Be open to the waterfall of grace

Author Annie Dillard has a popular quote: “We catch grace like a person filling a tin cup at a waterfall.” That quote intrigued and troubled me. I stuck it on my bulletin board, next to pictures of my kids, prayers for the canonization of Boys’ Town founder Father Edward Flanagan, and a picture of me with Sister Helen Prejean. My bulletin board, in other words, holds for me a variety of reminders of grace.

As Catholics, we’re big into the idea of water standing for grace. The first lines of Genesis establish our symbolic love affair with water: God’s spirit hovers over the water, representing the Lord moving to control the chaos.

Scripture abounds with water, and its presence should be our first hint that grace is everywhere. Jesus changes large vats of it into the finest wine, and seeks out John at the Jordan River to be baptized in it. He offers the Samaritan woman living water, which only he can give. Water, like fire and wind, is grace’s gushing metaphor.

During the Easter season, the pastor at my parish literally soaks people with branches full of water as he walks through the church.

So here I am, tin cup in hand, wondering how stingy I am about asking for grace and how observant I am in recognizing grace when it’s pouring down on me.

In my job working for an anti-death penalty organization, I have been blessed to meet people who present me with grace if I’m willing to see it. One of them is Curtis McCarty, who was held for nearly 20 years on death row in Oklahoma for a crime he didn’t commit.

Curtis has overcome bitterness to emerge as a compelling speaker who tells audiences worldwide about his experiences. There’s grace in that.

Grace abounds in the women I’ve met who are faithful to husbands who have been imprisoned for decades, or mothers whose children, as juveniles, were sentenced to life in prison without parole before it was declared unconstitutional in my state. How does one remain strong, loyal, faithful through that kind of trial? Grace, amazing grace.

I guess my dinky little tin cup just won’t cut it in a world where God’s grace is overflowing like a waterfall. If I can see the footprints of God in the robins flocking to my backyard these days, then I can say yes to grace everywhere.

Grace isn’t just in the time I set aside for formal prayer. It comes to me in the sacraments, but it gushes forth from there, demanding I flow with it. It calls to me. It asks me to throw away my tin cup and immerse myself in the water.