The gift of nature is the gift of "being"; the gift of grace is the gift of "well-being." Grace is given to reconnect us to our true nature. At the heart of our being is the image of God, and thus the wisdom of God, the creativity of God, the passions of God, the longings of God. Grace is opposed not to what is deepest in us but to what is false in us. It is given to restore us to the core of our being and to free us from the unnaturalness of what we are doing to one another and to the earth.
~ from THE CHRIST OF THE CELTS by J. Philip Newell
No one can know the ultimate mystery. We never will. But we can invest our lives with courage, dignity, sympathy, understanding, in such a way as to take the utterly crazy things that happen and transform them into a joyful and creative illumination. I am in search of the creativity that is at the center of human-beingness. I cannot know where this lies until I get there, but I have faith it is there where one aspect of God is. All of this implies my dealing with the opposite of what I am used to, a passive and quiet listening to what life says. To learn how to be.
