Grounded in Grace

“Grace is bad arithmetic”--famous words from my pastor Dave Vroege in a sermon just over a year ago. He continued, explaining how grace is nonsense.

“Grace is bad arithmetic.”

Nonsense! Why? Because it is given to us regardless of whether we want it or not.

I’ve always understood grace to be an action word. An invitation on how to behave and act. It’s the absence of anger and the presence of love and peacefulness.

Hard words to hold when one is full of rage.

A living sperm whale in a pastoral landscape is confusing too.

Just as grace seems like bad math, a living sperm whale in a pastoral landscape is confusing too. I did the colour pencil drawing above very recently (see the full drawing here). It was one in a series of artistic responses to my experience with racism before and at a regional church meeting in 2018. The issues were my non-Dutch name and answers on the delegate registration form which sparked discomfort and prejudicial assumptions. My answer, “no” to the billeting option because I was staying on a friend’s invitation at the Fairmont Hotel was met with major assumptions about “my background” to the white, Dutch, long time CRC-ers organizing the meeting. Their assumptions and treatment of me, one of the few delegates who were people of colour, not to mention one of the few women, made it clear that I was an outsider to this established organization.

Fast forward through a year of email exchanges between my church council and the regional meeting leaders, a restorative practice circle without the people who harmed me, and a continued lack of graceful communication from the leadership on this matter. I needed a new approach, so I began drawing.

I need to dive deep within myself and search for my sustenance: God’s grace.

The landscape in the drawing is from a photograph I took outside of Ottawa where the meeting was. The imagery of the sperm whale is a metaphor for my practise of self-reflection and prayer. The sperm whale holds its breath for up to 90 minutes and dives almost 3000 feet below the ocean’s surface to hunt and wrestle for its frightening food, the giant squid.

This daily practice of the sperm whale is analogous to my outlook on life and situations which are emotionally, mentally, and spiritually demanding. I need to dive deep within myself, wrestle with the anger and fear, and search for my sustenance: God’s grace.

Just as the whale doesn’t belong on land, so I felt I didn’t belong in that regional meeting.

Just as the whale doesn’t belong on land, so I felt I didn’t belong in that regional meeting. But, in reality, my belonging to my home church, All Nations in Halifax, grew. And so did God’s grace, leading us together towards hard conversations and real relationship.

Focusing on God’s grace meant focusing on how to act bravely and lovingly. It also meant looking for grace around me and grounding myself in that. The elders in my church showed me grace. And believe me, it wasn’t a fairytale story with all of them completely understanding and agreeing about how wrong the racism I faced was, just because we were on the same team.

But the grace was revealed in the hard confrontational conversations that we had to have about white male privilege, insider mentalities, patriarchy, and systemic colonization in Christianity.

But the grace was revealed in the hard confrontational conversations that we had to have.

The grace was in each of us agreeing to allow discomfort in.

The grace manifested in receiving our careless words to each other and praying through it.

The grace was felt in the shared hurt.

The grace burned in my ongoing rage.

The grace was our journey.

The grace was in the unasked-for forgiveness.

The grace was in the unasked-for forgiveness.

The grace was always there in the dissonance.

Have you recognized God’s grace in an uncomfortable space?

[Image: Priya Andrade, "Grounded", all rights reserved]