In its many forms, grace is life’s almightiest gift

When I left the office on the eve of Thanksgiving, it was sleeting sideways. I had neither gloves nor a hand-held windshield scraper thingy, but I did have writer’s block, a screaming headache, and a zit between my eyebrows.

Mired in the self-pity ring of my own private Inferno, I was feeling anything but thankful.

The worst part of what could have been dismissed as a simple pre-holiday funk was that I knew exactly how ridiculous I was being for not feeling grateful for the blessings that have come my way — and there are many.

This unpleasant realization plunged me into the quicksand of self-loathing, which manifested itself most festively in waves of vehicularly induced misanthropy. By the time I arrived home, more or less without incident, about 90 minutes later — a commute that usually takes 20 to 30 minutes — I was so foul of spirit, I had to put my head down for a few minutes and then locate some emergency comfort carbs.

Hey, no judging!

If recent news reports are any indication, apparently even God has the occasional need for comfort food. Why else would God and/or the Mother of God appear on grilled sandwiches, fish sticks and tortilla shells? (Have you noticed it’s never in a mixed-green salad or plate of crudite?)

While my take-out lasagna was warming in the oven, I flipped on the TV and found “Bruce Almighty” on one of the 129 HBO channels we get. Sure, I’d seen it before — about a dozen times — but it had just started and, well, familiarity is comforting, or the devil you know is better than the one you don’t, or . . . fine! Jim Carrey makes me laugh. I’m not proud, but it’s the truth.

After a few silly scenes, I walked into the other room, leaving Bruce (Carrey) to have his meltdown on the boat at Niagara Falls while I checked on my comfort food.

Not cooking fast enough. Figures, I grumbled to myself, storming around the house, scaring the cats.

Then it happened. The cosmic chiropractic.

I checked my voice mail at work, and there was the message I’d been waiting for. Good news. Great news, the marvelous, expectation-blowing sort that catches you off-guard.

By the time I put the receiver down, the pall had lifted. I could see clearly now, the, um, sleet was gone.

In fact, the sleet had turned into big, fluffy snowflakes dancing on the other side of my window, decorating the street outside with the first snowfall of the season.

It was beautiful. And the lasagna was ready.

Life is beautiful. And I’m an idiot who doesn’t deserve any of it.

But that’s the thing about grace.

And that’s why grace is what I’m most thankful for this Thanksgiving. Every Thanksgiving, for that matter, but some years you just see it more clearly than others.

People sometimes ask me why I believe in God. The simple answer — and it’s MY answer, aka, it may not be YOUR answer and that’s OK — is grace.

As I understand it:

Justice is getting what you deserve.

Mercy is not getting what you deserve.

And grace is getting what you absolutely don’t deserve.

Benign goodwill. Unwarranted compassion. The unearnable gift.

Scads of writers and theologians have tried to describe grace, but I think musicians usually get closer to capturing it, sometimes with words, sometimes not. Two of the best attempts I’ve ever heard are both found in songs.

The first, from my homey Bono, is from the song he titled “Grace,” lest anyone be confused about what he was getting at.

“Grace, she takes the blame, she covers the shame, removes the stain,” he sings, in a simple tune that sounds almost like a nursery rhyme. “She travels outside of karma. . . . Grace makes beauty out of ugly things. Grace finds beauty in everything.”

Yeah, he nails it. That’s grace.

But so is what is described in this short lyric from an old Indigo Girls song that may or may not be about spiritual rebirth. It’s my favorite idea of grace.

“There was a time I asked my father for a dollar,” they sing, “and he gave it a $10 raise.”

So on the night before Thanksgiving, I moved back to the couch and the TV with my cheesey lasagna and my spiritual $10 raise to contemplate the recent happy turn of events. The movie was almost over and Bruce was lying in a hospital bed, having just been snatched from the clutches of death by a team of doctors and a pair of defibrillators.

Bruce, who had been literally playing God for a few weeks, looks up at a bag of donated blood being pumped into his veins, and we know what he’s thinking. Earlier in the film, he mocked his girlfriend — her name is Grace (played ever-so-graciously by Jennifer Aniston) — for organizing a blood drive.

Bruised, bloodied and realizing the irony of the situation, Bruce hears a voice and turns to see his long-suffering girlfriend standing in the hospital doorway.

“Graaace!” Bruce says, grinning from ear to ear as tears fill his eyes.

Exactly, I thought, tears running down my own cheeks.

Grace has a way of sneaking up on you like that. When you least deserve it.

That was Bruce’s way of seeing, and, I suppose, saying grace.

This is mine.

Sometimes it’s another human being who changes your life for the better. Other times it’s a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich or an especially fluffy snowflake.

Every once in a while, it’s a well-placed call.

Grace is all around us.

You just have to recognize it.

For whatever it is and whenever it happens, I give thanks.