It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual. The church became my home in the old meaning of home that it s where, when you show up, they have to let you in. They let me in. They even said, You come back now.
Man is born broken.
He lives by mending. It is unearned love - the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there. I am clear that at any moment I am a mixture of wheat and weeds, good and evil.