Time after I came to your gate with raised hands asking for more yet more. You gave and gave, now in slow measure, now in sudden excess. I took some, and some things I let drop; some lay heavy on my hands; some I made into playthings and broke them when tired; till the wrecks and hoard of gifts grew immense, hiding You, and the ceaseless expectations wore my heart out.
Take, O take, has now become my cry. Shatter all from the beggar's bowl. Put out this lamp of the importunate watcher; hold my hands, raise me from the still-gathering heap of your gifts into the bare infinity of your uncrowded presence.
The return to a sense of community where people hold all things as sacred is an affirmation about the grace within human nature. We are meant to grace one another: to be sources of grace and healers of grace. So grace is an abundance, not a scarcity. Grace comes through our art: the art of living, the art of our language, the art of our relationships, the art of our forgiving.
