Of all the things that occurred in 2009, I want to tell you about this:

I started a church job a couple of months ago and my first sing with them was Durufle's Requiem. During the Kyrie, I discovered a ladybug crawling on my shirt, which made me jump slightly, not enough to gather notice. I gently took it in hand, and there it stayed, tucking its little body into the space between my ring and middle fingers. The service wasn't overlong, but this creature and I stayed together for about an hour. I harassed it a number of times, thinking it might be dead, but it revealed nothing to me and held fast. Finally, we processed out into the garden, whence we came. I held out my hand and the bug traversed my finger and docilely went up the stem of a modest purple flower.

I wondered what its awareness could have been of its true situation, if it made a decision to stay on the great, moving vessel of my hand rather than fly away. I certainly considered putting it down, but thought it would have little chance of survival or happiness inside the church. But did the ladybug know that it was better to cower, and that I would not destroy it?

Life is like this. We all want to be safe and protected from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but we never are. Whether we face it at every moment or never, we are all riding on a giant that could unknowingly crush us at any second. And it's so beautiful that this has not happened yet! I think that if there is such a thing as we call grace, it is this suspended moment, the clemency of time and chance to let us hover here for awhile in life.