By Andrea Lingle

What is the connection between grace, love, pilgrimage, and a tire sitting at the top of a slide?

I know you have all been puzzling through that, but, first, let’s talk about electricity.

I am not very good with electricity. It is the chapter of every physics text wherein my brain decides to panic. I am usually pretty good with all things numeric, but, somehow, when confronted with Joules and Watts, I am rendered helpless.

I do know that, if you complete a circuit, electricity will flow.

I did not glean this from the aforementioned textbooks. I figured that out while installing a tile backsplash in our first house. The tiles were twelve inches square, so I was cutting out holes for the ludicrous number of electrical outlets and fitting the tiles around the blue boxes. I was sliding the outlet and wires through the hole I had just carefully cut out, when I managed to touch the little screws on the side of the outlet. I thought the power was turned off, but, as my finger connected, it registered. Electricity flows if you give it somewhere to go.

After I cleaned up the broken tile I had hurled across the room, I wondered at the sheer power of electricity. One hundred and ten volts isn’t really that much, but it made me cry. It is offensive how much getting shocked hurts. Apparently, electricity is the flow of electrons. If there isn’t a road, they don’t march. If there is, well, let’s just say, I noticed their passage.

Here is my idea about grace, love, pilgrimage, and slides.

1 John 4:7-8 (NRSV) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God is love.

Grace can be thought of as the self-communication of God (who is love).

I know, I know. This is sounding a bit like a philosophy paper. If, then. Blah, blah, blah.

Remember the slide? Picture an eleven year old and an eight year old who have just wrestled an old tire up to the top of a twisty slide. The tired is poised at the top of the slide. Any bump at all will send it jouncing down and around until it collapses under the weight of gravity. As any good metaphor will do…

So, God is love. Grace is the self-communication of love. God is love. God isn’t the one who loves. God is love. God’s being is made up of love. Grace is self-communication. Love pouring out. The flow of love which originates in God. Love shares love’s self.

Like an outlet that hasn’t been turned off.

Pilgrimage is climbing up the slide knowing that you are positioned to get a face-full. Pilgrimage is licking your finger before touching the screw. Pilgrimage doesn’t cause anything. It just makes it clearer. More direct. Less muted.

So, the astute reader will now ask, what is touching the screw? What completes the circuit? What sends the tire on it’s merry way?

Only the rawest hubris would claim to know that one. But I have an idea.

Which I will share next week.