Remember the lovely and the beautiful. Remember the encouraging friends along the way. The gentle, the gracious and the merciful, those who long and yearn for a world full of love, acceptance and forgiveness. Yes, forget the angry, the twisted and judgmental, let them slip away, their words to fade and fall without a trace. This is a beautiful world full of the greatest treasures, lives lived selflessly and passionately, lives that love without measure, lives that refuse to join in the clamour of issues that divide as those who find an excuse to judge and accuse, throw their hateful words like missiles, longing to prove their own self righteousness by humiliating the marginalized and the suffering.
This is a beautiful world. It has been given to the meek, the lovers, the accepters.

Just another day,
just another night.
sun, sand and sea…
refugees turned away, drowning, dying,
sweet carols singing,
judgment, alienation and scorn,
Oh holy night?
selfish,
self centred,
silent,
night remains
a horror story
whilst we wrap up the wrappings
and fill the bins,
overflowing
too much of too much.
just another day,
just another night
silent.

Ok,
Let’s try it without grace.
We are left with the sum of all our good
Minus the sum of all our bad,
Multiplied by the distance from the mortal
To the immortal.
We have nothing to carry us across eternity
Nothing to present to the Creator of the Universe
Other than our flawed and failed humanity..
Just us,
And God…
Remembering that it was the human race
That crucified his son..
What makes us different?
What can we say whilst we hide the hammer and nails
Behind our back?
The grace you deny
Is the grace you hide behind.
Are you brave enough
To do it by yourself?

Surely the first and enduring fruit of spirituality
is an ongoing and selfless pursuit of loving, a pursuit that is above all things and before all things, a pursuit that is the greatest expression of our humanity.

Surely, loving a ‘deity’ comes naturally to almost every soul. We all seek spiritual comfort, and soul peace. Throughout the ages mankind has sought a relationship with the divine. However, the Christmas and Easter stories show us “divinity” in an entirely different light. Christmas shows us a God who goes to the most extraordinary lengths to establish a relationship with mankind. Jesus is “God coming to us”. He turns the tables on our seeking. We become the “sought after”.
Easter shows us a greater miracle. God forgives the unforgivable. He refuses to respond to every action and deed that mankind inflicted upon him and chooses simply to respond to his own love for mankind by forgiving and gracing us beyond measure.
We spend so much time telling ourselves through our songs, prayers, services and promises how much we love God and all that we will do for him. The miracle of grace lies not in our own action and love for God, but rather His love and actions for all of us broken, frail and failed recipients of grace.