The following meditation, “Teach Me Thy Grace,” is from Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart.
Teach me Thy Grace in all the little things of life.
My days are surrounded by myriad little things. There are the little words of every day: simple greetings, yes and no, commonplace expressions of courtesy, minor services of daily routine. There are many little tastes: bread, milk, tea, coffee, salt, sugar, meat, all blended to satisfy hunger and to meet bodily demand. There are little deeds of unasked for kindness: a button sewed on, a shared personal delight, a gentle reminder of something that had slipped out of mind. Teach me thy Grace and all the little things of life.
Teach me thy grace in the daily work by which I earn my keep and the keep of those depended upon me.
There are duties demanded of me that irk and irritate, dulling the cutting edge of joy in labor. There is the fatigue that burrows deep into the citadel of my sense of well-being, rendering me brittle, sharp in speech, and short in patience. There is the pride, the arrogance that comes when I turn my eyes from the high level of my intent and look coldly at the lesser deeds of some who walk the way with me. There is the tendency to wrap myself in garments of my own compassion ending in the muck of self-pity and unhealthy moodiness.
Teach me thy grace in the daily work by which I earn my keep and the keep of those dependent upon me.
Teach me thy grace.