My assignment

I have been connected with a wonderful therapist -- she works through music, journals, multimedia and talking, of course; I don't know if I mentioned her before, and she's not my hypnotherapist. I always go there thinking I'll be as together as glue and every time I just open up and a wind blows through my middle, which is like an open sweep.
This week one question I'm exploring is what is the meaning of grace to me. This can be a fantastic and huge question, so if you'ld like you can keep reading this entry, which will talk about religious beliefs moreso than cancer related issues, and which will also help me to answer the question for Monday or whenever I get to it with my new Guide.
From my etymology book -- Grace: favour; prayer of blessing or thanksgiving; pleasing quality; grateful
From my synonyms (and antonyms) book: elegance, poise, gracefulness, poise, beauty, loveliness, charm, refinement, polish, propriety, decorum (CLUMSINESS)
favour, goodwill, kindness, benevolence, goodness, generosity, compassion, clemency, mercy, pardon, forgiveness (UNKINDNESS)
blessing, benediction, thanksgiving, prayer
v. adorn, embellish, decorate, ornament, enhance, honour, favour, distinguish, dignify

I'm going to go with clemency here first because writing that word got to my throat (leniency, tenderness, kindness, humanity, mildness, tolerance, moderation, compassion).

All of those above words encompass the actions of family, nurses, doctors, and friends, extended family friends, adopted "love" family (sisters), and all of those who care about me. All of your expressions have touched me deeply and stay with me throughout this rally.

The next word that got me was mercy (pardon, forbearance, pity, magnamity, benevolence, grace).
I do believe that God hears my prayers, and receives my "words", cries, voice, meditations. I do believe that the beauty that sourrounds us is God's love, and I do believe that the life in everything is God. I believe that Namaste is me greeting the God in you. I believe that Shalom is a wish of peace upon you. I believe that God bless you is a blessing. And I believe that all of these are given to us as ways of regarding others and interacting, and that these are the roots of all yearnings.

Then humanity and mildness: I've experienced, throughout this struggle, that the love is greater than the harm. There are time of deep darkness and sadness, or I have felt sometimes that the medicine was launching a large attack on my whole body, but the love I've experienced and continue to grow in gives my mind something to pin to and I can reach for the height of the fulcrum. Sometimes this is a fight, and one mantra is, of course, "Atavan, Atavan, Atavan" when it seems too difficult. But sometimes it feels, when those moods and emotions overtake me, that I'm throwing a tantrum and need to remember Grace in all of it's above meanderings. So then I do remember and the welling in my throat quells a bit and I can coast more easily until some distraction takes over and I'm on top again.

Shopping and re-decorating/purging is a great distraction!

Also, not mentioned above, but super important to me, is the grace I receive through study and reading. Now also, with my human Guide/therapist/interpreter, I am receiving great wisdom and this grace is wonderous. So helpful. She regards everything in terms of relationship, or so I've come to understand. And when I express any feelings of separation from God she tells me that God for here IS, and her interaction is just as any other relationship. Through her talent and passion for music she interacts with the world, giving strength to some, an outlet to others, praise for her faith, leaving little gifts of kindness resonating behind and with her. Musicians hear and inhabit an entire other world that must be fantastic!

Now for the more religious part. I may have mentioned before that I have decided that the faith of my upbringing is too hard to shake. Though I have dabbled and read, and continue to borrow from other faiths anything that I feel as a practice brings me closer to God, I have decided that Christ lived. Whether Christ was God's only son, I believe that Christ's message was that he was completely resonating or attuned with his highest vibration, and that God's grace could flow through him, in action and wisdom (word). I believe that he resonated through his intuition/immediate insight, and that that is what informed his being, and I now believe that our intuition is the "kingdom of God" within.
So by living through his intuition, Christ naturally felt that the life animating Him is the same life animating you, and that this life is to be revered and loved and tended for. I now believe that we can only do this for eachother, revere and love and tend for eachother. Working with children really helped me to grow in this regard, but it is really with my illness, when I was/am truly on the receiving end of this is so many ways, that I felt it/feel it through and through. I understand it better. Also, I have had so much time to study now, and I feel that there is some sort of integration happening within. NONE OF THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT OTHERS. Everyone matters so much.

This, I believe, is what God's love is all about (everyone including animals and plants, the elements, etc.). And this is the ultimate Grace: to have been given life and to be responsible for that life, lived according to our highest intuition, and therefore God's guidance (laws), which are there to tend for all. For me, Christ was the word of God because He LIVED the word of God, through complete access and adherence to this intuition. Therefore, he set an example, and the best example, for us to live by, believing (but for him, KNOWING) that we can all do it, too.

So that, so far, is what Grace means to me! Thanks for listening. xoxoxox