Richo - The power of grace: recognizing unexpected gifts on our path

ABOUT THE BOOK

Grace is the term Dave Richo uses to describe any of those events in which help comes your way unexpectedly: when the solution to a perplexing problem just suddenly pops into your head; when you suddenly find the strength to rise to an occasion you didnt think you could endure; when the next phase in your spiritual path becomes plain as day. Moments of Grace usually come as surprises, but, Richo shows, we can learn to expect themfor Grace is a resource any of us can access. He begins by showing where to look to recognize the Grace that surrounds you: in nature, in religion/spirituality, in relationships, in yourself. He then provides practical exercises for learning how to manifest Grace in your lifeto recognize and claim the help the universe is constantly offering you.

DAVID RICHO, PhD, is a psychotherapist, teacher, writer, and workshop leader whose work emphasizes the benefits of mindfulness and loving-kindness in personal growth and emotional well-being. He is the author of numerous books, including How to Be an Adult in Relationships and The Five Things We Cannot Change. He lives in Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California.

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The Power of Grace

Recognizing UnexpectedGifts on Our Path

DAVID RICHO

Shambhala

Boston & London

2014

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2014 by David Richo

Cover design by Jim Zaccaria

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Richo, David, 1940

The power of grace: recognizing unexpected gifts on our path / David Richo.First edition.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-3001-1

ISBN 978-1-61180-146-0 (alk. paper)

1. Grace (Theology)Miscellanea. I. Title.

BT769.R53 2014

202.117dc23

2013048270

To all the people I have worked with at Shambhala during these fifteen years:Warm thanks and deep bows for giving me the chanceto share what came to me by grace

Contents

Suddenly, the perfect solution just popped into my mind.

I dont know where I found the courage, but I spoke up.

I cant, for the life of me, figure out how it happened, but everything just fell into place.

I have practiced my art since childhood, but I know there are moments when I go way beyond my skill level.

Finally, without even trying, I met just the right guy or woman.

I dont know what came over me, but after all of these years of hanging back, I finally stepped up to the plate.

I felt as if I were somehow guided to this decision.

It was a moment of truth.

The realization came to me in a dream.

While volunteering at hospice I have found myself sometimes saying something really right on, and I know I did not think of it on my own or know it before.

I just stopped wanting to retaliate. Somehow, I had a change of heart and was able to forgive.

We have all said things like this and have wondered where the special gift came from. We have found out, again and again, that more seems to be going on in our life than can be accounted for by our own efforts or our own level of knowledge. We keep noticing that something more is afoot in the world than just ourselves and what we do. Our forward move on lifes path does not seem to be based solely on our accomplishments, merit, or our sense of worthiness. Something seems to be helping us, an empowering force around us that yet seems to be within us.

If we look back over the episodes and milestones of our lives, we notice that often something beneficial was happening that was not the result of our choice, effort, or expectation. We were somehow guided to or given an impetus to make a leap into something new. That special assistance, unearned, unforeseen, unplanned, often unnoticed, is a description of grace, the gift dimension of life.

The experience of grace makes the world less scary. We feel that we have more to rely on than only our own ego as we face lifes most menacing threats and buffets. Trust in grace is an antidote to fear of what life may bring, because it enables us to feel that we have something going for us in any predicament.

Call upon the Force! Luke Skywalker, in Star Wars, takes this advice. If he is to achieve success, it will not depend on his skills alone. There is something else, and it is reliable, something he cannot conjure but can only call upon. It is from the universe, but it is in him too. This is grace, the invisible star of hisand of every humansstory.

The Force is with Luke because he is important to the galaxyjust as we are. This book is about the Forcegracethat is with us so that we too can fulfill our destiny.

But Luke also noticed that the Force was not enough. He knew that he would have to contribute his own ingenuity and perseverance in order to fulfill his challenging task. Grace is not meant to do it all. Grace is a gift, but it recruits our effort so we can join in the enterprise. Grace gives us an opportunity; it is up to us to step up to the plate. This can mean acting with courage when the going gets rough. It can mean taking hold and holding on when the time has come to persevere. To know the difference is itself a grace.

Our life is thus a combination of what comes to us unbidden and what we choose to do in response. So, for instance, it is the grace of synchronicity, a meaningful coincidence, that leads us to meet a suitable partner at just the right moment. This simply happens. Then it is up to us to form and nurture a meaningful relationship. We commit ourselves to continue the venture that grace began.

Thus, grace is both a comfort and a challenge. We are comforted by the invisible incentive that kicks in for us, giving us the sense that something helpful is at our side. Yet we are also challenged by the next steps we will be asked to take to follow up on the opportunity being offered to us. For instance, we find contentment in discovering the career that fits for us, but it will be a challenge to take the laborious steps to make a success of it.

Our sense of our own wholeness would be diminished if all there were in life was what we dowith no room for grace to join in on the playing out of our story. Our world would be sadly deficient if everything depended on us, with no surprising benefits landing in our laps unexpectedly and unpredictably. It is a joy to realize that our world is a web of life that combines do-it-yourself activity with a vast network of unseen assistance.

We might feel the coming of grace into our lives as a caring about us from a power beyond us. We interpret this sense of being held or cared about as evidence of a friendly universe. We come to trust that something wants us to find fulfillment, happiness, and enlightenmentjust what we want for each other when we love. We feel an unexpected alliance between ourselves and the universe or a power higher than our ego. This is connection, accompaniment, the essence of love. We recall Socratess words in Platos Symposium: Human nature will not easily find a helper better than love.

For some of us, family members and friends who were dear to us and have died sometimes seem to be present to us in an accompanying way. Since accompaniment is a quality of grace, we can say that their life was a grace to us. Their giving to us did not end with their demise; it goes on. We may carry a felt sense that somehow those who loved us and whom we loved so much did not abandon us totally but live in our hearts in a companionable, sometimes guiding way. When this is our actual experience, no one can convince us otherwise.