"I still have a tendency to try to look upward when I pray. My prayer today is that I would remember to look everywhere."

Larissa Kaye Batten (llbeara@aol.com) writes "Soul Food," a weekly column for SpiritSite.com.  

Larissa is a prolific writer whose work has been featured in several publications.  

You can visit Lara's web site at www.miracleanimalrescue.com (site will open in a new window).

Some people look skyward for grace. Some people look within. Some people look in churches, mosques, and synagogues. Some people look to the future. Some people look to the past. Some people look to God for grace. Some people do not look for grace at all.

I have spent most of my life dog-paddling in a jar of pain, squirming and screaming, "Get me to the top. Get me outta here!"

Over time, I have learned to skim the honey off my pain and to see the grace in my everyday life.

A woman I know who has cancer said to me recently, "I am so exhausted when I get to the top of the stairs."

I felt very sad for her, and then I let my spirit show me the grace.

"I think grace is when I realize how blessed I am that I can get to the top of the stairs at all," I told her.

I have not had cancer, but in many ways I feel I have climbed many of my own staircases only to find myself exhausted at the top.

As I recover from sexual abuse, alcoholism, self-mutilation, anorexia, depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies, I have ongoing opportunities to fall back into my jar of pain and to lose myself in the darkness.

I have always had plenty of reasons to stay in the pain. For most of my life, that is exactly what I chose to do. Pain was simple. Pain was more familiar. Pain often appeared to be more comfortable. Pain was my friend. I was a first-class dog-paddler. I could do no more than to paddle right above it. I did not see anything outside my pain – not until I found everyday grace.

Everyday grace is not the conglomeration of hundreds of bee stings. Everyday grace is the honey I can find now in any single 24-hour day even when the bees still sting. I do not need to look to the heavens to see the grace of God. Nor do I need to look solely within. Grace is everywhere, every day. But it is my choice to see it.

People often look at me funny when I speak of my love for Celtic spirituality. A lot of people love Irish music and dance. A lot of people like Irish pubs and Irish authors. A lot of people visit the United Kingdom. Many people study the wars of the Celts. But I know few people who understand the richness and brilliance of the Celtic spirituality way.

Celtic spirituality does not limit God and his grace to a particular place, time, or notion. Celtic spirituality embraces the everywhere, the now and then, the universe, nature, people, the arts, the sky, the sea, the wind, breath, life, death, the spirit world, today, and on and on.

I have never come across a belief system that is as all-encompassing as Celtic spirituality. According to Celtic Christians, God is everywhere. Assuming God is everywhere, so is grace. Everyday grace. Everywhere grace.

If grace truly is everywhere, then grace is now. In this day. In this very moment. How can I find grace in the moment? I need only let open my soul. I need only let free my spirit. Grace is a child playing. Grace is a man dying. Grace is someone saying goodbye in an airport. Grace is reading a book. Grace is praying. Grace is meditating. Grace is releasing emotions. Grace is living. Grace is changing. Grace is gardening. Grace is adopting a puppy. Grace is changing one’s mind. Grace is coloring outside the lines. Grace is coloring inside the lines.

Sometimes I marvel that I am able to write an article every single week about a gift from God. But why should I be surprised? I do believe God is everywhere. I believe his magic, his works, his voice, his expression are absolutely all around and within us.

Why would one believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving higher presence and not believe that spirit to be everywhere?

Today, I am grateful for my jar of pain. I am not sure I would have ever found the honey without my jar of pain.

The grace in my life today is that I no longer dog-paddle, but live instead in the light of God’s daily works of grace.

Not too long ago, a stranger asked me a question.

"Why do you look up to pray?" she asked me.

Wow. I had never given it any thought. I did that night she asked me the question.

"I guess it’s easier for me to think of God up there in the sky," I said. "I feel like we humans have messed so much up, I don’t want to let us mess up God, too."

I still have a tendency to try to look upward when I pray. My prayer today is that I would remember to look everywhere. If God really only existed in the heavens, then how would we have any grace down here?

Grace really is everywhere. Yet I must remember that I must make the decision to open myself to it.

Thank you God for your grace.

Thank you God for being everywhere.

Thank you God for everyday, everywhere grace. Amen.

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