The Grace Melody. I chose that name for my blog because it seems that my life over the last few years has been about tuning in to a different melody. I found this definition somewhere online (sorry...I can't remember where exactly): "Melody is one of the most basic elements of music. A note is a sound with a particular pitch and duration. String a series of notes together, one after the other, and you have a melody. But the melody of a piece of music isn't just any string of notes. It's the notes that catch your ear as you listen; the line that sounds most important is the melody."
"...the line that sounds most important is the melody." Grace has been that melody that has caught my ear and my heart over the last few years; but what is grace? I grew up understanding what grace meant from a theological point of view, (God's Riches At Christ's Expense) but recently I read a description of living in the state of grace that resonated with me (from "Power, Freedom, and Grace" by Deepak Chopra): "Grace is the effortless flow of existence that comes when you are living in harmony with life, when the rhythms of your body-mind are in synch with nature's rhythms. To live in grace is to experience that state of consciousness where things flow and your desires are easily fulfilled. Grace is magical, synchronistic, coincidental, joyful. It's the good-luck factor. And how do you live in grace? It's simple. Just allow the universe to flow through you without interfering."
Sound too good to be true? Maybe. I was once told by the counselor I was seeing that I was looking for the magic formula to life and that it simply did not exist! So I realize that the above description may resonate with me simply because that's what I WANT life to be, but I honestly believe there is more to it than that. I think what I was looking for, was HOW to allow "the universe" to flow through me without interfering...how to live my life, regardless of the CIRCUMSTANCES OF my life, without fighting or resisting...how to live my life gracefully!
And that's what I'm learning! It's been quite a journey of identifying those thoughts and beliefs that have blocked the flow of grace, but I can truly say that my life is filled now more than ever with that beautiful grace melody! I'm certainly not perfect at hearing the melody, nor playing the melody for others in my life, but I will continue to practice and when the spirit moves, maybe I'll share what that looks like in my everyday, ordinary life!
