Swimming in Grace

The post in which I come out as a mystic & talk about the foundation of my faith

I think it was the birth of my first grandbaby that sent me spiraling into unexpected grief.

He was born on a crisp day in May, wholly perfect and holy-beautiful.

A bit of background: He calls me YaYa and I’m his grandmother by choice, not by natural assignment. He is my sister’s grandson, and his mama is my sister’s daughter. They belong to her but, since she has left this world, they now belong to me too.

I was there the day my sister gave birth to my niece, and I was present when my niece gave birth to her son. On both occasions I left the hospital feeling so full of wonder and glory that I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if my body took flight from buoyancy of joy.

Soon after my sweet grandson was born, though, I began to experience insomnia. Something about the newness of him and watching him be formed every day through his interactions with his parents, opened a well of grief within me that I didn’t know existed.

I’ve raised several adult children and the two remaining at home are almost grown. As I stood at the dividing line between young mother and grandmother, my heart cracked wide. The grief presented itself, at first, as intrusive thoughts and memories. I’d be going about my day and suddenly be seized by memories of raising my voice at my young children, shaming them, harshly disciplining them, failing to listen to them, and leaving them vulnerable when I should have been protecting them. As these memories resurfaced, and I gazed upon the fresh face of my grandson, I became wrecked by shame and guilt for my failures as a parent.

I would lie on my bed at night, tortured, and longing more than anything I’d ever longed for in my life to go back in time and do it better. To be what they needed me to be. To sacrifice more, love more, see more. Armed with the years of wisdom and formation I’d undergone since they were little ones, I knew I could be a stellar parent and prevent the wounding I’d caused them – the ones I love more than my own life.

I became obsessive with my ruminations. I talked about it to anyone who would listen, trying to find some absolution, or some reframing that could provide relief. I lamented to my husband, my children, and my closest friends. I wrote about it in this newsletter, albeit vaguely. In my entire life, I’ve never cried more violently and sincerely than I did in those suffering months. I had felt ego death before and this wasn’t that. I didn’t care one bit about my legacy as a mother, or what others might think if they knew my shortcomings. No, I was intensely grieving the pain I’d caused my precious children. I was being swallowed up not by a recognition of my wrongs, but by the weights I’d strapped around their necks in my audacity to parent from a place of disintegration.

Photo by Kelsey Dody on Unsplash

In January 2024 I arrived at a spiritual retreat on St. Simmons Island, haggard and weary in my soul. I didn’t expect much in the way of spiritual renewal, as I felt I deserved to suffer until, somehow, I paid the price for how many ways I’d failed at the greatest and most important task of my life.

Yet, as soon as I could, I made my way to a little chapel by the water. I entered through a heavy wooden door and was relieved to find no one else there. I sat in the front row and stared at the candles burning at the altar and the icon of Mary Magdalene nestled between them. The taste of salt water in the air and the oyster shell walls soothed my aching soul.

I closed my eyes, not even with the intention to pray. As soon as I did, God arrested my body, mind, and heart. It was as if God had been waiting for me to get there and allow a Divine word in edgewise.

I saw myself standing on the edge of a canyon beneath which flowed a river that appeared to be made of liquid gold. I heard, “Surrender,” spoken with firmness and authority but also invitationally.

Surrender.

I need to jump in.

Surrender.

I have a choice.

I could fill a book up with how the word surrender made my skin crawl. Surrender indicated giving up my choice, my power, my security. Even recognizing that the vision I was seeing was from God, everything in me was repulsed by the word surrender.

But I’ve always been as brave as I am weird. So, I jumped.

I plunged into the golden water, and I physically felt enveloped in warmth. It was like being covered in a blanket after being cold for too long, or like being hugged completely by my body’s perfect match.

I was being held.

For the first time in months, a smile spread across my face and down into every part of my body. I felt what the Bible poetically calls “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” I realized that the golden water was tangible grace.

Grace! I was swimming in priceless grace. I was splashing in plentiful grace. I was being held by welcoming grace.

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

I will fail if I attempt to describe what this felt like. All I can offer are these paltry words. I felt relief akin to drawing a deep, rib-busting breath after almost suffocating to death. And then childish wonder. And then gratitude that made me weep and shudder with laughter.

I looked up and saw figures standing on the edge of the canyon watching me and I knew at once they were my children. I stared into each of their faces, thrilled to my bones that they were there, realizing how much they needed to be there.

And I began to wave and yell for them to jump in. I was overcome with a desire for them to join me, to experience what I was experiencing. I cried and splashed and swam and laughed.

And then it hit me. The point of the entire vision came into sharp focus.

If there was one thing I wanted more than anything else in this world, it was to be the perfect mother. I wanted to give them everything, to cause them no harm, to bring them light and love every minute of every day.

But the truth is, all I ever had to offer them was showing them how to surrender to grace, how to swim in it, how to splash in it, how to become like a trusting child in it every day.

All I ever had to offer them, or anyone for that matter, is the one thing I couldn’t earn, strive for, control, or orchestrate. The best parenting or human-ing I can accomplish, it turns out, is to be formed, re-formed, informed, and un-formed in the context of plentiful, priceless, and welcoming grace.

I promised you a series explaining my so-called “liberal drift” and how I’ve arrived where I am today. And this is the first, and most important, stone in the foundation of my faith. I was genuinely and wholly healed through that vision of grace. I walked out of that chapel a changed person and have not returned to the ruminating, self-focused, self-flagellating person since that day. And that’s because grace heals, and it sets free. It’s as perspective shifting as watching the birth of a child. Suddenly, you understand what life is all about and have a hard time relating to the way you saw things before.

Before I allow anyone to enter the sanctuary of my heart where Jesus and I dwell together, I ask if there is evidence this person knows what it means to swim in grace. If it seems like this person is holding onto systems and worldviews of control, self-righteousness, domination, victimization, dehumanization, or anything of the like, I don’t allow them into that sacred space. And not because their doctrines, creeds, policies, preferences, and opinions don’t have anything to offer. On the contrary, they almost always do!

But it’s simply because we won’t be able to have a whole-hearted conversation until we are swimming in grace together. Until we can share what it feels like to swim in warmth, forgiveness, love, endless second chances, and the certain knowledge that our entire purpose is to give and receive this amazing grace, we just won’t fully understand one another. Until we’ve both felt the terror and thrill of surrendering to unearned love, we will always misfire to some degree. Until we both comprehensively understand that we couldn’t achieve or believe our way into healing and wholeness, we will always need an interpreter. And until we both believe that our sole job is to lovingly, joyfully, invite others into the river just as they are, our lives will be on different trajectories.

The first question I ask myself nowadays, when being exposed to theology, biblical interpretation, philosophy, or worldview is: how does this fit in a world of plentiful, priceless, welcoming grace? If the answer is: it doesn’t, then I kindly pass. You don’t often hear a deep understanding of grace as one of the keys to wise discernment, but it absolutely is.  

For anyone reading this who is hesitant to lean “too far into grace and love” at the expense of truth, I very much understand that feeling. We live in a world of conditional love and all that we know of God has been filtered through humans who live in a world of conditional love. We’ve also inherited a belief that truth is something cerebral, an intellectual understanding of what is real. It’s difficult to believe that truth and love are synonymous. Perhaps as you read this today, you might close your beautiful eyes and go into your own inner sanctuary and ask God what God thinks about all of this. Is there such a thing as too much emphasis on grace and love? Could looking too long at grace cost us truth in the process?

I will leave you with those questions to consider until next time and, beloved reader, with this blessing by John O’Donahue:

May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul.

May you realize that you are never alone, that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.

May you have respect for your individuality and difference.

May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique, that you have a special destiny here, that behind the façade of your life there is something beautiful and eternal happening.

May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride, and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.