What is Grace?

So what exactly is grace and why is it so amazing? After several months of reflection I still can't put it into my own words. But given all of the ironies and serendipity of its evolution, I can't help but think that maybe grace really did pay a big role in bringing the hymn "Amazing Grace" from John Newton in 1722 to us today.

Graceas a concept remains elusive to me. But I'm pretty sure I know it when I see it. I know I saw it in my Dad in that last year of his life. I see it now in loved ones and friends as they accept and yet not give in to their physical challenges, mental illness, and incredible grief.

I see it in my patients when, on occasion, everything that I try to do to help them save their vision fails, and yet they say "Thanks for everything you've done for me doc," as if I am the one that needs comforting. I see grace in the bend of the young pine tree covered with heavy snow in our back yard.

I heard it in the almost mystical "whoosh" of an owl that flew 8 feet over Cathy and me while we were watching a meteor shower. I see it in the colored beams of light that come from the windows in this church when the sun is just right. And I see it in all of us at Unity, as we each do our best, each in our own way, to steward our beloved church.

There is a quote in Steve Turner's book, Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most Beloved Song, from UU Minister Roberta Finkelstine, from her sermon on Amazing Grace that says it better than I ever could:

"Grace is still a very personal and subjective experience. It is something indescribable that happens to us when we least expect it, when we haven't asked for it, and certainly when we don't merit it. Whatever it is, we are transformed by the experience in the here and now, and sustained by its memory later on. It is what life surprises us with."