On Becoming an Agent of Grace
January 28, 2020

     So Keats was right: things fall apart.  But if I have resources at my disposal by which I can stem the tide – i.e., I have received some grace – do I have a duty to do so?  In a universe governed by entropy, does grace make such an a priori claim on our lives? 

      If I wish to live at all, then the answer must be yes.  

     We don't ask to be born.  We didn't have a hand or a say in the matter.  And yet, "here," as Annie Dillard puts it, "we so incontrovertably are."  So what are we supposed to do with that?  If we're lucky in our early days – and most of us are lucky enough – it's all done for us.  Helpless and mewling, human infants require heaps of additional grace from the get-go.  The feeding, the bathing, the rocking, the safeguarding from this danger or that.  We grow, in open defiance of entropy, by any grace that our parents and other caregivers can channel, plus the grace that sustains them.  You could  define parenthood (and perhaps motherhood especially) as an extended exercise in making oneself an agent of grace.  Undoubtedly, some pull it off better than others, but most pull it off.

     Then, at some point – again, if we are generally lucky (and most of us are lucky enough) – we have received enough grace in the form of provision, protection, and instruction, that we can begin to access and make use of grace ourselves.  We can, but we could choose not to.  We are free not to preserve the fruits of grace (ourselves).  But if I am, to any degree, interested in self-preservation – and, by grace, the instinct is usually strong – then I am obliged to act in a manner consistent with that goal.  I must learn to feed and clothe myself, and if I cannot do this alone (and I cannot, in any meaningful, long-term sense), then I must learn how to live in and contribute to a community of cooperators who will help me do so.  This is the duty to which grace calls me. 

    But then the question becomes: how gracious is my community?   How well do we manage the resources by which we resist the tide of entropy, together?  And how well am I contributing to the effort?