disruptive grace

‘She’s got her keys, money and fags’ ['Line Up' - Elastica]

[Note: for American readers 'fags' is British slang for cigarettes]

In my late teens a favorite group of mine sang of a girl ‘groupie’ going out on the town making sure she had her ‘keys, money and fags’ . “Keys, money, fags” became a personal catchphrase of mine at the time. Whenever I left the house, and particularly in the evenings, I would recite the motto, “keys, money, fags”, the list of essential items to have on my person outside the home, with these items I would be ok. The only flaw in the phrase being, I didn’t smoke, and didn’t carry any cigarettes. So in fact the phrase became, something like, “keys, money, fags… oh yeah I don’t smoke.” This mantra of sorts was complimented by a rhythmic patting on the various areas of my person which these items were located. Left pocket, right pocket, hands down and relax. “Keys, money, fags”.

During my mid-twenties a new object was added to the list of essential items, and so the motto became, “keys, money, phone” with corresponding body patting, — now more like a popular dance. A macarena. A modern man’s “spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch.” The later, of course, being a comical way of signing the points of the cross. Catholic school boy humour. Despite the irreverence, this gag marks our body with the way of Jesus, the way of self sacrifice, love, obedience, trust, and abandonment on God. A sharp contrast to my: “breast pocket, right pocket, left pocket, down”, the signing of the individual, marking the objects of self reliance. Keys, money, phone.

Habits and rituals shape us. The Jews place a ‘mezuzah’ on the door post of their house, a case containing the ‘Shema’. At each coming and going, they touch the ‘mezuzah’ expressing their love and respect for G-d. This not only helps define them as Jewish but also transforms them into people who are constantly aware of God. Every day I leave the front door and I mold myself a little more in the way of self. What person would I become if instead I marked myself with the way of Christ at each coming and going. What if I could risk forgetting my objects of self reliance? There but for the grace of God go I. Now there’s a good mantra.

There are many in the Christian tradition who talk of being ’saved’*. But, I can’t help asking, what do you mean by saved? Saved from what? Save for what? Surely, if ’saved’ is to mean anything it has to at least include, the present, this world and us, as physical bodies, living that out in our actual everyday lives. Many of us are very aware of the need some form of redemption: the world is clearly suffering from the lack of justice and the confusion and corruption of beauty, which we can see that in our personal lives as well as globally. A ’saving’ that only deals with a post-mortem experience is not good enough. Oswald Chambers reflected on a similar thought in the early 1900’s:

“It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life… .. the thing that ought to make the heart beat is a new way of manifesting the Son of God.”
[from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest]

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