{"id":140,"date":"2006-01-05T10:37:16","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T10:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/?p=140"},"modified":"2006-01-05T10:38:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T10:38:00","slug":"amazing-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/2006\/01\/05\/amazing-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazing Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
\nThat saved a wretch like me<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Have you ever felt a moment of grace? Some call it enlightenment, some call it muse, some call it inspiration, some call it spirit, and some call it the collective unconscious. But have you ever felt it?<\/p>\n

A man, a slave trader all his life, in the middle of a terrible storm at sea, wakes up and realizes how wretched his actions have been. There is a deep sense of overwhelming sorrow and pain. Then a pinhole of light opens on a new possibility.<\/p>\n

One could change.<\/p>\n

What a concept. One could make restitution, one could undo the harm he has done, or prevent further harm from being done.<\/p>\n

I once was lost, but now am found
\nWas blind, but now I see.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Newton, was not a perfect man. He stopped working on slave ships, but still profited by them. Then he took up the path of being a minister. Then he got out of the slave trade. Then he fought for emancipation. The process of changing one\u2019s life path may take the rest of our lives. But he had a perfect moment that lasted with him, and later inspired him to pen the hymn Amazing Grace, which then took on a life of it\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon to meet the creator of an extraordinary piece of work and find them to be deeply flawed, not living up to our expectations. Grace touches us all in our lives, the question is, how much do we allow ourselves to be changed by it?<\/p>\n

T\u2019was grace that taught my heart to fear
\nAnd grace my fears relieved,
\nHow tender were the moments of
\nThe hour I first believed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We see, for a moment, how life could be radically different, immensely improved \u2013 if we do our part. And we sustain that faith for how long? A moment? An hour?<\/p>\n

Inspiration without action is like falling deeply in love and turning 180 degrees and running in the opposite direction. If we have nourished it, cynicism has a powerful hold on us. If we find something we believe in worth nourishing, eventually there won’t be any room for any cynicism.<\/p>\n

If every person who ever felt a moment of transcendent inspiration took responsibility for it and took action \u2013 what kind of world would we have?<\/p>\n

Through many dangers, toils and turns
\nWe have already come
\nT\u2019 was grace that brought us safe thus far
\nAnd grace will lead us home<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Any writer or artist will tell you that one inspired action leads to the next and the next. Can you actually imagine a world where people took responsibility for their passing inspirations? A world that takes responsibility for its children, its environment, its ill, its suffering, its war torn, its injustice, its free will? Which little piece of the world do you know, in your heart, you should be attending to?<\/p>\n

When we\u2019ve been here
\nTen thousand years
\nBright shining as the sun
\nWe\u2019ve no less days
\nTo sing in praise
\nThan when we first begun<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Where have you decided to put your energy today?<\/p>\n

Even no decision is a decision.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther saw a way for the gospel to be available to everyone, not just the upper classes schooled in Latin.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther King Jr. led the bloodless revolution of his portion of the American Civil Rights movement.<\/p>\n

Gandhi, who may not have invented the concept of peaceful civil disobedience, certainly took it to its full potential. He aligned 750 million Indians and brought the
\nBritish Empire to its knees.<\/p>\n

Rosa Parks refused to stand up when a white person wanted her seat.<\/p>\n

Malcolm X went to Mecca on a spiritual quest. He came back believing all men and women were brothers and sisters, even the white ones.<\/p>\n

Liz and Jon Vance love their children more than any family I have seen. Liz home schools her children, and there is always lots of art and art supplies available for them to create with. She gently allows her children to express themselves, although they are very rambunctious, she never stifles them<\/p>\n

I personally know two men who have willingly married women with lifelong disabilities. They are sometimes partners, and sometimes caretakers \u2013 but they never complain. It is a daily matter of course.<\/p>\n

I know several people who have helped elders, and even young people, transform from the very last years of this life, to a death surrounded by love.<\/p>\n

There was a social worker I knew who brought her cases home weekends and evenings, because she could not let one child go uncared for. She didn\u2019t take time away from her family to do this. She married the kind of man who would sit at the table and help her with her case files.<\/p>\n

Andrew Vachss spent some time working as a public health inspector, tracking down stds to their originating point. He was enraged to find that so many of the source points were children who were molested, used for kiddie porn, kept trapped in reserve for pedophiliac clients.<\/p>\n

So Vachss, an attorney, began writing suspense novels, that were very successful, and lived off the profits, while he took on child molestation , child rape, child abuse cases for free.<\/p>\n

So, 10,000 years from now, how will out actions have effected the course of this great journey that mankind is on?<\/p>\n

Will I have forwarded a cause, in a quiet, but useful way? Will I have penned a concept that lives on after me, like the Tao? Will I have passed on my love, especially to the next generation, that is then multiplied and passed on? When I have done working for my survival each day, what next bit of stewardship will I tend to?<\/p>\n

What kind of world will we have in 10,000 years? A mature, compassionate, loving family?<\/p>\n

Or something else?<\/p>\n

These decisions are made one choice, one life at a time.<\/p>\n

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
\nThat saved a wretch like me
\nI once was lost, and trouble bound,
\nAnd grace has set me free<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have you ever felt a moment of grace? \r\nA man, a slave trader all his life, in the middle of a terrible storm at sea, wakes up and realizes how wretched his actions have been. There is a deep sense of overwhelming sorrow and pain. Then a pinhole of light opens on a new possibility.\r\nOne could change.","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-tuppenceworthie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}