Summer time memories: Grace abounds when we least expect it

   Grace appears when we least expect it. It has been described as "the ingredient of welcome". I like these words. I was not thinking of grace a month ago when a snow storm was brewing outside my window. I decided to look at my old albums and came across this photo which I had taken when I was 20 years old, uncertain of the future at that time. I had gone to visit my friends whose first born happened to be my godchild. I always liked their announcement: "Godfather has arrived!" The young child would come running out to greet me so warmly; it would melt my heart. Whatever anxieties I had that day receded while I enjoyed their company. In their tiny apartment, I was reminded of their joyful enthusiasm. Forty years later, I think of that graced moment occurring at a time when my youthful pains seemed to be the center of my world. So what does grace look like?

   I think we are watching at it now. It is also a child lovingly running into the arms of her uncle. It is a young couple dreaming about their future together and all their potentials for doing good. How I wish grace as loving-kindness would spread across the world, intertwine itself between Palestinians and Israelites, the US and Iran; South and North Korea and places where discord continues to exist! I think grace would also look like cranes hovering gently over a lake. Or as Sister Kathleen, a nun, once said to me: "like the little head of a turtle in the middle of a pond connecting us to mud, insects and lilies to a world beyond our viewing eyes." I think grace would sound like Charlotte, a friend, who called me, weeping over the sudden death of her husband. I still want to laugh and weep in grace which unites the very center of our being where God breathes the breath of life into all of us. I want to believe in this youthful photo that we still have each other, supporting, encouraging us in the abiding love of the Great Spirit bringing us closer. "We have made it so far!" Grace, yes, welcoming us and abounding in plenty!               +Don Ronaldo.