A Spoon of Grace

A child with a spoon, standing on the beach

A bit of water we’re trying to reach.

The tide comes in, the water is vast,

Come splash and enjoy, it’s here to last.

God’s love, joy and grace are never ending.

The tides may change but he never stops sending

them rolling up and down the shores.

His mercy he continually pours.

He made you to sparkle with life to the full,

to know His goodness and that He’s faithful.

He created you, He created it all

Elements and matter, waves and shore.

The story and vision goes that St. Augustine was at the sea-side, and there was a child trying to spoon the ocean into a pit in the sand he had dug out with a spoon and it is said that it was easier to spoon the ocean into the hole than it was to explain the mystery of the trinity.

Quite few years ago, I heard someone talk of a similar analogy, from a picture that I’ve tried looking for without success... again it was a child going to the ocean with a spoon. But he described it as a picture of grace, a child coming to the water with a spoon to try and collect the ocean. Grace is so much more than we deserve or could hope for ‘His grace is sufficient’; ‘His grace is enough’- not because it is rationed or we make do with what we’ve got but because it is poured out and plentiful. There is an abundance of grace, A spoon of grace is an oxymoron, paradoxical, contradictory. So don’t just try to collect a token of water, live in the fullness of it, because God is not stingy with grace.

In response to what I know of St. Augustine’s vision, theology should not be about using a spoon to fill the hole with water or take a sample in a glass jar to analyse because although you could do tests and analyse its composition, apart from the ocean it lacks life and power. Maybe it’s about delighting in him, and letting the tide roll over the hole, fill, submerge and cause it to overflow.

I wrote this at the end of August 2011, it is adapted from part of a poem I wrote for a friend, and loosely inspired by Boticelli's picture,
"the Vision of St. Augustine."