an open mind

In his memoir, Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me, Ian Morgan Cron describes a brief moment of grace following a terrifying and scaring encounter with a bully.  He is in the woods surrounding his neighborhood.  The bully and his accomplices have left him.  He is humiliated, shocked, and utterly alone.  Cron recalls,

...I felt vacant and half-alive.  

To my right I heard the sudden crack of a twig...It was a fawn.  He was a tan smudge, thirty feet away, unaware of me...I lay frozen, watching him, for so long that my right leg fell asleep.  Eventually the pain of it became unbearable.  Little by little, I shifted my weight to get my right ankle out from under my left thigh, but the crack of a dry twig snapping under my bony butt sounded the alarm.  The fawn's tail shot up, revealing its white underside.  He crouched down and froze; his legs trembled, poised to flee.  ...He didn't run.  He looked at me, and gradually the fear that passed back and forth in our gazes dissolved.  The fawn's legs soon relaxed and straightened, and I lay down on my side with my head propped up on my hand.  After a long while of looking at each other, our eyes registered agreement.  We belonged here and to each other.  

The fawn sneezed, its head jerking downward.  I blinked and he was gone.

How do we explain these fugitive graces?

This story, and this question, surfaced during a conversation Jordan and I had this week.  We were talking about life, the big picture, and God's intentions for our levels of happiness or misery.  I thought of a couple my mother-in-law knows who are living in a place that they might deem "miserable," but stay because they know that they are called to do so.  I thought of my father whose constant companion during the last thirty years has been Parkinson's disease.  I thought of the thousands, likely millions, of children taken captive each year and used for sex, hard labor, and other unimaginable things.  I thought of Ian Morgan Cron, who faced not only a bully on this day, but an alcoholic father every day.

I thought of the "fugitive graces" with which the suffering are showered.  Like drops of dew, they nourish and revive us for the day ahead.  I cannot explain our suffering;  I do not know why pain and loss and disappointment and despair swarm, seemingly unchecked, in the midst of humanity.  Yet, these fugitive graces flicker before us, like light dancing on the wall, a fleeting glimpse of a Beauty beyond, a Grace everlasting.  How can we explain them?

I am realizing that these graces are not few and far between as we might think, but are countless and constant.  A man arrives at a wedding in a wheelchair.  A friend pushes him from one place to the next.  Yet, when the music starts, he can't help but tap his feet.  The friend brings him a walker, and the man journeys to the dance floor where he dances and laughs and laughs.  I saw this only the other day.

A woman is eating in a restaurant.  She sees a young woman who reminds her of her daughter.  The girl is with a boy.  The woman watches them sharing dessert as they watch hockey.  When her server comes to her, she whispers that she would like to pay the young couple's tab.  She leaves.  Moments later, the boy and the girl ask for the check and are told that it has been taken care of by a woman who thought that they were "the cutest couple."  Little did the women know the beauty of her act.  I received this humble and unassuming hospitality last night.

The flower blooms.  The grass tickles.  The sun shines.  The rain pours.  The child laughs.

"How do we explain these fugitive graces?"

I do not know.  But I am ever so grateful.