Hunting Grace

I don’t think of it then.

Not then, when I raise my hands up in what isn’t — well — in what it isn’t, precisely, praise. Because really, the way I threw my hands up, it was more this lift of lament and exhausted surrender and end-of-the-day fatigue than any semblance of praise.

And I can’t say it occurred to me right then either, throwing my hands up in the air, that it really could be that we were born with two hands because we never stop weighing the good against the bad, today against yesterday — and that I’m weighing everything all the time.

But I do know that the piles and the weeds and the to-do lists and the messiness of living — it can weigh right heavy and I can feel it in the shoulders, the back, the heart.

I can only say I thought of it after the weekly ceremony of looking for beauty to fill the vases, the crocks that have become furniture — permanent furniture — since spring, and the peonies.

Before, when a child brought in a fistful of Queen Anne’s lace, summer’s scattered doilies, it was only then I’d slip a vase off the shelf.

Or when boys raced in with first profusion of wild daffodils from the ditches …

Or when the Farmer would stop the tractor at the edge of the side road on the way home from the other farms, right there by the neighbor’s, and he’d fill his arms with tiger lilies growing free under the maples, him feeling no shame in greased and manly hands picking slender stems, carrying flowers home for his bride.

I’d only get a vase down then.

Because it went like this:

Have beauty.

Must get a vessel.

But when Farmer gave me these four crocks, all thrift store finds, the world spun a bit differently.

So I made these vases furniture, vases that always remained out: one on the dining room table, one by the sink, one by the hearth, one in the study — permanent fixtures in a house that could be wired for glory.

So it could go like this:

Have vessel.

Now must find beauty.

Empty containers can make us seekers, hunters of glory. I need to find grace-beauty to fill the emptiness. Not bought beauty — only beauty that can be bought with attention.

A wildflower from the roadside. A branch from the woods, grasses growing long in the ditches, zinnias from the garden, a happy round face from the sunflower patch, a flowering chive or two.

“Can I gather the flowers this week?” a son asks after the weekly cleaning, hand on the back doorknob, scissors in hand.

“Can I go too?” A little girl’s already flash of blond light across kitchen.

We’ve become this motley tribe of beauty hunters.

So, it’s when I have a vase in my hand and those black-eyed Susans are long-necked and lovely that I just plunk the bouquet of flowers directly down on the antique weight scale.

It’s when the levered beam falls with a clunk.

It’s only then, when the beam in my own eye falls away, that I see clear what all saints must already know …

For those who can see, the world’s beauty outweighs its burdens, its grace greater than its grime.

There is always this: pots and pans and peels. I forget to put a load of laundry in before we sit down to the dinner. I haven’t taken in the load out on the line. I have to gather strewn books and take out the recycling and find a hoe for that garden.

What will I look for, to outweigh everything? Who will I look to, to outweigh everything?

And in the midst, my gratitude journal lies open.

It used to be that I offered generic thanks — mumble a bit of thanks before the sleep, give thanks before the meal.

Have grace.

Must give thanks — sorta (now and then).

But when gratitude journals became my permanent life furniture, white spaces opened wide, empty pages like cups to heaven, waiting to be filled with the color of His graces … something in me shifted.

What will I look for, to outweigh everything? Who will I look to, to outweigh everything?

Have space to give thanks, space to chronicle a thousand gifts.

Now must find grace.

I become a seeker, a looker. A God-hunter — making this a daily ceremony, the gathering of grace, joy to fill the emptiness, Father-glory that never fades.

And when I look out at sunflowers, with all those sprouting weeds at their feet, I can tell just by the way they’re nodding their crowning heads — the way all these flowers agree, agree.

They agree with the antique scale and here with these people in the midst of our piles.

When I go looking for glimpses of Him, when I seek to fill the empty places with more of Him who is beauty, my equilibrium recalibrates to find its center in the Judge who became grace to bestow grace and I can rightly read the scale, feel it inside, and know it’s true:

If you can really see — the weight of Glory always tips the scales for joy.

I think of this, the next time I raise my hands in happy thanks …

How light I feel — this perfect weight.

Lord God, You are the Hound of heaven who hunts the lost down and captures us with grace. Today, make me the hound of now who hunts for glory and captures joy with just that one word: Thanks.