life

Portal to Grace

/ Linda Coggin / Leave a comment


I’ve written before about the times I have witnessed the obscure glimmering through of grace, when I actually see something that was in plain sight; something I hadn’t seen before because I was too busy making up my own story that I believed was true. It was a glimmer of hope that not all is lost, that things aren’t what I’d thought or imagined. 

Another kind of glimmer is when I’m caught by something I read or overhear that seems to have a message just for me

I moved my red chair where I read in the morning.  It is across from the window, now.  A square of life right before me.  Not only can I watch all the dogs that come by, but the morning light floods in that window early.

The light of the sun and those glimmers of the grace filled light converged in the novel I’m reading, Mona’s Eyes. Young Mona’s grandfather promises to fill her mind’s eye with beauty that she will remember as she faces the threat of permanent blindness. The two seekers share weekly trips to contemplate one work of art, only one, to understand how artists speak about life and how they illuminate it.

Entering the museum with her grandfather, Mona has just left a visit with her doctor whose doubts about her sight left her somber. Her grandfather waits in the quiet for  her as she gazes expectantly at the painting of the day. When she expresses the unfairness of the fate of the paralyzed young girl that the painting portrays, Mona’s grandfather hears her lament and explains,

“Yes, but look, Mona, look at the ray of light falling on both figures.  It’s what Christians consider to be a moment of grace.  As if there were two kinds of light within the picture: the light of our universe, which renders things visible…and the light of another universe, unknown and superior.  For a Christian, the moment of grace is basically when this second light, divine in origin, breaks into the daylight of humans.”

Perhaps, that is what I encountered on a recent morning. I was just doing morning yoga in front of a collage of grace hanging above my couch. A version of those images have been on the wall for nearly ten years. They represent numinous encounters where I met both the Divine Presence and myself. 

I photographed and collected these images because of the story they represent and continue to hold: M with that pensive, longing gaze; W ’s creative spirit shining through whimsical poses; A’s imperfect hand arranged to say “I love you.” There’s a photo of Blue Mary and tin walls stuffed with prayers in a shed I came upon in the woods at the Monastery at Gethsemane. 

I framed the two shiny pennies: one that we found in the driveway the day we were moving from the US and one on the floor in the house we were moving to in Canada. You see, my mom told my children, days before she died, that whenever we saw a shiny penny to think of her. Those unexpected pennies have shown up over the years reminding us of her presence in our lives still, almost a looking after us kind of feeling,  blessing what we are up to at that moment. 

There are a few more photographs. One I took at dusk on a snowy evening, another by a Canadian photographer, and a friend’s picture of a huge oak tree that are reminders of awe and wonder in this world. Lingering still, I remember the grey bark of the sycamore tree in another photo that was a pivotal encounter with my inner ageist. These images hold stories that have deepened and been recreated over time, holding a piece of that deep centre where Spirit dwells alongside the click and clack of everyday.

Today, I read another facet of grace from Richard Wagamese’s book What Comes From Spirit: 

“Sitting in that indescribable moment within you, you realize that you weren’t looking for anything when Creator dropped something marvellous into your life… It keeps me in pure state of amazement of how when unknown gaps are suddenly filled by grace (me not having to do anything), how secretly and beautifully Creator existed in those gaps all along.”   

Creator existed in those gaps between then and now depicted in those images on my wall; moments of grace when God’s light breaks into the daylight of my own. All I have to do is rest in that state of amazement.

Choosing to Remember

/ Linda Coggin / Leave a comment

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge is one of those books that tell a precious truth in disguise.   In Men Fox’s children’s book, Wilfrid is a young boy who lives next to an “old peoples” home and he knows everyone who lives there.  His favourite person to visit is 96-year-old Miss Nancy and he tells her all his secrets. He heard his mother and father say that Miss Nancy has lost her memory.  Wilfrid doesn’t even know what a memory is so he asks everyone he knows to find out in his desire to help Miss Nancy find her’s.  Listen to the story here to discover what Wilfred learned and shared.   

In the past two weeks, I’ve been fortunate to listen myself to memories of four women in particular who have lived decades longer than me.  I realize how important it is for me to attentively listen to what I imagine is a mixture of fact and fiction lived out in their real lives. I envision the years have reshaped those memories. Like Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, we all refashion what we have been given to remember and to share.

I believe that what we remember is a way of listening to our lives. 

In A Room to Remember, Buechner writes,

In one sense the past is …over and done with, but in another sense,… it is not done with us. Every person we have ever known, every place we have been, everything that has ever happened to us— it all lives and breathes deep in us somewhere whether we like it or not, and sometimes it doesn’t take much to bring it to the surface in bits and pieces…Times too beautiful to tell or too terrible.

These are the kind of memories that come more or less on their own and apart from any choice we consciously make. But in A Room to Remember, Buechner proposes remembering as a conscious act for good in that the power of remembering becomes our own power.  And that is the essence of the stories my four dear friends choose to share with me.

Sometimes we are reluctant to talk about what really matters.  We don’t always tell the whole story.  Even in my journal, sitting alone, I disguise parts of my life because they are difficult to face. We leave out the parts that, for some reason, we are hesitate to say out loud.

The strength of the women who trusted me to listen is that they are remembering on purpose.  They are consciously recalling years that have gone by but are not gone.  Each story they share is felt and fresh and alive with both who they were at their best or their worst and who they have become. 

What do I choose to remember?

I, too, am encouraged to remember what makes me laugh and cry and warm with wonder. Remembering what is precious as gold with a new understanding of who I am and given new strength for what comes next.  

/ Linda Coggin / 1 Comment

Our fingers imbibe like roots

so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.

And I fold them in prayer,

and they draw from the heavens light.

Saint Frances of Assisi

I’m only on page 18; still in the introduction titled, “What Is It Like to Be a Fungus?”  I also read the prologue and noted the 121 pages of notes and bibliography.  This book is a considered scientific work; and yet, Saint Frances’ poetic prayer begins the epilogue and I have pondered for days the personal story that begins on page 14.

The author of Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake, tells a story about his friend, philosopher and magician David Abram, who was the house magician at Alice’s Restaurant (made famous by the Arlo Guthrie song). One evening, two customers returned to the restaurant after leaving and pulled David aside. They said that after they left the restaurant (and his magic show) the sky had appeared shockingly blue and the clouds large and vivid. Had he put something in their drinks?  This continued to happen (minus any nefarious questions).  After leaving the show, customers reported the traffic seemed louder, the lights brighter, the patterns on the sidewalk more interesting, and even the rain more refreshing. The magic tricks were changing the way people experienced the world.

According to David Abram, our perceptions work primarily by expectation. We use less cognitive effort to make sense of the world using preconceived images updated with small amounts of sensory information rather than engaging the work needed to form new perceptions. Our preconceptions create the ‘blind spots’ needed for David’s coin tricks to work. Eventually the tricks “loosen the grip” of our expectations on our perceptions. He concluded that the sky changed because the customers were seeing the sky in the moment rather than as they expected it would be. What we expect to see is different than what we see when we actually look. When we are tricked out of our expectations, we default to using our senses.

I believe we “see” with the whole of our lives and there is a gap between what we perceive and what is.  We don’t just see with our eyes— we bring our preconceived notions to the news, our neighbours, and even what we think is true.  How might we open to take in the beauty and sorrow with all of our senses including our heart, God in us.  

Cynthia Bourgeault writes that “…as the heart comes alive as an organ of spiritual perception, we are able to perceive the invisible kingdom of love that surrounds us—and live it into being.”  How do we nurture the Spirit of God in us that changes the way we see the world?

God in us—that heart that opens with gratitude, hope, and love, especially when we put our hands on what is beautiful in this world and fold them in prayer to draw from heaven’s light.