June 30, 2015 – The Space for Grace

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I did the San Anselmo Art and Wine festival this past weekend. It’s where I showed my work for the first time at a street festival in 2007 – this is my ninth year running. On Sunday morning, I was walking down Magnolia Avenue to my booth to get it all set up again for the day. My body felt so tired and my mind was telling me that I really need to consider whether doing these shows is still worthwhile. Many years ago, this particular festival was a really nice one. It was filled with all kinds of really nice art. As have many street fairs, the economics are such that the majority of the vendors are not fine artists – in fact many are not even crafts people. I’ve had dreams of it returning to its glory, so I’ve been sticking it out. Saturday I had sold some mugs and cards, but only two small prints all day. Walking along I was asking myself if it is still worth it. I even called my dad on my cell phone asking him to remind me of how hard this is on me when I think about doing another show.

Then I heard somebody call my name. It was a friend of Joe’s. We call him “Uncle Bill.” He’s a big bear of a guy – a contractor who is does just beautiful woodwork – and he’s a big love. He lives on Magnolia – I’ve painted one of his roses, the painting I call “Faith.” As we stood there on either side of the beautiful new wooden gate he made, he told me about someone he golfs with – a man named Gordon who is in his 90’s. Gordon told Bill that he actually pinches himself every morning when he wakes up – to check to see if he’s still here. He reminds Bill that every day on this side of the grass is a gift. Ok, that’s my reframe. I get to go share my art with the people who come to the festival today.

Minutes later, I started taking down the side-walls of the canopy – forty feet of eight foot high plastic tarps that zip together to close up the booth overnight. I was standing on my stool (I forgot to pack the step-ladder!) as I’m shaking out the crumples, attempting to gather it all to fold it up, when a woman walks by, very nicely dressed, lovely in black and white, a hat, heels and pearls. With a smile and an offer to help, she picked up the other end of the tarp, immediately intuiting how I wanted it folded. Instead of my fumbling around by myself, her help made it quick and easy. What a Godsend! I asked if I could offer her some notecards or a mug in appreciation. She said, “how about a hug?” Wow. Such graciousness and it wasn’t even 9:30 in the morning!

A few hours later a couple came in, they were looking at all sizes of the prints of August Bounty as they talked about walls and spaces. They seemed happy discussing between just the two of them, so I let them be. Then he handed me a credit card and said they’d like that one. I asked what size – they said no, the original painting. OMG! It’s still surreal to me when this happens. I hope I never get over the excitement of someone giving a home to these pieces that I spend all these hours on, putting so much of myself into. After we agreed I’d take it to them after the show, they left. A while later they came back by and he said to me that he feels like he just gained a new child – huge smiles. So happy! Ok, so by now I have a completely new perspective on whether or not these festivals are “worth it.”

Saturday evening – the night before all of this – at my mom’s recommendation, I watched President Obama’s moving eulogy at the service of Rev. Clementa Pinckney – the pastor at the church in Charleston who was gunned down. He spoke powerfully and with great heart of “grace.” I heard our president actually speak these words: we don’t deserve grace, there’s nothing we can do to earn it – we are all sinners. Not what I’d expect to hear from the leader of our country. This is potent and evolved wisdom that’s not easy for many to hear much less take in. I hear the same message from one of my spiritual heroes, Father Richard Rohr. We are all deserving and undeserving. Deserving by virtue that we are all an expression of the divine – every single one of us. And undeserving because it’s not a meritocracy. There’s no need to do good deeds to be eligible for grace. Grace is even bestowed upon those who appear completely undeserving – as the families of the shooting victims demonstrated in their refusing to hate their loved-one’s suspected killer – instead, in their unspeakable grief, offering him their forgiveness. I was just stunned by this.

People who are very close to me are in recovery groups – 12-step programs. Through them I hear of others who struggle, who have a really hard time staying clean and sober. I think about this often. How is it that some people hit bottom, end up in recovery, work the program and experience real transformation? One day at a time, they seem to never look back. And others want to, but still struggle to get and stay sober? It’s not willpower. It seems to me this is where grace comes in. Grace allows the spiritual shift in perspective that enables us to pick ourselves up from within our darkness and seek the light. It’s grace that helps us change our minds and hearts and see our connection to everything, it’s grace that opens a crack in our defenses – which keep us safe, but also keep us isolated.

Talking with Uncle Bill, being rescued in my chore of folding up the tarps and having August Bounty find its home were all tiny acts of grace in my life. Not exactly life-changing – like forgiving heinous acts of violence or someone taking the steps toward sobriety or my finding the courage to leave my first marriage, but it is this-moment-of-life-changing in a complete shift in my perspective on a Sunday morning. Grace is delivered through those around us – and church can happen anywhere.

But it seems that there’s no need for grace without the lack of it, without suffering – without addiction, without harboring hatred, even without just a grumpy mood. This is one of these deals of incarnation. It comes with the territory of living a human life. We will suffer – in small ways I can suffer daily! I find myself stuck in the point-of-view of my small self. Grace will come to my rescue as long as I let it. As long as I am willing to open a space, surrender my small-self from being “in charge” and allow it to seep in, soften me and expand my heart and thus my perspective. It’s my experience that grace can become a habit. Now that I’ve experienced it enough, the shift from stuck to grace can happen more easily. And I’m so grateful for everyone in my life – including you reading this – and your deliveries of grace to me. Thank you.

Love,

Cara