A Hand of Kindness

October 17, 2010

I want to spend my next few blog posts focusing on grace – as a practice for myself, and for the sake of others who, like me, need constant reminders of how relentless, how limitless, and how totally sufficient God’s grace is.

I’ll start by sharing these song lyrics that have been running through my head all day. The song is by Bob Bennett, a singer-songwriter my parents really enjoyed when I was growing up. His songs have stuck with me, and I still think he’s an amazing lyricist.

 

Hand of Kindness*

I’ve no need to be reminded

Of all my failures and my sins

For I can write my own indictment

Of who I am and who I’ve been

I know that grace by definition

Is something I can never earn

But for all the things that I may have missed

There’s a lesson I believe that I have learned

There’s a hand of kindness

Holding me, holding me

There’s a hand of kindness

Holding me, holding onto me

Forgiveness comes in just a moment

But sometimes the consequences last

And it’s hard to walk inside that mercy

When the present is so tied up to the past

In this crucible of cause and effect

I walk the wire without a net

And I wonder if I’ll ever fall too far

But that day has not happened yet

And in the raven dark

There shines a distant light

It seems to point at me

It burns away the night

Familiar figure on horizon

Moving closer now I see

His heart is shining like the sun

And He is reaching out for me

With a hand of kindness

He’s holding me, holding me

There’s a hand of kindness

Holding me, holding onto me

Holding on … a hand of kindness

 

*from the album Small Graces


Creative Inspirations, Part 2: Grace

May 5, 2010

Yesterday I wrote that one my creative inspirations is change. Seeing change not only inspires me in art; it inspires me in life. I see people making positive changes in their lives and world, and I want to do the same. Recently, for example, I’ve made some changes to the way I shop and the way I clean my home. The results: I’m saving money and treating the environment a little bit better.

I love making positive changes like this. I love the way I feel when I get it right. But I’ve found that I can only get it right for so long before I fail. And sometimes I fail badly. I choose wrong, and I get stuck. What I long for is a huge change, one I can’t accomplish on my own. I want to be transformed; I want to be redeemed. And for that, I desperately need God’s grace.

You probably know what grace is, but it doesn’t hurt to refresh your knowledge, so I’ll tell you again: Grace is God’s love and favor, given freely, not because of anything that we’ve done. It is the means of our salvation.

And that really inspires me. It makes me want to tell redemption stories and express transformation through art.

I don’t understand God’s grace, but I write about it anyway, because I think it is one thing really worth writing about. When I catch a glimpse of it, when I see that God, in all his hugeness, holiness, and power, genuinely cares about and even likes me … it makes me want to laugh. Maybe it’s because grace takes me by surprise. Grace is overwhelming and delightful and also somehow very funny. So often I feel lost and confused and like I don’t know anything, but I get this faint glimpse of something better, and it makes me want to laugh. It makes me want to create.

Grace inspires me. What inspires you?

The Heart Nebula


A Poem for Today

March 1, 2010

Mosaic Poem

All my great attempts

Are failures and false starts,

But you’re slowly rearranging

The fragments of my heart:

Shards of color in the Great Wall

Of things that have fallen apart.

I wanted to be an artist;

You made me a work of art.

© Elise Morrison Siegel 2010


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.