“Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.”
“A Faint Music by Robert Hass Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears. As in the story a friend told once about the time he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him. Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash. He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge, the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon. And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,” that there was something faintly ridiculous about it. No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass, scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs, and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up on the girder like a child—the sun was going down and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing carefully, and drove home to an empty house. There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed. A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick with rage and grief. He knew more or less where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill. They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,” she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights, a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay. “You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?” “Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now, “I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while— Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall— and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more, and go to sleep. And he, he would play that scene once only, once and a half, and tell himself that he was going to carry it for a very long time and that there was nothing he could do but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark cracking and curling as the cold came up. It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing”
“ . . . there is an absolute disjunction between our Father s love and our deserving.”
“...stooping very low, He engraves with care His Name, indelible, upon our dust; And from the ashes of our self-despair, Kindles a flame of hope and humble trust. He seeks no second site on which to build, But on the old foundation, stone by stone, Cementing sad experience with grace, Fashions a stronger temple of His own.”
“Sam came around the back of the car and stopped dead when he saw me. Oh my God, what is that? I used my thumb and middle finger to flick the multicoloured pom-pom on top of my head. In my language, we call it a hat. It keeps my ears warm. Oh my God, Sam said again, and closed the distance between us. He cupped my face in his hands and studied me. It s horribly cute. He kissed me, looked at the hat, and then he kissed me again.”
“Kind of just existed from day to day, on weird plateau of feeling nothingness.”
“Stuckley drew back his sword with evident satisfaction. She really is your Achilles heel, isn t she Furey? No. Lorcan said, preparing his own attack. Not my Achilles heel.The love of my life. And I ll do whatever it takes to protect her.”
“Okay, don t get mad. She pulled out my stake --- or at least something that looked like my stake,only the hilt of it was now covered in bright blue crystals and diamond-like gems. You Bedazzled my stake? Um ... Surprise, April said, Just because you re hunting nasty stuff doesn t mean you can t do it in style.”
“The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.”
“But I know how much you care for me. I read it in the ribbon. Lorcan sighed. Did you really need to read the ribbon to know that I cared for you?, he said. Really, Grace, don t you know me at all? I thought I did, she said”
“...pray for the grace to realize that no matter where you are, you are in the presence of the Lord.”
“So far from being able to answer for my sins, I cannot even answer for my righteousness!”
“There was nothing particularly special about her, except that she was good with numbers, and very good at lying, and she made her home in between the pages of books.”
“There is nothing more graceful and powerful than the ability to respond to life (in all situations) with love and acceptance.”
“Express gratitude for the greatness of small things.”
“Stepping lightly, just like a ballerina.”
“The Holy Spirit will always point people to the finish work of Jesus”