Discussion Questions, Storytelling, Sharing
- Share a story about a time when you have felt accepted although you thought you were unacceptable. Or identify an unearned gift in your life.
- A real obstacle to grace is our refusal to accept the help of others. Recall a situation when you did not want to rely upon the good will of someone else. What was the source of your refusal?
Imagery Exercise
Denise Levertovï's poem "The Avowal," which appears on p. 252 in Spiritual Literacy, is one of our favorite descriptions of grace. Here is an exercise based on its images.
Breathe out three times. See yourself as a swimmer floating face up in the water. Sense how the water holds you without your effort.
Breathe out one time. See yourself as a hawk soaring above the earth. Sense how the air holds you without your effort.
Breathe out one time. See and sense yourself in freefall, floating into the Creator's deep embrace. Know that you are being surrounded by the light of grace. Then open your eyes.
Journal Exercises
- Reflect upon this New Testament passage from I Peter 5:10: "The God of all grace . . . will restore, support, strengthen and establish you." Then write about experiences of divine grace when God has done one of these things for you.
- In addition to recognizing grace when it happens to us, we need to be a grace in other people's lives. Don Quixote puts it well at the end of the play The Man of La Mancha: "I just wanted to add a measure of grace to the world." Write about specific ways you have added, or could still add, a measure of grace to the world.
