To Affinity And Beyond, 3

Unlike law, grace cannot be taught. It can only be received and passed on.

The other day I was sitting in the doctors’ surgery waiting room, there to register with the local GP Practice. As I waited to have my blood pressure taken, be weighed and measured, and quizzed about my family health history, I noted a display on sexual health information. There were a couple of posters highlighting the pyramid effect of unprotected sex in relation to risk of sexually transmitted disease: you may only have had sex with one person, but if that person has previously had sex with three other people, and between them those three people have had sex with twelve other people, for the purposes of exposure to STDs, you have in effect had sex with sixteen people…

Grace can work in a similar way. If a person is exposed to someone who has been exposed to grace from a few other people, it increases their chance of being infected with grace. If that same person is exposed to several people who have been exposed to grace, the chances are greatly increased. And the presence of a few particularly promiscuous individuals skews the pyramidal possibilities wider. Especially if they don’t use the equivalent of condoms; don’t take precautions to protect themselves from being infected by grace or transmitting it to others. Such ‘condoms’ might include pride, or fear.

Once infected by grace, a person is a carrier. It might not develop into the full-blown version for years, but they can still pass it on. Once identified, it can be controlled – through regular doses of legal rights – but to my knowledge there is no cure, as yet.

As an individual, the little grace I might have to pass on can go a long way…

Dear God,
Make me promiscuous in relation to grace.
Don’t let me take precautions.
May I infect someone else today;
And may they pass grace on in turn.

May the grace that courses through my veins spread, develop, consume me.
Amen.


teenage killers , graceless society , theology