Life may push us around. We may feel beat up, or scared. But perhaps today we realize that we are not merely just survivors…we are warriors. We may have struggled through cancer, or suffered emotional trauma and know PTSD. We may feel the loss of a loved one or the pain of financial strain. During these times of strife our prayers become fierce, and we hunger for the way through. Our perceptions determine whether we are awake and aware during these challenges. When we are alert we may often experience fierce grace. Fierce grace may appear as angels who swoop down in the form of friends or acquaintances and lend their strength or shine the light through the dark tunnels. However we discover grace it is the fine line between laughter and tears, and no hope and no fears. When we walk that line, we walk in grace.
When spiritual guru Ram Dass recovered from a stroke, he dubbed it “fierce grace”. Dass, author of the lauded “Be Here Now”, was felled so severely by the illness that he became paralyzed — but in true Ram Dass fashion, he saw it as a reason to look death in the face. From this statement filmmaker Mickey Lemle was inspired to create a movie titled “Fierce Grace”. The movie is an engrossing, poignant meditation on spirituality, consciousness, healing and the unexpected grace of aging.
Fierce grace is an eloquent way of describing the warrior’s quest for grace. There are many steps along the road to embracing fierce grace. The following are three steps that allow us to come into alignment with a state of grace. However be aware that there are no guarantees that grace will come. The first step is facing any challenge soberly and headlong. We must become fierce in examining our fear and anger. The second step, while facing the challenge, is to learn everything we can from the experience. We ask ourselves, “what does this experience offer me as a life lesson?” Simultaneously as we go through self-examination we become willing to release all the patterns that have brought this experience to our lives. When we follow these steps we declare that we are open to grace coming into our lives. A key to knowing fierce grace is perceiving her appearance.