This fall morning is full of scent as I bake lemon bars for the church luncheon and then cook up some bacon for breakfast. I hear Grayson, our cat, before I see him. He sits at the glass door watching birds and makes the sound he makes when he is hunting. Sounds are always stronger for me than scents. The dog whines asking to go out. DJ rises to oblige Bear's request. Our second dog, Cedar, dances across the floor promenading, bowing, and tippity tap tapping across the floor in happiness. The dogs love the morning walk best or at least they dance in the morning.
I hear one cat lapping water while our older cat Feather grunts like the old woman she is as she changes positions beside me on the couch. The lamp behind the couch rattles since it's too close to the couch and all its parts are loose. The movement of my hand writing on paper is what rattles it, but barely any sound of the pen flowing across handmade paper.
There's always that steady ticking of the clock that is peaceful to me. The heart beat of time reminds me I'm still here. The refrigerator hums a little harder this morning trying to cool the hot lemon bars I just baked. The sound of pouring coffee circles around the living room and then Grayson scratching to go on the back porch. DJ's coat swishes as she returns from walking the dogs. Bear sighs relief. DJ unzips her coat. I guess there are only two or three scents in the air this morning and a bombardment of sound, but it's a peaceful sound because it is the sound of home. We are safe. We are warm and cozy.
Today's devotion from "Listening to Your Life" is one of my favorite writings from Frederick Buechner. It's a definition of grace from his other book of definitions "Wishful Thinking". I read the definition to myself silently and then read it aloud to DJ as she bakes cookies. His definition of grace always makes me cry for joy. This writing of grace brings those tears because it has always rung true for me. The older I get my life seems more and more grace filled. This section of Buechner's writing is what both brings tears and also speaks to the Lutheran understanding of grace and reformation:
"The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you."
That definition of grace is also a good summary of our scripture. This is what we are about, grace. There is nothing you have to do because God does it all. Just accept it, embrace it. Sometimes that's hard when all you've known in life is being pushed into achievement. Our world is focused on the ways we can do it ourselves as though we don't need each other. Grace is done and there's nothing else that is required of us but to accept it.
Feather purrs beside me and gently touches my legs with her old paw. DJ hands me a chocolate covered espresso bean as a treat. Feather purrs louder as DJ sits back down beside her. Our home is grace too. Grace is the place where we dwell in love and know that all shall be well. Relax. There's nothing we have to do.
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Ephesians 2:4-10 NRSV
Comments