"The most helpful offering to a lost soul, or even to ourselves when we feel lost, is an encounter with virtue, a taste of unconditional love. Virtue is far more convincing than any words of advice -- it is an expression of the energy of God; it touches us at the soul level, it is the vessel of that unconditional love."
- Br Peter Reinhart, "Bread Upon the Waters"

I went to a "support group" of sorts at Imago on Monday. It is called The Refuge, and we were discussing grief. Grief is usually connected with loss, but I seem to feel it differently than this. The heaviest, most tangible form of grief that I experience is grief over my own sins. Specifically, those sins that directly hurt another person.

Just over a week ago, this grief manifested itself at 3:45 am as a tremendous fit of anxiety. I awoke from a restless sleep, roused by my own anguished screams, my whole body tense and shaking. As soon as I recognised the wailing as my own, they subsided into bitter tears. The actions that caused this scene are still haunting me, but the expression has not been as raw as that nite. But for some reason I feel like they need to be. I feel like my sins can only be atoned for by a sorrow that eats away at my peace. But it is not eating away at me. I am on a pendulum, swinging daily between the experience of total numbness that ignores pain, to a forgiveness that conquers the pain.

I don't like the numbness. Being numb causes me to ignore grace, and grace is necessary to show me how to grow and move forward. And while numb, it is too easy to fall back and actually find a type of false comfort by entertaining the idea of repeated vice.

The grace side of the swing is far better. The pendulum actually began with grace, which was received only hours after I woke up. I confided my pain to Lucas, who did not offer any advice, but simply communicated God's love to me. He touched me on the soul level as a conduit of God. As I confessed my pain and my failures, I received the assurance of God's forgiveness, solidified and made tangible through brotherhood.
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Experiencing grief and grace are just two realities of the life we live. When this grief is made tangible, the bitterness can break our spirits. But the sweetness of grace made tangible is infinitely strengthening when felt against this backdrop of grief. The pain is not taken away, the pendulum does not stop swinging, but power is given to move onwards.