The Shape of Grace

Dorothy C. Bass, in a book titled Receiving the Day, reminds the reader that the ancient Hebrews saw darkness as the beginning of their day. The Sabbath begins at dusk and ends at dusk. Bass points out that this creates an important perspective on God’s time. During the first part of the day, God is at work while we sleep. We wake into the midst of God’s activity. We join it; we don’t initiate it. The day begins in grace.

I think it will take some time to begin thinking this way – to start seeing the ending of the day’s light (which has always made me sad) as the beginning of a new day. To see morning as my chance to plug into what’s already going on. To experience grace in this new shape.

Sifted Light

After some time
the years grow softer.
They sift down through my pleated skin
and sink to bone, accumulating there
as pollen collects in spring on a still pond.
So many hours given up to dreaming!
All those bright days gone, like stars
reflected in black water, fading.
I could have built a long stone fence
that climbed the hill out back and
ran around the summer orchard.
I could have made a deep porch swing
and set children there for laughter.
I could have formed a life of use,
at least possessing grace, instead of sitting
in the wind and rain, a gray rock thrown up
in a farmer’s broken field, watching
lichen crawl across my face,
waiting for something interesting to happen -
a change in weather, maybe,
or a new phase of the moon,
perhaps the falling of some final dark,
tender as snow.