Surprising Grace

  'We keep praying that our illusions will fall away. God erodes them from many sides, hoping they will fall. But we often remain trapped in what we call normalcy—“the way things are.” Life then revolves around problem-solving, fixing, explaining, and taking sides with winners and losers. It can be a pretty circular and even nonsensical existence. To get out of this unending cycle, we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. We have to allow ourselves to be drawn out of “business as usual” and remain patiently on the “threshold” (limen, in Latin) where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin.' ***** So writes Richard Rohr in his beautifully insightful way. The various forms of 'lockdown' we have experienced in the past few m...

Our guest writer this week is Valerie Tan. ***** I believe that many of us ask ourselves - what can I do to make my life more fulfilling? How can I be happier? And some of us may think that the answer lies in taking decisive steps to discern and effect a change in our external circumstances. For instance, a switch in careers, re-establishing ourselves in a different country, ending or beginning new relationships, etc. I fully believe that there are times when God calls us to step into new territory. There are times when He leads us to new terrains and new experiences, as a part of our journey to be more fully human, more fully His children. There are indeed times when He will thus call us to take decisive action to move on from where we are, to move us closer to Him. Yet, there are also times when He says - wait. Just as it can be challenging to take a step into the unknown in order to move into new places that we are called to, it can also be challenging to sit on your ...

Here we are again at that strange, blessed in-between time, between the old year and the new. I always appreciate this interval between the busy-ness of Christmas and the welcoming of the new year – a kind of fallow space in which to gather the blessings of the year that has passed, and listen to the new hopes and dreams emerging in our hearts for the future. It is a time for gratitude, and also for renewing our commitment to what truly matters. As I looked back over this year, this passage from Rainer Maria Rilke’s “ Letter to a Young Poet ” spoke particularly to me: You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have asked others before. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems. … I beg you to give up all that. You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its ro...

I chatted with a friend a while ago who had recently moved abroad and was struggling to settle into her new surroundings. She talked about the disorientation she experienced - both in the physical environment, and a more interior confusion. She described in a rather amusing way her efforts to blend in with colleagues in her new workplace who came from different cultures and walks of life than she did (who loved eating fried chicken feet and talking about the birth weights of babies, both of which she was not familiar with!). She ended off saying with a sigh, "I'm not as good as I thought in communicating with different sorts of people." I was actually quite amazed by her account - by her efforts to 'insert' herself into an entirely different social, economic and cultural environment - and told her that. Actually, I don't know too many people who would have such openness and courage to go outside their comfort zones like that. On another level, her s...

In 2014, I moved to the Philippines, where I lived for little over a year. That wasn't the first time I had lived out of my native Singapore, but it was the first time I had done so in a country with a language and culture so different from my own. I couldn't have anticipated how much of a shock it would be for me to leave all that was familiar and find myself in strange territory. Someone explained to me then that what I was experiencing was a loss of power: the power I had had in my own country that came from being able to communicate in my own language, knowing how to get around, being plugged into networks of shared meaning, having a good job and the self-respect that came from it, the support of loved ones, etc. ... For a while I wondered, as I tried to pick up the pieces, what was left of me when all of that had been stripped away. I knew in theory that I was deeply loved for who I was and not for what I could do... But it was a long time before I started to really un...