Here-now Grace

I remember once sitting at the hairdresser’s. The woman beside me reads, and I read her title in the reflection of the mirror: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. Is that it? Are there physical places I simply must see before I stop breathing within time, before I inhale eternity?

Why? To say that I’ve had reason to bow low? To say that I’ve seen beauty? To say that I’ve been arrested by wonder?

Isn’t it here? Can’t I find it here?

These very real lungs will breathe in more than 11,000 liters of air today, and tonight over our farm will rise the Great Hexagon of the blazing winter stars — Sirius, Rigel, ruby Aldebran, Capella, the fiery Gemini twins, the Procyon, and in the center, scarlet Betelgeuse, the red supergiant larger than twice the size of earth’s orbit around the sun.

Isn’t it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur? The very same surging magnificence that cascades over our every day here. Who has time or eyes to notice?

I don’t need more time to breathe so that I may experience more locales, possess more, accomplish more. Because wonder really could be here — for the seeing eyes.

The face of Jesus flashes. Jesus, the God-Man with his own termination date. Jesus, the God-Man who came to save me from prisons of fear and guilt and depression and sadness. With an expiration of less than twelve hours, what does Jesus count as all-important?

“And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them” (Luke 22:19, emphasis added).

I read it slowly. In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.” I underline it on the page.

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks.

But there is more, and I read it. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Joy. Ah … yes. I might be needing me some of that. That might be what the quest for more is all about — that which Augustine claimed, “Without exception … all try their hardest to reach the same goal, that is, joy.”^a

I breathe deep, like a sojourner finally coming home. This has always been the goal of the fullest life — joy. And my life knew exactly how elusive that slippery three-letter word, joy, can be. My whole being responded to that one word. I longed for more life, for more holy joy.

That’s what I was struggling to reach, to seize. Joy. But where can I seize this holy grail of joy? I look back down to the page. Was this the clue to the quest of all most important? Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo — the table of thanksgiving. I sit there long … wondering … is it that simple?

Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?

So then as long as thanks is possible — I think this through — as long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Joy is always possible.

Whenever, meaning—”now”; wherever, meaning—”here.”

The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience. The joy wonder could be here! Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be — unbelievably — possible! The only place we need see before we die is this place of seeing God, here and now.

I whisper it out loud, let the tongue feel these sounds, the ear hear their truth.

Charis. Grace.

Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving.

Chara. Joy.

A triplet of stars, a constellation in the black.

This search for the constellation in the dark — grace, thanksgiving, joy — it might be like that — a reaching for stars.

God, thank You for showing me the beauty in all these here-now wonders that You’ve placed before me — to do good and right work in me. Cause me to see all that encircles me today with new eyes of thankfulness.