A few years ago, when my faith was more of a religion and I spent more time on behavior modification than reflecting on grace, I bought into one of Oprah’s recommendations–a book called Simple Abundance. Did you read it too?  It was a day-by-day series of reflections on gratitude, and I naturally bought the accompanying journal, where I was to note my 5 things to be thankful for each 24-hour period.  I did this for about a year, starting off with an excited bang and pressing pen to paper in a hurried rush to record all my points of gratitude.  As you may expect, this practice went the way of new year’s resolutions after awhile, and the book/journal combo took up permanent residence on a bookcase.

A few weeks ago, I was introduced to the blog of Ann Voskamp, a writer whose book One Thousand Gifts was just published and is already a New York Times bestseller.  This achievement is noteworthy because the book is blatantly Christian–but not in the religious way.  In the grace way, the God-is-in-the-details way rather than the come-closer-so-I-can-thump-you-with-this-Bible way. Ann’s words are poetry in the form of prose, and they will change your life if you let them.  What I’m saying is, go out and buy this book.  And read her blog, aholyexperience.com (it’s on my blogroll to the right).

Ann’s premise is similar to that of Simple Abundance, but instead of being an activity dependent on me–I look around and identify things for which to be thankful–it’s about having my eyes opened to what’s already there, what I’ve been missing.  It’s about finding the sacred in everyday life, and this is where its predecessor fails: it assigns a source to the sacred.  It’s about him. It’s about this: “I redeem time from neglect and apathy and inattentiveness when I swell with thanks and weigh the moment down and it’s giving thanks to God for this moment that multiplies the moments, time made enough.”  It assumes as fact the lofty idea that Jesus can take me further down the road than Oprah can.

I’ve already started my list of one thousand things.  I knew I would have to take the challenge when I finished a run the other day, sweaty and beat, and began to pray.  And for some reason, at that moment I became overwhelmed with how terminally ungrateful I am.  I realized (and I may have had some prompting here by a certain spirit) that so much of the yuck I tread through daily, the self-sustained sinfulness that takes my eyes off him, has at its source ingratitude.  And for the first time in my life, I was both moved to grief over how much I’ve missed due to the posture of entitlement–and lifted up in hope by the truth that it doesn’t have to stay that way.

I walked home and started my list.

We humans are so judgmental, so short-sighted and two-dimensional.  We assign good and bad designations as if we’ve been around for all time and know when the story began and how it will end.  We take a glance and make a call and move on to the next moment and wonder why we feel so empty sometimes.  We have no idea of all that we miss because we think we know everything. Powers move and principalities exist in realms beyond our conception, continuing a narrative unbound by time.  Meanwhile, the sun rises over the Chattahoochee at 6:30 am on a Thursday morning and for the first time in months of driving this route and trying to just stay awake, I see it.  I see the sky’s pink and purple shades uncovered, spanning over still water, and I remember that this day is not under my command.  And I give thanks that it is under someone’s, and he is quite the artist.

An artist who works not just in what I call beautiful, but in a palette that includes all shades.  Even the dark ones.  A palette in which everything is grace, even what I would shun and try to “fix” and move past, the uphills of life’s run that I just want to escape.  All is grace, all is tied to him, and if I begin to see the world this way–not as a goal to be conquered, but as the place where I commune with him–all is holy.