The Calisthenics of Grace

I hate to admit it, but I am a slow learner.  I have to spend a lot of time chewing over an issue, considering all sides, pondering the pros and cons, weighing the options.  I am a painfully slow learner.  But I keep telling myself that it’s okay that it takes me a long time to come to conclusions as long as I am willing to keep trying.  “The victory is in the struggle!” I say to myself, especially when I feel bad for being so doggedly deliberate.  I think too much, my husband says, and sometimes that gets in my way.  When Chad taught me to waterski, he said he could see me out there, bobbing like a cork with thoughts churning away…so he said, “I just decided to outsmart you and yank you out of the water.”  He did.  Thanks to him I finally learned to ski.  Never mind that it took me something like 5 years to learn to cross the wake.  I get stuck in my head a lot.

Last summer I endeavored to quit with the slow, painful, inch-by-inch submersion into the lake.  Of course, my friends think it’s hysterical to watch me creep down our boat’s ladder into Coeur d’Alene Lake…feet….knees…(insert mild whining)…waist…bellybutton…(insert squealing)…torso…(insert giant pause followed by lots of “encouragement” from my friends to “just get in already!”)…then the final drop into the water (punctuated by lots and lots of whining).  Well, last summer the water was perpetually cold, and so I decided to stop with the nonsense and just stand on the platform and jump.  (Admittedly, I stand on the platform for an inordinate amount of time, imitating that scene from “National Lampoon’s Vacation” when Clark W. Griswold prepares to jump into the pool with the ever-beautiful Christy Brinkley.  “This is crazy, this is crazy,” he states as he claps his hands together before taking the plunge).  This summer I jumped in every time.

Taking that plunge is both terrifying and exhilarating.  And might I add empowering? 

Well today I took a different sort of plunge. I am typically a peace-seeking individual.  I don’t like to cause people hard feelings, and I don’t like confrontation.  I am an acrobat when it comes to avoiding conflict.  And generally speaking I think this is a good thing.  Far better to avoid hurting feelings than to inadvertently step all over someone.  Plus, as I already admitted, it takes me a while to formulate my thoughts, and I don’t like doing or saying things I might regret later.  So when someone did a tap dance on my feelings the other day at work (not to mention the feelings of a dear friend/colleague in the process), I realized that my old status quo approach was insufficient. 

But I must pause for a second.  Another thing you need to know about me is that I have been in a very interesting, year-long struggle with the concept of grace.  The question I am wrestling with is this:  “What does God’s grace look like in the everyday world?”  I know what it looks like in the grand scheme (take a look at the cross and you will see all you need on that subject), but what does everyday, grocery store grace look like?  Another question that plagues me is this:  Where does grace run up against the boundaries of injustice?  How does one balance grace with its imposter cousin the doormat?  I know a thing or two about doormats…in the past I willingly threw myself on the threshold of many a relationship, and I rather dislike the taste of shoe soles in my mouth.   So I’ve been on a quest to understand the difference between the two, and to see what genuine day-to-day grace looks like. 

Today I was given the opportunity to practice plunging into the practice of grace.  Without getting into the details (believe me, the details aren’t that interesting, anyway), a fellow colleague inadvertently insulted me and my teacher friend.  He insulted our intelligence, relevance, and our hard work.  Because I view this colleague as a friend, the blow hit hard and deep.  I carried a knot in my stomach for the rest of the day.  But I knew that I needed to talk with him about it because I didn’t want the static to corrupt our working relationship.  So I asked if we could meet up at lunch.  My primary goal was to let him know that what he did was hurtful and unprofessional.  And with my heart banging in my chest (and a Chevy Chase voice saying, “This is crazy, this is crazy…”) I entered the classroom for our lunchtime conversation. 

Where did grace come into the picture?  It came with my other primary goal:  To preserve our friendship and find resolution.  So I swallowed the frog in my throat and opened up the conversation and, after listening to his opinions and giving him time to say his piece, I told him that I appreciated our open dialogue, but hated the way he handled the situation the day before.  I told him, as I desperately controlled the quiver in my voice, that what he had done was incredibly hurtful. 

He was genuinely mortified that he had caused hurt feelings.  And I absolutely believe him.  He said he thought he was being funny, but realized that it came across on paper with a completely different tone.  We finished our meeting with the utmost professionalism, a dinged friendship polished and repaired, a knot in my stomach unraveled. 

For some, this little victory might not seem like much, but for me this was akin to David facing Goliath.  My Goliath is clothed in fear.  My Goliath wields a very mighty club called self-doubt.  Today I overcame this tyrant with a little rock called faith.  A few hours before our meeting, while my stomach was still churning, a thought took shape in my mind.  I am certain that this thought was a gift directly from the Holy Spirit Himself.  I now offer that gift to you. I realize that I tend to see the world through black-and-white lenses.  Success.  Failure.  Good.  Bad.  Instead of these absolutes, this morning a thought came to light:  I need to see each of these challenges not as a success or failure, but as exercise.   Today God offered me some calisthenics in the form of a dreaded meeting that I faced head-on and with a heart bent on restoration.  The calisthenics of grace.

If this is what grace feels like, I guess I should look forward to the next time I get to slap on my headband and leotard and work it out. 

Snowfall....

The November air felt dense and thick; sound moved slowly as if in syrup.  Street lamps feebly penetrated the gray light of evening, and waning daylight bleared in that way that suggests the sky is pregnant with snow.   I drove home with a thousand thoughts running through my mind and music playing from the radio.  This day, as most days, was filled with voices. 

Trees and cars moved in a blur during the twenty-minute drive home.  Winter usually arrives after a long build-up here; frost sparkles sometime in October on our deck and on the road.  By Halloween we all say, “It’ll snow soon.  It usually does around this time.” And then we wait.  Watch the sky, check the weather reports, and peer out the windows to see it happen.  During this time the clouds move in, stretch across the mountains, and become thick with moisture.  On clear nights a blurred ring surrounds the moon, and I say, “Look at that.  It’s going to snow any day now.” 

By the time I turned onto Kidd Island Road I was thinking about snow plows and ice.  The road winds along Kidd Island Creek and descends slightly toward the lake all the way.  Trees that create a cooling shade in the summer create treacherous patches of black ice in the winter.  Early morning construction workers careen around the curves pulling tractors or bulldozers or loads of lumber.  In the evening the road is swallowed up by wide trucks loaded with excavation equipment, and drivers hug the road and hold their breath, hoping to avoid the ditch.  I began to mentally prepare for winter driving adjustments:  Add at least ten minutes to the morning commute, slow to 30 mph, slow even more on the curves, watch ahead for deer crossing the road.  Mica Grade loomed darkly in my imagination.  The steep portion of Highway 95 that descends toward the city adds extra apprehension to the commute because the black ice is coupled with vehicles traveling 60 mph.  A man was killed there once when a truck veered into his lane, slamming into his car so forcibly that it hung from the barrier and nearly rolled 100 feet down the embankment.  My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. 

The road stretched in front of me with Ponderosa pines and naked tamaracks flanking both sides.  Somewhere in the gully, Kidd Island Creek trickled.  It wouldn’t be until spring that the creek would become so engorged with snowmelt that it would spill over its banks and in some places right over the road.  Clouds – not full, buoyant clouds, but the thick wisps that streak across the entire sky and obliterate any stars from view –settled  heavily, seeming to graze the tops of the trees.  My thoughts shifted towards work.  I recalled deadlines and determined what I needed to work on that night, and suddenly felt that time was slipping away from me in small trickles I could not hold back.  The radio continued its chatter in the back of my mind.

By the time I ran through my list of chores, the view opened up to the lake; lights from the city and houses along the shore reflected on black water.  The road ascended and our loop road was in sight.  The sound of gravel under tires was music.  I was home. 

Pine trees surrounding the house and yard seemed to lean in close, and the whole countenance of the evening held expectance.  I walked from the garage and descended the wooden stairs to our house, which sits tucked against a small hill below our garage.   My footsteps echoed into the now dark night.   Small snowflakes began to fall.

As the night progressed I would peer through the windows to watch the accumulation of snow.  The snowfall grew within an hour to fat flakes that piled up one on the other.  By nine o’clock nearly four inches of snow lay over everything, brightening the once dark evening considerably.  Light came from the ground up, and the sky over the city glowed orange with city lights reflecting from the gray.   As my husband prepared to leave for work (he works for the railroad), I implored him to be careful, watch out for ice and other vehicles, and call me when he arrived at work.  For the next hour my imagination was filled with fear of the what-ifs.  And the snow continued to fall.

At ten o’clock he called.  The grade wasn’t plowed yet, but it would be by morning.  The forty-five minute trip to Spokane was relatively uneventful, and drivers seemed to be adjusting to the change in weather.  I was relieved that my early-winter imaginings were again proven wrong.  Each year the change from fall to winter brings with it concerns over road conditions and the potential for disaster.  Within two weeks of winter driving the fears dissipate and my mind can churn over other issues. 

Like the driveway. 

Our house is situated on a sloping hillside looking over Kidd Island Bay on Coeur d’Alene Lake.  Our half-acre property has three level plains, divided by slopes about fifty feet long.  The configuration is one of a three-step staircase:  driveway and garage, house and small lawn, grassy beach to water.  The driveway causes great fear in new visitors; in fact the first several months of turning into the driveway caused me to hold my breath since, for a moment, the nose of the car appears to be heading straight over the embankment and down the slope into which we’ve carved a “meandering” switchback pathway.  After my step-father climbed the driveway in the dark, stepped right off the edge, and rolled a good ten feet into the forest, we installed a split-rail fence to add both peace of mind and a rustic aesthetic to the gravel drive.

After I hung up the phone with my husband, I peered out the front door window and noticed that the heavy fall had lightened enough to warrant a good shoveling.   I pulled on a sweatshirt and jacket, jammed my hands into gloves, and pulled a hat on my head.  Mandy, our Welsh corgi, joined me and we walked out the door to a transformed world.  A hush greeted us…a silence I hadn’t noticed in some time. 

My reaction to the snow contrasted greatly with Mandy’s.  I was imagining thirty to forty-five minutes of work that was stealing away time for sleep; Mandy raced up the stairs, kicking snow behind her and wheeling around to see if I was playing along.  She then dropped to the ground and rolled in it, grunting and snorting with pleasure.  I hadn’t thought of reacting to the snow the way Mandy did, but I laughed at her excitement as I grabbed the shovel from the garage and climbed to the top of the driveway. 

I am certain that other evenings held the same stillness, though I had not taken the time to notice.  But on this night I was astonished at the silence.  Only one car drove on the main road above our loop, the noise was muffled by the thick, white blanket that covered everything.  Sound seemed to settle into the banks of snow and become lost, unable to reverberate from anything. 

For the first time in what seemed like a long time, I stopped.  I stopped thinking, planning, and moving altogether.  Our land resonated with newness.  It seemed to me that I hadn’t been paying very close attention to my life lately. 

On this night my eyes could see. 

The sky had a glow that radiated all around the bowl of hills that surrounds the three sides of the bay.  I saw the trees, their branches pressed toward the ground with a deep load of snow.  The forest seemed closer somehow, as if everything had moved together in a great huddle.  Ribbons of snow draped on the rungs of the split-rail fence and seemed to glow a bluish-white under the night sky.  Snow slid from the metal-roofed cabin down the road, hitting the ground with a soft thud.  With my senses so heightened, I felt like a child again, during those years when the mental white-noise hasn’t yet kicked in.  The world opened itself up to me during that soft night, and I just stood there, shovel in hand, mouth agape, gasping at the notion that I could have missed something so fantastic and simple.  When I finished shoveling the driveway, I just stood there, tired, but wanting to memorize every detail of such a silent, tranquil night.  I think I even made a snow-angel.  If I didn’t, I sure thought about it.

The next evening as I drove home, trying not to let my first official drive in the snow fray my nerves, I looked up at the trees instead of driving in a tunnel of white.  Most of the snow had slid from the branches, but the tips of the pine needles were silver.  In the moonlight I couldn’t take my eyes off of all the trees with silver edges shining like snow.