MAY 24
The moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see
and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands
nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence
and acknowledge it in gratitude...that which we have chosen
is given us, and that which we have refused is also, and at
the same time, granted us...that which we have rejected is
poured upon us abundantly.
—ISAK DINESENAll the lost hopes, all the lost plans for the future when a
loved one dies...how are we to accept these losses?
In Dinesen’s story “Babette’s Feast” General Lowenhielm
returns to the scene of a brief and unconsummated love and
makes the astonishing statement that the years of deprivation
are redeemed by the grace of this moment.
Can we expect such a moment of grace? What might it
be?
Perhaps in some solitary moment we sense the almost
palpable presence of our loved one in the room, participating
with us in some of the ventures of our life.
Perhaps on some family occasion when we would have
expected only yearning grief, we have in addition to the
sadness a sense of the loved one taking it in, smiling, blessing
the occasion.
Or perhaps we experience a surge of confident hope that
we shall, on some other plane, be together again.
In the midst of absence, a presence is made known.