In The Footsteps of Grace
Grace is an essence, a practice, and a quintessential element for our reaching the inner peace and tranquility that we all want in our lives. It’s the place within us that intersects with the eternal Spirit, as well as with our own loving spirit and that of other beings.
Although we already have this beautiful quality inside of us, during these dramatic times we will have to find where it lies within and accesses it to guide us. Allowing and experiencing our own grace, we can then share with others. In that sharing of grace, a spark of awakening appears, and a glimpse of our potential as awakened beings begins to shine forth. Once realized, this beautiful light allows our souls to celebrate one another at the highest levels, where love and Spirit meet to assure us that we are enlightened beings on a path of awakening.
We can begin to embrace this connection by cultivating thankfulness for all of the seen and unseen grace in the form of blessings granted to us by the Divine. We can also begin to grant consciously adopting the mode of being curious rather than judgmental. Granting the grace of “being curios, not judgmental”, Walt Whitman, as spoken by TV character “Ted Lasso”, shapes our perspective of life and creates the opportunity for the expansion of our hearts. Both of these perspectives on life can create the opportunity for the expansion of our hearts.
Grace is a practice that helps us to expand our hearts. It seeks the welfare of others; it reimagines our lives with ease and laughter at our own folly and can help us not to take ourselves so seriously. Grace is fully granted to us, it’s also a quality that requires us to lift it up and out of ourselves in order to share it. The many aspects of embodied grace contain unlimited benefits, allowing us the space and the opportunity to settle into our being while learning, growing and celebrating all there is. It can also grant us health, by inspiring every cell in our body to be in alignment with that to which we aspire.
Personally, I believe that our human consciousness has the potential to live, through our higher selves, in an ongoing state of grace. In his book Putting a Face on Grace, Dr. Richard Blackaby writes that when we truly grasp the depth of grace, we would not dare withhold it from others. I’d add that we would not withhold grace from ourselves either.
I also believe the path towards the summit off fulfillment encompasses the many forms of grace: the grace of the flow of living our lives through our highest selves; the grace of generosity through forgiveness of our past actions and harsh speech and that of others; the grace of politeness and good manners, of seeing others as no different than we are; and the grace of knowing that we are all humbled together before the Source of oneness and totality.
Although grace is always immediately available to us, achieving grace-full attitudes does take some practice, as well as the willingness to clearly see the places where our bright vision and right action are blocked by negative conditioning.
In observing those who embody grace, I can only say: “What a lovely way to walk through the world.” They encourage me to want to do my best to follow in the footsteps of the wisdom teachers through the ages who have embodied and bestowed grace so freely throughout their lives.
Love and blessings,
Melinda