2019-07-25

Raven 107: Grace

We encountered Rev. Crane once before -- in #33, which prompted the Tallspruce community to wonder how holy spirit compared to Buddha nature.

What, indeed, about grace? The loveliness of life appears without our earning it or deserving it. The pain and the very possibility of life appear without our earning it or deserving it. Everything appears without our earning it or deserving it -- nothing that happens is ever earned or deserved. Is there an intending agent making it happen? How would it matter? It would matter only if the intending agent could be induced somehow to smile upon us. With grace prevailing everywhere, inducement is nowhere to be found.

Case
Reverend Crane visited the circle one evening and asked, "What role does God have in our practice?"
Raven said, "None."
Crane said, "But the Bible says God concerns godself even with the sparrow's fall."
Raven said, "Does it say God intervenes?"
Crane asked, "What about grace?"
Raven said, "The east wind brings soft showers."
Porcupine murmured, "The ground gets wet."
There was a general silence. Then Woodpecker said, "We seem to talk a lot about Christianity these days."
Raven said, "We're not talking about Christianity."
Verse
by Hafiz
Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live
With veracity
And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred

This is the time
For you to deeply compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.
Case adapted from Robert Aitken; introduction by Meredith Garmon; verse by Hafiz
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