Fragments on Grace

When despair for the world grows in me,

I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world,

and am free.

                                           ~Wendell Berry

Within the past year two friends have independently asked me whether I can explain the religious concept of "grace." I've had to reply "not really." The best I've been able do is to assemble this collection of sentences containing the word "grace."

Fragments on Grace

Hope for the world's despair:
we feel the nations' pain;
can anything repair
this broken earth again?
For this we pray:
in every place
a spark of grace
to light the way.
               ~Ally Barret

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying "You are accepted."
               ~Paul Tillich

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.
               ~Frederick Buechner

I recognize the delivery of grace to my day, even if I cannot identify a specific return address.
               ~Mary Anne Radmacher

Grace is a power that comes in and transforms a moment into something better.
               ~Caroline Myss

You can have the other words—chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.
               ~Mary Oliver

We are born broken. We live by mending. The grace of God is glue.
               ~Eugene O'Neill

Grace is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them.
               ~Saint Augustine

For me, every hour is grace.
               ~Elie Wiesel

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.
               ~Edward Everett Hale

The law works fear and wrath; grace works hope and mercy.
               ~Martin Luther

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness.
               ~Eckhart Tolle

Knowing the odds against your unique birth,

the small chance your step would be directed

my way or that I would be selected

by you from all the women on earth,

aware of how often couples are pulled apart

by accidental sources of distress,

circumstances none before could guess

who celebrated their propitious start,

how can I set our table without awe?

We eat and do the dishes, one ritual

of many. Yet what seems to be habitual

is daily thrown by probability's law.

That by my side is your most likely place

remains for me what I know best of grace.

                ~Marian Willard Blackwell

Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to our efforts will flood the soul.
               ~Simone Weil

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.
               ~Karl Barth

The wind of divine grace is always blowing. You just need to spread your sail. Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it. Think day and night, I am of the essence of that Supreme Being-Consciouosness-Bliss. What fear and anxiety have I?
               ~Swami Vivekananda

Sense of sin may be often great and more felt than grace; yet not be more than grace.
               ~Thomas Adams

Above all, live in the present moment and God will give you all the grace you need.
               ~Francois Fenelon

Sometimes our brains are our own worst enemy because grace isn't logical.
               ~Judah Smith

It is rash to intrude upon the piety of others: both the depth and grace of it elude the stranger.
               ~George Santayana

You cannot predict when grace takes place; you can only wait.
               ~Mata Amritanandamayi

Each season brings a world of enjoyment and interest in the watching of its unfolding, its gradual harmonious development, its culminating graces—and just as one begins to tire of it, it passes away and a radical change comes, with new witcheries and new glories in its train.
               ~Mark Twain

It seems to me one cannot sit down in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven for my English birthright, freely to partake of these beautiful books, and speak the truth I find there.
               ~William Makepeace Thackeray

Grace is something you can never get but only be given.
               ~Frederick Buechner

You cannot beat the clock. My advice is to grab your moments of grace and enjoy them while they last.
               ~Amy Dickinson

Amid countless everyday miracles, I come in contact with something greater than myself and realize I am a part of it. I move in wonder through inspiration, reverence, gratitude,  interconnectedness, transcendence, and grace.
               ~John Paul Caponigro

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