The Magic of Grace

Yesterday was an uneventful day. (Replanting shrubs and a doctor’s appointment are nothing to put in the “eventful” column.) In fact, it seems life has been quite uneventful recently. Perhaps that is why this Shabbat morning I am drawn to the beyond-the-natural realm of mystery and grace. I am still battling with finding the glory in the mundane—this may take a little while longer!

Magic. When I speak of magic, I’m not speaking of it in the Harry Potter genre, or any other kind of sorcery, white magic, or spells and that kind of thing. I’m using “magic” the way C.S. Lewis did in the Chronicles of Narnia — something like the kind that acknowledges and participates in a connection to God’s universe and the child-like wonder of it all in a vibrant, colorful kind of way that is both fanciful and exactly true all at the same time.

Well, more than that… Then there’s also the realm of miracle and intrigue, complete with the awe of being connected to something… rather a SOMEONE much Bigger and Greater than ourselves. Mostly, it’s all about Him.

The Higher Power above all “higher powers”—the Divine Instrument and Energy which created it ALL actually invites me to a relationship, often called a Banquet, in which He calls me “Son” and invites me to be a “Co-creator” in the Universe —at least my little part of it — and throughout the whole process is re-creating my inner being, correcting me, disciplining me and through all of this giving me the realization that it is done by a G-d who above all of His wondrous characteristics is above all known as LOVE incarnate — so much that He came here as the Way-Shower, then gave up His very being and substance in-my-place to atone for those places that I have, and still will “miss the way.” And He keeps on loving me, changing me, using me as His instrument and though I still “miss it,” He is still *Jehovah-Shammah through it all. (*literally, “He is there.”)

This all is the magic of grace.