Grace period: Tony D’Souza sings from a well-known hymn sheet

‘If there is a Gift, there must be a Giver.’

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

Grace came to me (as it must come to any of us) as a complete surprise. It came as something totally unexpected – out of the blue – an experience so remarkable I can remember it clearly all these years later as though it happened yesterday. It came like a thief in the night – without warning and, of course, unearned.

It changed my life forever. Before it came (although I did not know it) I was fumbling in the dark, never knowing how dark the darkness was. Like the blind man in the gospels I can only say, ‘One thing I know. I was blind, but now I see.’

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

The grace of God came when I was at my lowest ebb, and had come to the end of myself. Everything I had done, chosen or worked for had turned to dust. It was about 2pm on Tuesday 13 January, 1981, in a crummy bedsit in North London. I had heard something about God a few days before, and I remember being told how it was possible to surrender your life to God’s care. This idea was completely new to me but, arrogant and self-willed as I was, I decided to give it a try. I had a crucifix that my mother had given to me, and I knelt before it. Then I said a prayer, full of intellectual pride and scepticism. It went something like: ‘I don’t really believe in God. But if there is a God, come into my life now.’

Then it happened. Suddenly, it felt as though I was pinned to the floor with the grace of God flowing through me. It was like a river of bright light flowing through me, a river made of pure love and forgiveness. This immense power seemed to be coming from the crucifix on the wall. Unworthy as I was (and who can be worthy of the grace of God?) I knew in that moment I was forgiven for everything I had ever done and that I was loved by a love that was infinite beyond description.

I do not know how long I spent with the river of light flowing through me. It could have been seconds, minutes or hours. I had no idea of time. I have no idea how to describe the immensity of it. In the years that followed the closest I could get was this: imagine being on the deck of a ship, far out to sea and in the middle of the night. Imagine standing at the rail and looking at the horizon and the stars – wherever you look the vista is endless. This is only a very limited idea of the immensity of the love and forgiveness I experienced. It was far greater than that. It was so unimaginably endless the word ‘infinite’ seems puny compared to it. And this love and forgiveness is always there, for me and for you and for everyone, now and forever, no matter how corrupt or ‘sinful’ we may be judged by human understanding.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

From that moment, doubting the existence of God became impossible for me. Grace came to me as a gift, and if there is a Gift, there must be a Giver. I handed my life and my will over to God because it was obvious to me that God could run things better than I had. In the years that followed, I tried to depend on this guidance and I waited upon God’s will for direction in my life.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

I would like to say that everything has gone well from that moment in January 1981, from saved to good to better, but things have not been like that. I have enjoyed some success in worldly terms, but my life has been full of trials, difficulties and sometimes even despair. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I can now see that the experiences I chose to call painful or difficult were given to me for a reason.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

It seems to me that our life here on earth is something like a schoolroom for the spirit. We have to be purified of self will, self-seeking and the desire for things that can only harm us, and the rougher the road we have to travel, the quicker we can be purified. It is almost impossible to give up the dominion of ‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘mine’ without a titanic struggle, and suffering is often the only way we can be persuaded to loosen our vice-like grip on our illusory independence. We are free to learn or not to learn from our experiences, but that is the extent of our freedom. If we submit, we get better, and can begin to be stripped of self. If we resist, we get bitter, and the self becomes more armoured, its doleful story becoming ever more entrenched. True freedom can only come from accepting the will of God, not from denying it and clinging to self-will – a paradox that is also at the heart of the crucifixion.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

When we understand the importance of giving up self and self-will, we begin to understand the secret of religion. We can then join Thomas R Kelly, who wrote: ‘Is religion subjective? Nay, its soul is in objectivity, in an Other whose Life is our true life, whose Love is our love, whose Joy is our joy, whose Peace is our peace, whose burdens are our burdens, whose Will is our will. Self is emptied into God, and God in-fills it.’

Only the grace of God can change us, and this is always available in the eternal ‘now’. Our false sense of independence knows this, and only survives by living in the past and the future. In a constant state of rebellion, it loves to judge others, which is how it forms its likes and dislikes. These devices, like a magician’s smoke and mirrors, create its illusory sense of being. However, all of it is a lie and only the grace of God, aided by the gift of suffering, can cleanse of it.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.

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Comments

I loved this brave piece of writing Tony . Thank you for gifting it to us so openly and honestly . Rare gifts . I also very much appreciated Clive Ashwin’s response in the Friend of 13/5/, which is also so helpful and religiously/Quakerly to the point .

By Neil M on 12th May 2022 - 15:28

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