Grace, it’s a name for a girl; it’s also a thought that changed the world (U2)

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (St. Paul: 2 Corinthians 12:9)

Georgia’s middle name is Grace. It is one of those terms that brings ease and peace upon an initial hearing–the lightening of burden. Georgia is that kind of little person. Like her mother, she draws you in to shared space; in to vulnerability and out of yourself. She will do this for the rest of her life–it’s simply who she is. The name fits. The Georgia part, well, that is an homage to the warmth, hospitality and deep-rootedness of the south; to half of her heritage; to a region from whence her mother hails and to a people whom we as a family, cherish. The Grace part–that has become a hope realized. Such a beautiful dynamic; such a beautiful force. That’s Georgia.

Just yesterday, at BC Children’s Hospital, without any forethought or calculation–simply by virtue of being herself–Georgia once again became the human catalyst for connection, this time in the waiting room in the ophthalmology department. As is so often the case, the space was transformed by her–and her mother’s… they’re quite a duo–presence; from a space simply containing twenty-some-odd individuals and their respective isolated scenarios, to a community of persons mutually committed to the hearing and carrying of one another’s stories; to an open, benevolent exchange of authentic emotion and goodwill. The space became our space; my story became our story. Georgia approached every person in the room–every person–and said “My Georgia, what’s yer name?” She then proceeded to ask them, unblushingly–as though this is what humans were meant to do–why they were there. One by one she issued her summons: “Will you see me? Will you let me see you?”

Grace.

As we’ve been walking this journey out together as a family, day after day we are taken to the end of our personal resources and beyond; into moments of stark awareness of our helplessness. Tragedy is like that: it doesn’t produce human helplessness; it reveals it. Most of us are suspended–dangling–from what we fancy to be stalwart, many-braided ropes. The inscriptions that we so painstakingly write on each of our ropes reflect our multifarious delusions; delusions we’ve long cultivated in efforts toward self assurance–more whistling in the dark. Some of us have written ‘Entitlement’ on our rope, others, ‘Race’, ‘Earned’, ‘Citizen’, ‘Faith’, ‘Net Worth’, ‘Gender’, ‘Married’, or ‘Reputation’. Still others of us have written–and this one is particularly common–‘Good Person’. Dangling from each of our ropes, we twist and sway, blown about in the cold breeze of fear, while focused, doggedly, on our supposed self sufficiency and our strength; feigned imperviousness to pain, to suffering, to brokenness, to weakness and limitation. We in the West are especially skilled at rendering such delusion. What we fancy to be sturdy ropes, of course, are actually wispy strands, finer than hair; strands that will eventually, in each of our cases, be broken by the overbearing weight of the world we inhabit. Reality is unyielding to our sentiments, no matter how ardently we hold to them. The list of options for snapping our respective hair-thin strands is innumerable and is as long as human history itself. No civilization, certainly no individual, has ever been able, ultimately, to avoid them. Whether financial collapse or mental illness; whether marital discord or heart failure; whether addiction, cancer, or, in the end, death, I would submit to you that we haven’t overcome ourselves or the world, Friend–not by a long-shot. We are all helpless. We are all, on our own, weak in the face of our broken world and its unending pressures.

But that’s not the end of our story. It proves, paradoxically, to be our beginning. When we hear the twang and pluck of our string now snapped–as we break away and fall, flailing and panicked into our new unknown–there is another cord to clutch; a vine. It is as dense and as solid as industrial-grade cable, immeasurably long and descended from heaven’s heights. On this vine there is only a single inscription, one indelibly emblazoned by the hand of The Giver. A resolute declaration: grace.

Helplessness and weakness have always been the most vivid junctures for the grace of God in human life. Perhaps this dynamic is visible to you in the new life embarked upon by that friend of yours who finally came to the end of themselves–the one who lived in addiction for a decade and was, at last, taken in by a community of fellow sufferers; embraced, just as they were. Perhaps it comes to you amid your astonished discovery that your neighbor–the one you thought had their life so neatly sewn together–suffers from debilitating anxiety, just like you. Maybe it arrived for you in the (previously inconceivable) joy that you discovered life to hold following the death of your spouse–the love of your life, without whom, you thought existence and identity to be impossible. Perhaps it is there in the face of a friend who sheds a tear with you as you confess a long-held secret, the shame of which held you prisoner within yourself for years. In each of these cases and in so many besides, grace abounds in the midst of our weakness; on the fringe ends of our capacity. It bids us, “Now, grow and live and thrive!” It bids that our admission of brokenness–so far from spelling the end of us–be the start of collaborations toward transformation and renewal. God’s omnipotent hand, extended to us–adorned with a work glove. Grace isn’t neat. Given the nature of the case–given how busted up our world and our place in it has become–it can’t be. Grace doesn’t negate grieving, or pain, or bewilderment, but it does redeem each of these. Every tear and every worry, grace, it turns out, employs as fertilizer in the soil of human flourishing.

When all of this happened to Georgia, I lacked space for it. I didn’t have space within myself for the prospect of my little girl possibly losing her eye. I didn’t have space for the prospect of her being blind in any way. I did not–in many ways I still do not–have space for the bi-hourly inflictions of pain that she has to endure at my own hands. Each of these burdens, which we rightly rail against in the many corners of our soul, identifying the injustice and frank wrongness of them, are matters that we grieve deeply.

Grieving is a way of telling the truth, though. It’s the way we establish clearings within ourselves for all of those weights and all of those pains that reality so unapologetically confronts us with–those that were previously inconceivable to us; those that we formerly denied the existence of or were otherwise ignorant to. Grieving properly–with intention and honesty and courage–is a consolidating human experience. In grief, we are presented with an opportunity to become more spacious and malleable people; to expand inwardly and outwardly while all of our parts are gathered to us along the way.

We and our children have been presented another fork along life’s proverbial road: down one path, what lay in store are more acts of delusion–rather than grieving, we can hide or we can harden, denying or begrudging Georgia’s new reality, likely doing more violence to her along the way. Along the other path, we are invited to locate the courage to look wide-eyed into our reality, with all of its overwhelming potentialities. Where we have risked doing so, we have encountered God’s grace. Never tidily, never as we might have imagined. Mostly in hindsight, we can see the way that The Maestro is working things together in the aftermath of Georgia’s initial injury, in ways that bring life and hope to her and to so many others. God’s grace is there, helping us find the strength to walk through the door into life’s next room. What is next for Georgia–and for us as we journey with her–is a corneal graft. We have been told that caring for young corneal graft recipients is especially difficult; that the rate of rejection is higher in children of her age and that the rejections typically occur in subtle, often difficult to detect, ways. It is going to continue to be a difficult year for Georgia. Our rope has broken, and we are clutching to the vine of grace so benevolently extended to us in the midst of our weakness. We find it amid moments of laughter and in the continued generosity of community. We find it in the tears shed by so many of you who have felt our periodic anguish and are grieving with us. We see it surging through the horrible realities involved in receiving tissues from a yet unknown donor–one who will lose life through more broken-world tragedy, long before they ever should have breathed their last; that their parents, whomever they are, would allow for the body of their child to aid another child in possibly regaining sight in an eye gone dark. Grace bursting through darkness, bringing the hope of fuller life and sight with it.

It seems to me that the health of a community consists in its collective willingness to tell the truth about its weaknesses. Whether a family or an institution, a small business or a nation–a community that has sight only for its strengths is destined to wither. Solidarity shows up when we risk honesty; when we risk the whole story with one another. I am thankful that this community has allowed us to tell the truth about our weakness; that through grace, you have created a clearing in which Georgia’s story can play out in generative ways–in ways that become our story.

Until one’s rope breaks, it remains impossible to understand the words in the second quote included above. A man named Paul–a man well acquainted with both pain and suffering, often writing his letters while in infirm or in prison (or both)–wrote those words. I recall reading those words as a young boy, wanting to know them in greater depth. Despite the fact that my family had experienced loss before–our rope broke when, within a swift twenty four hour period, a syndrome called Waterhouse–Friderichsen came to steal the life of my baby sister when she was just nine months old (I was eight years of age)–the language of power being perfected in weakness, of grace being sufficient for me, felt more like a platitude. It remained theoretical. Some hopes precede inevitability, however. In order for this particular hope to be granted–in order for it to transform from mere theory into knowledge–one must first be brought to the end of themselves. Discovering one’s end–one’s ultimate weakness–is a harrowing experience. It happens, also, to be one that we all will have ample opportunity to encounter in this life. “Power being perfected in weakness” proves, in the end, to be a pretty good bargain. When the power at issue comes from Love Himself, it can be trusted. He is at work, making things better–making things new and allowing for us to embrace our weakness along life’s way. We thank you for your help along the way, Friend. We want you to know that little Georgia is growing in her experience of her second name. Just a few days ago, she greeted me in the morning as I was still rubbing the sleep away from my eyes. With a skip in her step, she approached me and proclaimed, “It is a glorious day, Daddy!”

Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace, it’s the name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she’s got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She’s got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

(U2)