You Are Accepted

“I have come to the autumn of my life and a kind of summing-up time. Every day increases my awareness that grace has been my constant companion. I have soared on the wings of the morning and stumbled in the abyss that’s hidden in the night, only to hear a voice saying, “Yes, always yes.”

Paul Tillich speaks of this grace: “Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted,’ accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.”

– Jeff Grace, Traveling on Grace Street

Every Step Is Grace

“Grace is like a thread running through our lives that is more than adequate for every circumstance, every detour, and every step we take, and nothing can separate us from this grace. It is never about me. It is never about you. It is always about tapping into the amazing grace of Love.”

– Jeff Blake, Homestretch: This Journey on Grace Street

Good Medicine

“If laughter is good medicine for the soul, deep belly laughs are the pot we may smoke. I think I am finally beginning to understand that verse in scripture, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground dies, it cannot live.”

Death ain’t such a big ole thing if you have already died to live more fully and deeply and abundantly.”

– Jeff Blake, A Year on Grace Street (October 13)

Grace Is

“There are a hundred ways to say grace. Grace is the chair in which we sit. Grace is an eraser. Grace is the red nose of a clown who blows up long balloons to form a poodle and makes us laugh. Grace is a redheaded woodpecker perched on the branch of a tree. Grace is the wings of a bird, the waves of the ocean crashing to the shore, the first coffee with a new friend, a baby’s cry, a candle chasing the blues away. Grace is the evening sun that turns the trunks and roots bronze. Grace is the first magnificent light of the early morning when the earth is more still.”

– Jeff Blake, Traveling on Grace Street

Little To Do With Us

“Not a single one of us in unimportant or unworthy, for it really has little or nothing to do with us but everything to do with a love that will not let us go.”

– Jeff Blake, Traveling on Grace Street

In The Same Boat

“I don’t know who, but somebody said, “Who we are is who everybody else is.” It took me a while to understand this foundational truth. I grew up thinking that some people were less, and sometimes I even considered myself to be less, but then I discovered we are all pretty much in the same boat navigating our individual journeys to Grace Street.”

– Jeff Blake, Homestretch

Relationship of Light

“Light is a relationship between electrical energy and eyeballs. It is you, in other words, who evoke the world and you evoke the world in accordance with what kind of a ‘you’ you are.”

– Alan Watts

Nature Is Grace

“Nature is grace because it is a pathway out of our chattering minds. How easily we get lost in thinking and fretting and worrying with our chattering minds. The morning headlines are simply overwhelming and more than we can bear. There is enough of any one problem to drive us to distraction. Nature reminds us of what we forget. Nature calls us to be still and to be ourselves and to live in the Presence of the moment.”

– Jeff Blake, Homestretch

Come As You Are

“No need to clean up or tidy up or dress up because it’s a come-as-you-are party. Why not just wake up and get your dancing shoes on?”

– Jeff Blake, Homestretch

It’s Like Magic

“So to be clear, you can help me to change the world by changing your own world, through unconditional love for yourself. And when you do, it’s like magic, because everyone around you will also change.”

– Don Miquel Ruiz Jr.