By Andrea Lingle

For the last several weeks, we have been taking a stroll through what it means to live rooted in grace when life throws difficult dialogue in our paths. While we have contemplated preparing for difficult dialogue, creating a safe environment in which to have that dialogue, committing to staying when things get uncomfortable (but not harmful), and committing to the other and the self, this week we come to something ineffable. Impossible to truly describe. Committing to grace.

Commitment isn’t so hard to talk about, but grace is something I have been trying to track down for years. The best I can do is point. Grace and God are things of metaphor and simile. If God is being, the great I AM, is grace that which emanates from being? The pulse of the Divine? Grace is usually defined as “unmerited favor,” but is it just that? My very soul cries out that that is a shallow puddle when what I long for is the Mariana Trench. A deep, dark depth of meaning. Favor is a thin word. It is an approving nod when what I really need is a tender embrace.

Let’s try unmerited abundance. Let’s try unmerited fecundity. Let’s try water into the finest wine!

We do not know what grace really is, but living committed to grace insists that the embrace of the Divine is wide. Wide enough for you. Wide enough for the other. When God created, God did not need to make the butterfly shimmer or the leaves change from green to crimson, gold, and salmon. God did not have to make grapes sweet and crisp or maple trees full of sugar. If committing to grace amidst struggle is anything, it is committing to abundance.

Yes, conflict hurts. I cannot deny that. Emotional bruises take a long time to heal, and, yet, living in community means that there will be conflict. Sometimes it is over who should be taking out the trash or cleaning out the refrigerator, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it is big. Sometimes it is heart ache and tears and confusion and sagging against the wall exhausted. Some things simply aren’t worth fighting for, and some are. Each of us must commit to doing the deep work of listening to the other and the self to know if wisdom says go or stay and muck it out. To commit to grace means that Divine Love is wide enough for both.