Grace

Looking through my notes is like analyzing skid marks at an accident scene, or divining significance from beer foam. So coming to the naming process is as cloudy and evanescent as was the original work. Both processes involve action with intent but rely, ultimately, on a gift.

I had been reading Jack Whyte’s The Saxon Shore, which has numerous references to the early 5^th century debate between the views of the British acetic, Pelagius, and Augustine. Pelagius taught that we are not intrinsically evil or born in sin, but had free will to choose the good and in doing so become more godly. Augustine held that original sin necessitated Christ’s grace as the only avenue to salvation and Pelagius was branded a heretic. So often when confronted with paradox we tend to make an unfortunate choice of exclusion.

There is a genuine relationship between will and grace. Grace is an unsought beneficence that unfolds from the act of doing. Like the archer shooting a prayer from the heart into The Cloud of Unknowing in the 14^th century book of prayer by an anonymous English monk, grace is received not as a result of a wish, but of an act.

   Photo:  Richard K. Webb