I didn’t really get what the big deal was, until I saw what happened when i had to eliminate those ‘be’ words and put in stronger components of speech. Ultimately and eventually, I’d wind up with some written pieces that were not too shabby for a kid. But the challenge to use strong verbs continued through college. There, a professor known mostly as “Tay” (kind of like Madonna or Sting–too cool for a whole name) wielded the red pen and returned a hot marked-up mess to me for revision.

What’s the big deal about “to be?” I mean, correct me if i’m wrong, but the whole concept made Shakespeare pretty famous. And while the vitality of the written world may thrive on stronger verbs, the vitality of the soul longs for less doing and more being.

Day 5 of sabbatical, and I’m keenly aware of the ‘to do’ part of my brain, trying to take over, while the ‘to be’ part of my soul is just starting to thrive.

On the way here, we stopped at a really posh resort in Palm Springs (thank you, Marriott employee/friends/family rate) that was basically a kiddie paradise. They had Nickelodeon fun zone, outdoor playgrounds, epic pools, water slide and splash yard with water canons, even. The kids had a ball, and crashed hard for a full 12 hours at bedtime.

Thing is, they are having just as much fun in Orange County, at Auntie O and Uncle Rob’s house, playing with their friend Tyke (and all his toys!), sleeping in, watching cartoons, walking the dogs, and…well, just being.

Sure, the tricked out kid resorts are fun. I’m sure they’d enjoy Disneyland (about five miles away) if mom and dad were brave enough to venture there (we’re not). There is lots to do and see, and we’ve got a full 8 weeks of adventure planned. But, at any given moment, they are pretty content just to be. Nobody has introduced them to that red-ink part of the brain yet, and I am just as glad. My goal is to take a lesson from them. To stop being a writer, a preacher, a pastor, a planner, a manager, and a compulsive do-er and just be–where i am, who i am, and whose I am, with grace and gratitude. Amen.

Some light road trip reading. You’ll notice there is no red ink pen for marking up richard scarry or dr suess

Sharing an outdoor bath, west-coast style, with Tyke. As Auntie O says, “two pk’s in a pod.”

Day started, per usual, with a small girl crawling into bed with me and firmly wedging herself in my back to snooze for a few more minutes. Then it was up and around for breakfast with the fam at our favorite pancake place.  Unseasonably cool fluke of a day that it was, we sat outside. In Phoenix, in almost-June. Crazy.

Then, trip to Anthem so the kids could play at the splash park, then we took a ride on the Daisy Mountain Railroad.  (There is something pretty special about little boys and trains that even I cannot quite capture in words.)  They were so worn out after all the a ‘benture, that we came home for epic naptime. During which Dad laid outside in a lounge chair, in the sun, while mom  finished a book. Hear that, people with small children? I actually finished a book.

Then I went to get my hair did. As any woman with kids will tell you, it is the ultimate 45-minute vacation. New lease on life, for (usually) under $100.

Stopped at AJ’s (=fancy grocery store) just in time for the free Friday wine tasting (oh, look how that happened!) took my sweet time, met some lovely people, and picked up sushi for dinner.

All serving to remind me that a bad day in my life is still a pretty great day, because I really don’t have any problems that can’t be overcome with a haircut, some family time, and a few sips of the fullness of life.

So yeah, it was a pancake morning, and a sushi evening. And also, I might have accidentally bought some chocolate. And wine. And finally–finally!– cherries. I craved them like a crazy person both times I was pregnant, and now it is fun to watch those babies–now out in the world, with teeth even–inhale them quicker than i can cut out the pits.

They might cost as much as a tank of gas, but all in all, it just seemed like a good day to splurge on cherries. And to say out loud that life is good, most every day that we let it be.

The first time i walked into a sanctuary that had chairs, i thought it felt weird and wrong and unchurch-like. I was walking in as the new student minister, and luckily, nobody asked me what i thought about the seating arrangement. Since then, I’ve served serveral other churches, and visited even more. I now know that my initial, aesthetic reaction to that space was rooted in my limited experience of worship. Older and wiser (and yes, totally gray–thanks, kids and church) I realize that chairs are not just ok–they are pretty much the only way forward.

I’m not saying walk into a 100-year-old sanctuary and yank out the foundations. But if you think of chairs in a more philosophical sense, they are the flexible option, and therefore, always the right answer.

I now serve another church that has chairs. That decision was made long before my time (thanks be to God), and i understand it did not come easily. But now, the arrangement has such clear advantages that I can’t imagine the challenges we’d be facing (in addition to the ones we’ve already got) had it gone the other way.

With chairs, we are able to change our worship space from season to season, and even from Saturday to Sunday, when the crowds vary. We can add seating for high holy days–like Christmas, Easter, and Super Bowl–and take some out in the dregs of summer. We can be creative with prayer stations and musical ensembles. We can have a center aisle for a wedding, or two for a Palm Sunday parade. Communion is served more gracefully. People can get in and out (though i wish they wouldn’t do so much of it) without having to climb over a whole row of strangers. Guests with small children can slip out to the nursery. Heck, if we wanted to, we could roll a daggone elephant clown in on a unicycle, though i’m not sure what liturgical season that would be… Maybe i’ll ask the big Bible church over in Scottsdale, they’ve probably tried it.

If you think of every decision in the life of the church as a fundamental question of chairs or pews–the difference in rooting in for the long haul, or building something that can evolve over time–the chairs always have it. It’s a rock-paper-scissor equation of liturgical proportion.

Do we plan the worship time around our schedules, or the needs of our neighbors? Chairs.

Build something safe and comfortable, or something that will make room for strangers? Chairs.

What will free up more of our resources to serve those in need? Chairs.

Again, no need to go yank up the pews that are already there…We are in a metaphor. But if you’re building a new space, or remodeling the old one, there isn’t much need for debate when it comes to the seating arrangements. Leave room to grow.  Leave room for the Spirit to move. And don’t nail anything to the ground that can’t be moved.

Believe me, there will be other stuff to discuss, other stuff to turn the pastor’s hair gray and send a faction of your people to the megachurch down the road. For instance–you heard it here first people–the church website is the new carpet color. Future generations will tell harrowing tales of how so-and-so left the church in the great server debate of ought-12.

But as long as there is room to grow, willingness to change, and enough creative vision to see what the place could be like with chairs full of people, life will go on. And we will see miraculous things happen in the midst of our flexible, Spirit-filled, welcoming spaces.

Chairs, folks. The chairs have it, every time.

My mom dug the books out of moth balls for my kids, and now as a grown up i’m realizing: they’re a little bit sexist. And racist. And you know, there are little disturbing placement issues that jump out at me now. Like the baby pig, sitting in a grocery cart in front of the meat counter…looking at the bacon. Sick sense of humor much? Or an oblivious editor? I dunno. I don’t much care, either. The fact that I read them with an adult bias now should not keep my kids from enjoying them. I figure I will just edit as we go, for the world in which we now live. Rather than saying, “look, kids. Only the mommies cook dinner in this book, so only the mommies can cook dinner now. Go tell Dad that he should put down the spatula and go back to his pipe and newspaper.”

I have a new favorite primetime fix: ABC’s Once Upon a Time. The premise is that all the fairy tale characters–all of them!–have been placed under a curse, and transported to our world. To Maine, to be exact. And they go about their everyday lives, most of them having no recollection of who they are in that other domain. That’s cool and all, but what is really cool is each character’s ‘back story,’ as we see it unfold in the parallel universe of fairytale land. Did you ever wonder, for example, why Snow White’s step mother hates her? There’s a reason, and it makes the Evil Queen an almost sympathetic character. Did you ever wonder why the Beast (as in Beauty and the…) was a Beast? In this context, he is also Rumpelstiltskin, which adds dimension to many of the other stories, as well. Did it ever occur to you that, perhaps, Red Riding Hood is the big bad wolf?? At least, under a full moon she is.

Seriously, this show will blow your mind. It’s from the same people who wrote Lost, if that tells you anything about the complex layer of narrative at work here. I highly recommend it.

Unless, of course, you are very attached to the story as you know it. If you really need the comfort of characters falling into their ordered roles, of bad being bad, and good being good, every single time, then this show is not for you. If knowing that Prince Charming actually died– leaving us with a twin brother stand-in–is going to ruin the whole story for you, then you might not love this series.

Of course, if added dimension is disturbing to you, then you should never go back and read any story from your childhood, once you are grown. Because even without the wrench of primetime tv thrown into the stories that you love, there are other wrenches to be thrown. For instance, the fact that you are a grown up person, in a world that has continued to evolve over the last 2000, 200, or even 20 years. No story is ever the same twice, because the world in which we live cannot stay stagnant for that long…and because we, our own selves, are always changing. And therefore, our read of the world changes, too.

Last week, I wrote about reading scripture through this same kind of lens.  God may not change. However, the way people interact with God, interpretting that intersection of human and holy, is constantly evolving. That post struck a nerve with folks who have questions about faith, the Church, and the Bible, but still see the value of those stories. It may not be the same value that they learned in Sunday school when they were 5–or even that they heard from the pulpit somewhere in adulthood–but it is Spirit value, nonetheless. Because what we find, when we revisit these stories as adults, is that they’ve gained dimension. Not from the efforts of a fiction writer, but from our own insight and experience, and from the quickly evolving world in which we live these lines of plot and discourse.

And yeah, sometimes we realize it’s a little bit sexist. Or racist. Or that the baby pig is sitting a liiiiiittle bit too close to the butcher’s block for our taste. Those parts, we let go. We translate for a new day, and we are left with a true core of meaning and value that cannot be shaken by time or space. Thus empowered, we read on.  Because it’s still our story.

I heard the other day that Stephen King is ‘adding’ an episode of The Dark Tower series. Wtf?? It was perfect. It was infallible. It was finished. How can he add a thread of any worth to the greatest story ever told?  Much as I’d like to be excited about the prospect, I don’t like the idea of him messing with ‘my’ story; which, in my head, is finished and was perfect the first time. But it occurs to me that, if i really felt he’d spun the perfect tale already, I shouldn’t read anything else, ever again. If I’m attached to the story I know, then I’m going to be disappointed every time the ‘world moves on,’ and every time I evolve.

So my other choice is to read this new episode through the lens of the world as I know it, in this time and place, and through all the insight and experience I’ve gained in the 7(?) years since I last visited Mid World. I can go there again with the gift of a past and the promise of a future, and see what the author has in store. Because the alternative is to just stop reading, and well, I might as well just hold my breath, forever.

It’s never finished, folks. We are never finished. Thanks be to the author of our days.

So there’s that.

I noticed in that thread of comments something that i’ve noticed time and again in discussions about homosexuality, women in ministry, and various other hot topics: it is the painful truth that many people from more conservative Christian backgrounds think that those of us in favor of LGBT inclusion, women in leadership, and/or evolution, assume that we just really hate the Bible. Or ignore it. Or are utterly ignorant of what it says.

Sadly, many leaders on the more progressive end of things don’t do a good job of articluating anything to the contrary. I recently met another pastor from my neighborhood. When I told him what church I serve, he said that he came to worship here several years ago: and he heard the preacher say that the Bible was “nothing more than a book of stories.” “That broke my heart,” he said. “I swore i would never go back to a church like that again.”

Well…what could i say to that? Hearing him say “a church like that” broke my heart, as well. And i couldn’t very well say, ‘no, that is wrong, that isn’t what we believe!” What I wish i’d been able to say was, “That’s not ALL we believe.” Or some other truth that would engage a conversation. But what really hurt, and continues to hurt, is that there is no door to conversation after that. There is no bridge between “just a book of stories” and “the infallible, inerrant…word of God that is the only way to salvation.”

What I’d love to be able to say is that a ‘church like that’ DOES love the Bible. And we know it is so much more than ‘just’ a book of stories. It is, in fact, THE story. It is the broad and sweeping epic stoy of God working through history for relationship with humankind; and working, through Jesus Christ, to build a holy kind of kingdom on earth–not in some future, far-off afterlife, but in a here and now, where all people are treated with justice, kindness, and equity.

We know what it says about abominations and pro-creation. We know what it says about the first 7 days. We know what it says about women sitting down and being quiet. But you know… it also says that we should still go out into the desert by ourselves once a month, and I don’t see anybody enforcing that. It also says you shouldn’t wear synthetic fabrics, or plant certain crops side by side, or work on the sabbath. It also says a bunch of stuff about how to treat your slaves.

It also says that Christians should give up everything they own–not just metaphorically, but really–to follow Jesus. I think we can agree–none of us gets that part right.

I promise, we’ve read it. But we’ve read the rest of it, too. And while some folks think we are unfaithful to ‘ignore’ certain components of God’s word, we feel it is unfaithful to pull obscure, ancient law out of the mothballs, ignoring the broader, sweeping scope of this fantastic, earth-shaking, transforming story.

Like the part about loving your neighbor as yourself; the part about not judging others; the part about God doing new things every morning; the parts about restoring to community those who have been on the outside; and the parts in the gospel–in every single gospel–where Jesus finds the most broken, unlikely, unconventional people and not only sits at the table with them, but calls them to ministry.

That’s the part of scripture that changes lives and makes new disciples; that’s the gospel of Jesus as we know it, that will give us life into a new generation; that’s the good news of God, alive and moving in the world–and even in us– despite all evidence to the contrary.

Thing is, if you are a literalist, we know that it is your gospel, too. We know that, deep down, we all want the same thing. We all want for a hurting, broken world to know this Jesus of healing, hope and transformation; and we want the world we live in to mirror his teachings, so that we all look a little bit more like God.

So it breaks my heart when we can’t talk about women, or dinosaurs, or gay people, without hitting the wall of “That’s not what the Bible says!!!!” We know what it says.

But we also know what it means, for our own lives, and for the healing of the world. And until we can have an open, loving conversation, that healing isn’t going to happen, and not nearly enough people are going to know the Jesus that we all love and try–broken though we might be–to follow. People are going to continue to leave the Church in droves, as long as they hear one camp condemning everybody to hell, and the rest of us saying it’s “just a story.”

There’s a better way, folks. And Jesus sure wishes we’d hurry up and find it, together.

What can you say when a country that is based on freedom, passes a law that suppresses the very right to be one’s self?

What can you say when people who claim faith in a loving, merciful God, pass a law out of hate and spite, that serves no purpose but to label, ostracize and degrade the ‘other’?

What can you say, when free people can pass a law based on imaginary, moral high ground; even if, ultimately, the law comes at the expense of families, the economy, religious freedom, free speech, and basically the country’s street cred with the rest of the free world?

What can you say when children in our country have to go to school today and hear that their family isn’t really a family; that they no longer have health insurance; and that, if something happens to one of their parents, the state will probably get custody of them instead of their other parent. (OK, probably nobody is telling the kids about that last part. Because nobody thought that far ahead when they passed this heinous law).

What can you say when privilege of normalcy can wreak such havoc on the lives of innocent people?

I am a Christian minister, and i am pretty intentional about not saying things that polarize across party lines. But this is not a party issue. I know plenty of Republicans who think this whole conversation is bananas, and are pretty angry that their party is wasting precious time and resources on passing–let’s call it what it is–a hate law. I also know some (but not many) gay republicans. So, this is not a party thing. This is a human thing, a faith thing, a justice thing. And for those of us who spend our lives trying to save the church from itself, it is also a pretty significant PR problem.

What can i say? Only that, if we are handing out amendments all over today, I would like to say that:

1: Crazy people don’t get guns or access to social media. Say what you will about the right to free speech and arms, but I think we are learning quickly around here that freedom has its limits.

2: You can no longer do something spiteful in the name of Jesus and call it Church, and hide behind freedom of religion. If I am amending things, I say that you don’t get to claim my Jesus in your hate speech.

3: You are not allowed to vote with hate in your heart; you are not allowed to vote if you have never read a newspaper, met a gay person (or a person of color, or a poor person, or a non-Christian) in real life.

What else can you say, when the foundations of liberty can shift with a nation’s bad mood? What else can you say, but:

“Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes” Really, some truths are self-evident. What more can we say? Except, Thomas Jefferson forgive us; Tim Gunn, Elton John and Ellen Degeneres, please forgive us; and may God have mercy on our free, empowered, privileged souls when want to keep freedom for the select and privileged majority. A threat to liberty anywhere is a threat…well, you know. I can’t add much to that. 

Now, somewhere in her quickly-developing brain, there is a very literal connection in there, something that has to do with an actual movie. Not that she’s seen many movies–she does well to sit through a 20-minute cartoon–but she thinks there is a movie that goes with everything. Every book she owns, every Bible story she hears at church… even, i think, the life of every person she knows. There must be a big-screen adaptation of her own life, in development stages even as we speak! When will she quit sucking her thumb?  What will be the name of the first boyfriend to make mom and dad crazy? Will she get a basketball scholarship so we can retire on her college money?

I don’t know. I haven’t seen the movie yet.

No 3-year-old intentionally develops a catch phrase. But to me, that response is just downright profound and existential, applicable to every life question facing each of us. From the broad and universal, to the minute and immediate:

“What’s for dinner tonight?” “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the movie yet.”

“Who is supposed to be in charge of this project? Is this presentation going to be done on time?” “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the movie yet.”

“Why is this happening to me? Why do bad things happen to good people?” “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the movie yet.”

“Why are we here?? What is the meaning of life? When will we find the path to world peace? When will they uncover the significant health benefits of chocolate pie?”

Don’t know. Haven’t seen it.

Yessir. This is my new answer to EVERYTHING. With many thanks to my Bopper, who will someday hate to have her own words turned back on her with a loving bit of snark.

“Mom, why can’t I have my own car? Why can’t i stay out later? Why isn’t my allowance as much as my bff’s? Why do i have to have a crazy, embarrassing minister for a mom???”
Don’t know, kid. Haven’t seen the movie.

And even if i had–even if i had, in fact, seen the movie in which all the days of your life are written–well, I wouldn’t tell you. Spoilers, you know. The movie is up to you, and I’ll do my very, very best to let you figure it out as you go. Even if i hate the boyfriend. Even if your hair is pink and you have a potty mouth. But if you can make it happen…well, that basketball scholarship would be great.  Love, Crazy Embarassing Minister Mom.

95wombat, via flickr

Oh, girlfriend. You are barking up the wrong cactus… And THIS is why i usually don’t answer the office phones in the afternoon, unless it is a name i recognize on that caller i.d.

You know how you think of the right thing to say, about 4 seconds after you’ve hung up? This was one of those days.

What I actually said was “no, I don’t think so.”

What I should have said goes something like this:

“You know, as a matter of fact, I was sharing the gospel with a Jewish person, just this morning. We were talking about how utterly backward and hateful Christians can be when it comes to gay people. She shared that she has Christian friends who are gay and lesbians, and she is so glad they have found welcoming UCC congregations to be a part of. And how she was pleased to see that we are an Open and Affirming congregation, since her children go to preschool here, and she tries to teach her children about diversity, love, and acceptance. And then we went on discussing how Jesus pretty much said nothing about hating on people who are different than us, quite the opposite in fact; and that the Church tends to use scripture in ways that let people hold onto their own backward, toxic ways of looking at the world. Like saying that women can’t be preachers. Or that gay people are abomonations. Or that Jewish people need to be saved by the Christian right.”

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I should have said. Maybe I’ll call her back. While I’m at it, I can share with her my ever-growing list of S*^! Jesus Says, and doesn’t. And then I can thank her for her latest contribution to the list, which she inspired.

S*^! Jesus DOES NOT say:

“Go and make disciples of all nations, and then nag the s*^! out of them, until everybody looks exactly like you.”

“Blessed are the megaphone wielders, the anti-semites, the gay bashers, and the affluent white people with a savior complex.”

S*^! Jesus Actually Says:

“Blessed are the meek; they will inherit the earth, because they are not too busy trying to grab it.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for sharing one’s faith in appropriate context. I’m all for making room at the table for people who are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or some of those other fancy religions that I can’t spell. But come on, to target a broad, sweeping demographic of the world and go about trying to ‘save them’ with our super white, westernized Jesus?  It is lost on these folks that Jesus WAS Jewish. And that, without ancient Jewish law, they would not be able to uphold some of their ancient, Christian prejudices against women and gay people. (Jewish law which, by the way, most Jewish people have learned to discern and make meaningful for their modern context, without all the hateful and irrelevant extremes.)

Obviously, I am just beginning to unpack the layers of disturbing that were packed into a 30-second phone call. But since: 1) most people inquiring about the church stop by or send emails; 2) most sales folks call for the secretary, who only works mornings, and; 3) all my church folks have my cell phone number; I think, if nothing else, I’ve found a new rule by which to live through the late afternoon:

Right?

I’m pretty sure, if i looked hard enough, I could find scriptural evidence that Jesus had pretty much the same policy.

*A note: i know missionaries who are compassionate, loving, brave, and have a heart for transforming the world in its darkest, most painful corners. I am grateful for their ministry to feed, clothe, educate and comfort the suffering. True mission work can be done without proselytizing.

What I notice, time (and time) again, is the impulse of grace that comes into most relationships at the first moment of fracture. I call it the mercy instinct–without fail, the first and immediate reaction of the person who’s been wounded is to forgive, and begin to salvage what is left of the connection.

However: the first reaction does not always win. What’s so amazing to me is not just how easily that instinct comes to us–but how fiercely we fight it down.

Perhaps that impulse of grace is a survival mechanism. We cannot begin to process ending the relationship, cutting a much loved friend/child/spouse/sibling out of our lives, and so our  most natural inclination is to forgive and move on. But then, our baser instincts take over. The ones that want to hurt as we have been hurt, or to prove how right and good we are (as opposed to how wrong and bad the people who’ve hurt us).  And while the mercy instinct might be the quickest and the most natural, the impulses of anger, fear and control tend to be louder and longer in duration.

Perhaps that is survival, as well: the feeling that, if we forgive the one who has wronged us, we will be condoning their actions, and inviting another future heartbreak. Meanwhile, there is a lingering fear of vunerability… If I forgive this person, really and truly…what wrong of mine will i have to face? Who’s forgiveness will i have to seek, in order to be fully whole? And even on our best days, we really don’t want to go there. (This is why Hallmark does not make Lent cards, Safeway does not make repentance cakes, and the Peanuts never did a special on forgiveness…)

Of course, forgiveness does not come easy. Nor does it always take the shape we think it ought to. Whenever I am preaching forgiveness, I make it clear that God does not ask us to stay with people who hurt or abuse us… The Church (and abusive men, and sometimes, manipulative women) use the whole Jesus schtick to a fault…claiming that ‘turning the other cheek’ means to take a beating, again and again, in the name of faith and virtue. Gag me. I get mad just thinking about it. On more than one occasion, I’ve had people tell me what a profoundly liberating distinction this is–that we can forgive a person in our hearts, and not have to keep them in our lives.

But, this is not that. I’m talking about: elderly brothers who go to their graves having not spoken in 40 years–25 of which they spent having forgotten what they were mad about; friends who drift as life changes, and then spend decades, each mad at the other, for not having called; married people that spend years holding onto old aches and pains, instead of blessing them to the past and seeking a future; children who spoke harshly to parents in a moment of anger, and parents who cling to the blow as a backward way of staying connected to the child; or the congregation that cannot–to save its own life–let go the hurts of 20 years ago and move the $#*^ on, for Christ-sake.

And, maybe most often/significantly/painfully… This is about the person who has done wrong, and cannot accept the forgiveness of others until they have first forgiven themselves. Despite the best efforts of the mercy instinct, we can go about hurting ourselves for a lifetime, and feel that–somehow–we are doing some good to somebody, somewhere.

I was watching Grey’s Anatomy last week (big surprise) and Cristina is still trying to process Owen’s infidelity; which came of his trying to process her having an abortion, when he wanted the child. We’ve seen glimpses, these past few episodes, of how desperately they want to forgive each other. And then, just as quickly, how desperately they internalize the pain, clinging to it as to life itself. Because really, it’s the only way either of them can live with their own role in the fracture–blaming the ‘other,’ and feeling right and good.

Except, it is obvious that neither of them feels good.

Perhaps our first impulse toward grace and forward motion is the best, truest, and most Spirit-filled way ahead–not just to restored connection, but to a self that we can live with. That does not mean trust comes back easily, nor does it mean that all is forgotten. But it does say… I love you more than this moment. You are more than this wrong.  There is more to our story than either of us can see right now. This connection, to me, is worth enduring an element of heartbreak.

Survival of the fittest, after all, applies to our relationships, just as it does to our own personal evolution. The connections that survive the lumps of time, change, and personal failing are, ultimately (and i think we all know this) the only ones worth having.

Here’s hoping that Hunt and Yang are reading, because really, if they don’t get back together, I don’t know if I can bear to watch…

The mercy instinct is a good one, and one that, we must believe, was placed there at creation by the God in whose image we were born. The impulse of grace is survival itself; for our families, for our world, and for our own broken souls.