It was a drippy British fall day and we had expressed our regrets to our visiting priest who had landed in our dove gray countryside.  "It's ok! I saw the English sun today," he said.   We asked him where else he had been since it had not so much as peeked through the cloud cover.  "I was on the other side of the clouds," he said.  If you've ever flown you may know that surreal experience of taking off in downpour and pushing through to blue skies and sunshine moments later. You quickly realize the sun is right where it always is.  It is pressure levels down close to the ground that are ever changing, occasionally building up. 

We talked later about this.  I shared my frustration with myself. How often have I let circumstances dictate my emotions?  How often have I felt fenced in by things I could not control?  How often have I forgotten what I have tell my children over and over – that the one thing we totally control is our response… and then did not control my response?  Allowed myself to be agitated, annoyed, discouraged. 

We talked about this.  And he reminded me of the flight and the clouds.  I was prepared for a metaphor about 'rising above' the yuck.  I was not as prepared for his frank words about the origin of the storm.  He was right however.  People sometimes say and do simply outrageous things.  Illness strikes with no rhyme nor reason it seems.  Blows come from unexpected corners.  But these things by themselves are not what keep us up at night.  They don't cause us to scowl or snap in frustration or retreat to a media zoneout.   We choose those things ourselves. 

The clouds in his metaphor were not the circumstances.  They were our responses. They were the inner turmoil, the churning, the irritability. The sun on the other side was the grace of God which was always there.  Constant. We do not find ourselves short on grace.  We find ourselves blocking the flow of the grace that was meant to pour over us.  

That is not to say that the people or things in question are not hard to bear. It doesn't make bad behavior from others ok.  It means however that our spiritual job is to work to break up those clouds and keep standing in the light no matter what tempest may blow around us. 

I am resolving to start my day with that picture in my mind, to be a light chaser.  Here's to a grace-filled week. : )