A Pause on Poetry

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/poem178.html

(Above is a link to Marge Piercy's "To Have Without Holding.")

I decided to change the course of my writing. I will not remove the previous posts. To do so would be disingenuous, like loving me for who I appear to be and not who I really am.

"Learning to love differently is hard."
Grace doesn't come to any of us easily. Grace is as difficult to give as it is to receive. How can I forgive that person after what he/she has done to me? or How can that person love me as much as he/she does after what I did to him/her?

Why is grace important? Because it is one way by which we are able to get closer to God, to being the people he wants us to be. If you've read much of the Bible, you know why God gave his only son and you know that over and over again God gave grace to people who didn't deserve it. In our human capacity--in how we think--it does not make sense that any of those people (the prodigal, Jacob, the prostitutes, et cetera) deserved to receive grace. But God's way doesn't always make sense, does it?

How do you learn how to love differently? Return to grace: find out what you give and what you lack. Sometimes you have to love in a way that doesn't feel comfortable. As we extend grace toward each other, perhaps others will remember our graciousness. They may not deserve grace. We may not deserve grace. (At what point in our lives are we truly deserving?) But it is in the act of giving grace that we draw closer to God, that we move toward a better world.