No Matter How Hard We Work...

 The Austrian philanthropist, Hermann Gmeiner, once wrote, "Everything great in the world only comes about because someone does more than they have to do."

And back in the day, I would have agreed with that wholeheartedly. But not any more... I believe that *many* great things do come about because someone walks the extra mile, puts in the work and makes them happen, but not all.

There are great things that happen which come about through grace, rather than by our own hard work. No matter how hard we try, we cannot make someone fall in love with us, for example. We can be as persuasive as we like, but we cannot change someone's mind, if they have decided to close it against us. However well we plan, something random may happen, which causes our lives to go in a different direction.

I think there is another element at work here, which some of us may call luck or serendipity, but which Christians call grace. I have blogged about my beliefs about the workings of grace in the world here. And whether you call it 'fate', 'karma', 'destiny' 'luck' or 'grace', I believe there is a random force at work in the world, which means that we cannot plan for greatness. 

Which is not to say that we shouldn't do our best to make great things happen, but that there has to be that extra element present to make it so.

Luck or planning?

This week's postcard shows a bottle on a sandy shore, with a message in it. The quotation is by Jonathan Swift: "Grosse Wendungen werden nicht immer durch starke Hände herbeigeführt, sondern durch ein glückliches Zugreifen im geeigneten Augenblick."

Google translate was a bit iffy about this, but I *think* it means: "Great changes are not always brought about by strong hands; but by/through a happy access at the appropriate moment."

In other words, no matter how carefully we plan something, there is still an element of luck or grace involved in bringing our project to fruition.

In the past few years, I have come to realise that God's grace is everywhere, if we had but eyes to see, and ears to hear. I believe that through sacred living - weaving moment of attention into our everyday lives and recognising the sacred there, we will find it. Sacred living is about living with a new level of awareness. It is about going through our days paying attention to what is happening at each passing moment. It is about noticing the presence of the divine, the numinous, everywhere: in the natural world, in other people, in ourselves, and in things that happen to us. Sacred living is about rediscovering our sense of wonder, and living our lives in response to that. Sacred living is about truly appreciating what we have. About being awake to God's grace at work in the world.

Next week, I will be co-facilitating an engagement group at Summer School. My co-facilitator and I have planned every session down to the last detail, but I am well aware that it will take luck and grace and the holding of sacred space for the usual Summer School magic to happen. I pray that it will do.