Do you tend to think of grace as something wonderful, a bit of unexpected goodwill, an unearned moment of heaven on earth? I used to see grace that way. It’s a beautiful way to see it, quite natural, built right into our culture’s ethos. It’s also the view from separation, something unexplainable outside of me that grants a special dispensation.

If you haven’t yet seen that life, all of life, is grace, that understanding is hiding, a brightly colored prize in the tall grass, waiting for the child within to find it.

It is possible to experience life — messy brilliant painful precious grief-filled life — as grace, not just as a mental exercise but as deep in the cells reality. Life is. Seeing the utter futility of trying to change this moment frees the urge to mess with it.

Most resist such a possibility, thinking it means they will sit on the couch all day like a zombie — not doing, not moving, not interacting with life — not so. You see, you’ve never been doing your life. You just think you are. We’ve all been conditioned to believe a lie that sucks the joy from life.

When you begin to question the lie, what you see through its wiles, you notice that life has always been doing itself through you, through me and the world. The illusion, that which is not what you think, but is real — yeah, I know one of those darn paradoxes — continues. The illusion continues but the delusion ends.

As with all endings, comes a new beginning. The game of hide ‘n seek continues only now you see all the great hiding places. You also see that none is better than another, that there is no real hiding place, no one to hide, and no one who can find you, but the childhood game continues, only now you know its a game and there is no way to lose, regardless of what it may look like.

A child doesn’t care if they win or lose. Playing the game is where the fun is. In this game there is the appearance of life and death. I grant you, the stakes seem high. Can you imagine designing a game for the ultimate experience? Wouldn’t you design it with all the bells and whistles?

The stakes ARE high — love or fear, togetherness or aloneness, caring and compassion or rejection and self-interest, happiness and peace or anger and war, life and death — yeah, this life design has it all. Isn’t that awesome!

Knowing without a speck of doubt that there is no harm here makes this experiential priceless. Either way, we’re in it. We can relax and enjoy the stroll through paradise or grind our teeth, push our shoulders up to our ears, and brace for what’s next. It’s coming anyway. There’s no way to stop it, whatever it is.

It’s all grace — the grace of This experiencing Itself, This creating moment by moment, This in form, This on holiday. If it’s in your character’s design, be playfully curious and find out what’s hiding in the tall grass.