Grace and gravity

A non-religious way to learn a deep truth

Early in my ministry I served a suburban parish, and we lived in a church-provided house on a large grassy lot. Generous parishioners provided us with two essentials: a riding mower and a kids’ climbing toy shaped like a geodesic dome.

Our two little boys wiled away hour after hour on that climber. Then one morning we discovered that overnight someone had, deliberately, driven off the road more than 100 feet and smashed the toy into uselessness.

Though still a new priest, I had already learned that explaining hard to believe things to children is far more challenging than explaining to adults. Children have a keen sense of b.s. and a low tolerance for gauzy generalizations.

At 3 1/2, Adam was as crushed as the climber. Somehow I was able to summon up a few simple words to help him (and myself) through that act of violence.

I told him we didn’t know who did it and probably never would know. But a person who hurts other people and their things has probably been hurt badly themselves. They are sad and angry and want someone else to feel that way, too.

All this came to mind because I’ve been reading the journals of Simone Weil (d. 1942), a remarkable soul and deep thinker. Writing about what she calls “human mechanics,” she says,“Whoever suffers tries to communicate his suffering (either by ill-treating someone or calling for his pity) in order to reduce it . . . This is imperative, like gravity.”

Weil had the profound insight that there is a distinction between natural and supernatural behavior. “The former,” she writes, “is determined by ‘gravity,’ or egotistical tendencies, and the latter by ‘grace,’ or transcendent love. She posited that we can only escape the influence of gravity by waiting in the “void” — the emptiness created by loss, extreme suffering, or death — instead of trying to fill it.

Waiting for grace allows us to grasp, maybe for the first time, things as they are and not as we want them to be. Or, in other words, a kind of grounded acceptance that forswears lashing out or causing others to suffer.

You may have to read and re-read and take some time to wrestle with this profound thought. I did. And there’s no way to dumb this down for you, even if I wanted to. These are deep thoughts in few words. Wrestle with them. It seems to me that the reality of gravity might make sense to atheists and believers alike.

I couldn’t have known this when I was trying to comfort that little boy almost 50 years ago. Jesus told his disciples when he sent them out to spread the word that they would be hated and arrested, betrayed even by family and friends. But he also said, “you will be given words and wisdom,”* just when you need it.

I learned that day long ago to trust that promise.

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Notes

* Luke 12.12 and 21.15

Simone Weil (1909-1942) was a philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Born into a Jewish family in France, she emigrated to the United States early in World War II. She came to embrace Christian faith but resisted baptism and joining a church. The book I’m reading is Love in the World, a collection of journal entries she bequeathed to a friend and which were published after her death.