Chamblee54

I was listening to Disgraceland while sitting in the sauna. DGL is a podcast, about musicians who behave badly. Host Jake Brennan is fond of working the word “disgrace” into the last line of the script.
Today’s show was about the late Jeff Buckley. He had a mystical streak in his craft, and titled his album Grace. Jake talks about Jeff’s music, in the last line of the show: “Listening to it now can lead to a trance like state. A state of ecstasy. A state of eternal life. A state of grace.”
I heard Jake say that, and turned my head to the side. The young man next to me was shaking his head, and pounding his thighs, in response to the sounds going through his ear buds. I saw this, and my first thought was “this is grace.”
I got the young man’s attention, and told him the story. He enjoyed hearing what I said. Some would say “And your point is?” Others would have told me what their pastor says about grace. Instead, the young man smiled, and gave me a fist bump.
I will not have a quote today about what grace means, either from the dictionary or the Bible. Grace is something Christians talk about, when they are not nabbering about life after death. It is telling that Jake said eternal life, between ecstasy and grace.
Eternal life … I am dictating this with a voice typewriter. When I said “eternal life” the microphone kicked off. I had to turn it off and restart. It was a glitch in the system, or a metaphor … for the way talk about “salvation” can get in the way of grace.
There is a Sunday School story. A man dies, and goes to the pearly gates. Saint Peter says that we have a test. You need one hundred points to get into heaven. The man begins: I was a loving husband to my wife of many years. We raised our children to be fine people. St. Peter said you get one point.
The man said, I was a born again Christian, saved by faith in Jesus Christ. St. Peter said that’s one more point. The man said, I was a businessman, and was respected by my employees and customers. St. Peter said you get a point for that.
The man starts to get flustered, and says it is only by the grace of God that I am here. St. Peter said that’s ninety seven points. Welcome to heaven.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.