace is the experience of being met with kindness we didn’t have to earn. It’s the softening that happens when we stop pushing, fixing or forcing”

My voice cracked and I could feel the tears start to fall. I repeat the words for myself “It is the softening that happens when we stop pushing, fixing or forcing…”

I’ve just started exploring what it means for me to be of service to others through ministry as a leader of Church that’s not Church and as a spiritual coach and companion. It hasn’t been a clear path but recently I’ve come to serve a community of like-minded people who have become a part of something unique. As a new venture, there is the lovely side of being with human beings in a space that welcomes deep conversation and discovery. But there is also the business side, advertising, marketing, cashflow – the hustle really. Lately I have felt the burden of making my spiritual “business” something people have access to, working hard to post and write and get the word out. I didn’t realize how much I was feeling the weight of what I considered a lack of progress. But on this Sunday morning, I was encountering it at my core.

“Do you need a hug?” My partner asked as I wiped the tears away.

“No, I need to get through this...But I’ll take one afterwards” I said with that wonderful mix of laughter through tears.

I continued. “Grace isn’t about deserving. It’s about being willing to let the universe hold us for a moment. It’s the universe leaning toward us, inviting us to meet our own lives and the lives of others with fierce gentleness and outrageous kindness”

Paragraph after paragraph I read out loud words, I had written just hours before….” Grace is what whispers “You are allowed to be unfinished””.

I could feel myself giving over to the rush of relief. I could feel the mystery of that sacred energy that can flood the center of your being with warmth. Through the reading of my own words, in that intimate space, I was accepting the grace as unearned, beautiful and complete kindness, and love for who I was exactly in that moment.

As I came to the end of my reflection I started the final blessing.

“May we receive, No,” I said to my partner. “Let me say that again.”

“May I receive the grace that is already here. And may I offer that same grace to myself and to others, not because it is earned but because I am learning, growing and wonderfully human and grace is there simply for the taking”.

Leaning in for my hug, I knew how incredibly the sacred had worked to make this moment happen, to allow me to feel ministered to and to recognize the true lesson of grace as I welcomed the spaciousness, the ease and the unexpected mystery of the feeling of being loved by the universe. What a beautiful blessing!

Reflection on Grace

Today we’re exploring grace - a powerful tenderness that meets us exactly where we are.

Grace is not passive, mushy or inactive.
It’s the universe leaning toward us, inviting us to meet our own lives, and the lives of others with fierce gentleness and outrageous kindness

Grace is what rises in the gap between who we are and who we want to be.
It’s what whispers, “You’re allowed to be unfinished.”

Brené Brown when asked in a recent interview about what she had “fixed in her life”, said she doesn’t believe in being “fixed” — not for herself, not for anyone. She shared that even after all her years of research and teaching, she is still doing her own inner work. She’s not done, and she doesn’t want to be.
Because, she said, if we ever truly “fixed” ourselves to the point where we never struggled again, “we would be so short on grace for other people that we would be tyrants.”

John O’Donohue called grace “the permanent climate of divine kindness.” Not kindness we earn… but kindness that simply is. There is no way to earn grace. I can remember my father – who was a minister in the Christian church - would struggle with the teaching that we had to do things to be saved, that our salvation was conditional based on our actions. He would say - True grace means that there is no action you could perform, no duty that could ever justify the grace and love that the universe has to offer and that was the key to it. We have to let go of our need to justify receiving it and just accept grace as unearned, beautiful and complete kindness and love for who we are, exactly in this moment.

I believe that is what it makes it so difficult for us to understand and wrap our heads around grace. It doesn’t ask for anything.

Richard Rohr says, “Grace is not something you receive; it’s something you awaken to.”
And maybe this is the heart of self-grace: not performing worthiness, but allowing ourselves, actually giving ourselves permission, to receive the gentleness already available to us.

Grace is giving ourselves permission to feel compassion over criticism, curiosity over shame, presence over panic.

Grace reminds us that even in the moments we feel broken, we are still becoming and the universe will give us the grace required in those moments to turn back to love.

So today, let’s loosen our grip on the expectation to ever be fully formed.

What if we let go of the idea completely – If we say out loud “I will never be completely fixed” and feel the grace for ourselves and others that comes with just letting go.
Grace is the experience of being met with kindness we didn’t have to earn.
It’s the softening that happens when we stop pushing, fixing, or forcing.
It’s the moment when life offers us a little spaciousness, a little ease, a little unexpected support.

May we receive the grace that is already here.
And may we offer that same grace to ourselves and to others
not because it is earned
but because we are all learning, growing,
and wonderfully human and grace is there simply for the taking.