Everyday Grace
by Stella Nesanovich
It can happen like that:
meeting at the market,
buying tires amid the smell
of rubber, the grating sound
of jack hammers and drills,
anywhere we share stories,
and grace flows between us.
The tire center waiting room
becomes a healing place
as one speaks of her husband’s
heart valve replacement, bedsores
from complications. A man
speaks of multiple surgeries,
notes his false appearance
as strong and healthy.
I share my sister’s death
from breast cancer, her
youngest only seven.
A woman rises, gives
her name, Mrs. Henry,
then takes my hand.
Suddenly an ordinary day
becomes holy ground.
Maybe because it is National Poetry Month,
and maybe it is because
we just hosted that poetry reading
in celebration of it,
but I am thinking about
the “Road to Emmaus” story
as poetry instead of prose.
If we read that story
like Faulkner, Clancy, or Kingsolver
by putting our nose to the page,
sniff on the first word
and follow it down like a bloodhound
to the period at the end of the story,
we will loose the scent
and never find it again.
But if we listen to it
as a poem,
like we did that delicious poem
by Stella Nesanovich — ”Everyday Grace” —
then a word melody
might just migrate in and out
of the window
like music from a passing car
and hit us with an “Ah Ha!”
I know this could be a stretch
because of the way we were taught
about the Bible when we were children
and even as adults,
but if we read that psalm, for example,
like it’s a fortune cookie
instead of a poem,
we’ll probably get the wrong message.
If we read about Adam and Eve
as if it’s a morality play,
we will probably miss the music in it.
If we read any of the Bible
thinking it’s a history textbook,
we’ll get nothing —
nothing but consternation
when history doesn’t repeat itself.
If we read Luke and Mark and Matthew,
not to mention John,
as if they are the biography
of President Jesus,
we’ll get it all wrong.
It’s poetry not prose.
So let’s treat it like poetry
and see what comes out.
Here is what I heard
when I treated the Road to Emmaus story
as poetry rather than prose: Eyes get opened.
Eyes get open —
sometimes even when
we want them to stay shut.
Of course, most of us
are pretty darn good
at keeping our eyes shut
as long as possible.
But eyes get opened, sometimes
by others and
sometimes
by our own volition.
Eyes get opened
by love.
I do not know how God works.
I do not know how to change the world.
But I do know, and you do too,
how people are made and formed.
I do know about mothers,
and the kind of power they have.
I do know about fathers,
and the kind of power they have.
I do know about children
and how they may come into this world
with their own special DNA
and personality
that no one can change,
but I also know they are formed and shaped
by the people who love them.
If we want to open eyes,
and make changes in this world,
remember where our power is.
Mothers have power.
Fathers have power.
Aunts and uncles and grandparents have power.
Siblings and friends and partners have power.
Teachers have power.
We have within us,
at our very fingertips,
the most influential power
known to humankind.
We neglect it.
We forget its power.
We get cynical about it.
We abuse it.
We underestimate it.
We forget about it.
We close our eyes to it.
Love is powerful.
You love me?
Then I am going to listen to you.
You love me?
Then I am going to watch you,
to see what you do
and how you do it.
You love me?
Then I will want to know, sooner or later,
why you do
and think
and feel
the way you do.
Love is compelling like that – it draws us
into itself.
It matters,
it really matters
what the people who love us
think and do.
We listen
and watch
the people who love us
because usually, we love them too.
A two-year old with a temper tantrum
may not seem very loving but,
even in the midst of the temper tantrum,
that two-year old is watching
how we respond…
otherwise, why the tantrum?
If it gets her what she wants
there will be a lot more tantrums
along the way!
Whether at two or twenty-seven
or fifty-seven,
or even at 90,
we desire to be loved.
We know who the ones are
that love us,
and we watch and listen
and think about them.
In short, they influence us. That is power.
I am not talking about control
or coercion,
those are different kinds of power.
While control and coercion
have influence also,
they are not as influential
with changing human beings
from the inside out
as love is.
I learned many lessons from my mom,
both positive and negative
as we all do from another.
She and I struggled
throughout much of our relationship
to find a place of resolve.
While she may not have loved me
the way I would liked to have been loved,
on some level I knew she loved me —
I saw evidence of it.
For example, when I was a senior in high school,
just about this time of year,
I was apparently creating a lot of consternation
among the parents of my small school.
I was the senior class president,
and my best friend was the student council president,
and the two of us rallied the class
into voting not to wear caps and gowns
at our graduation.
I have no idea why we did that,
maybe just to stir up trouble –
it was a time when conflict was the norm.
In the end, the school principle talked us out of it,
practically begging us.
A few years later,
I inadvertently discovered,
that dozens of angry parents had called my mom
to complain about the whole thing.
My mom never said a word to me about it.
When I found out that had happened,
was thunderstruck.
My mom was not shy
about voicing her opinion
or her anxiety to me.
But in that case, for whatever reason,
she did not try to deal
with her anger or her anxiety
or her embarrassment
by asking me to change my behavior.
Knowing her as I did,
especially as an adult, I recognized
she had sacrificed for me.
In that one occasion,
she sacrificed her own comfort
and well-being.
When I discovered it, years later,
my eyes were opened.
Love does that.
Her example
in that instance
stayed with me,
and was powerful enough
to influence what I did
and did not do decades later
as a father.
That is what happens
when we get loved,
and especially
when we get loved well.
We sit up and take notice.
Our eyes get opened
and once opened,
we often change.
So apply that small
and humble insight
to an arena
larger than a single relationship.
Apply that penny thought
to this community,
to our families and friends.
The people we love
are ripe for our influence.
The people we love,
especially the ones we love well,
are predisposed
to being influenced by us.
The course of history
has been changed many times
by acts of love,
and by the accumulation
of even small acts of love.
It is no doubt
one of my re-occurring themes
in sermons,
because it seems so, so
miraculous
to me.
I mean the accumulation of small acts of love
like influencing your family and friends
to be repulsed by violence
no matter who it is against.
Small love, like learning to shun
the seductive titillation of media
that will sensationalize anything
because it is a prostitute for advertising dollars.
Small love, like challenging common assumptions
about right and wrong,
good and bad, just and unjust
as they are hawked
with cruel self-interest
by merchants of greed.
Small love, like challenging racist, sexist and homophobic humor
when it is so casually distributed among
friends and family
who feel ‘safe’ doing so with one another.
Small love, like teaching your children,
niece and nephew
or grandchildren,
to think critically
about what they see and hear
on television and online
instead of simply absorbing it.
Small love, like raising an objection
when abundance is treated as a right
and squandered and wasted
just because someone we know
has the money to burn.
We must not allow ourselves
to rest in the
feeling of powerless,
as if there is nothing we can do
to change
that which is grim about our world.
We have enormous power,
one small love at a time.
It is the power of compound interest
in that it grows exponentially over time,
and each act of small love
accumulates and grow
and builds upon the next and the next and the next.
We have enormous power,
and we never get to know in advance,
or even in retrospect,
just how influential
our small loves have been.
But we can see evidence all over the place
of how the economy of God
operates and trades
on all these acts of small love.
Likewise, our eyes are opened
and we awaken to small loves.
In little, teeny tiny things,
like the breaking of bread
and standing side by side
as we receive it, our eyes are opened.
In a note of music;
in a fortunately worded prayer;
in a chance word
spoken softly on the lips
of a friend or acquaintance;
in an unaccustomed moment of silence
while standing among many;
in a Robin’s egg
or a spring blossom
or a small moment of joy…
in unassuming little things
our eyes are opened
and we see anew.
In small love,
in small ordinary moments,
in small quiet whispers…
the enormity of God’s presence is made known,
and our eyes are opened.
In small venues of the daily
we awaken to the enormous power
of our own
small acts of love
and then
and then
we begin to see.
It was the presence of love
that opened their eyes in Emmaus.
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