Our family is fairly in love with the movie Encanto. Every time we (routinely) listen to the soundtrack, this bit from the introductory “meet the family” song catches my attention.
It’s when the grandma tells us about how the family can “earn the miracle that somehow found us.”
The trouble, as they all learn, is that we can’t earn a miracle.
The compulsion to try to earn the miracle of our lives, though, is deeply human and imminently understandable. If I were to earn it, the logic goes, then I would have some control over it. And how does my ego love to control!
But the wonder of the sacramentality of our lives… the grace woven through our being, the natural world, our relationships, the unfolding of our vocations… is already ours. No earning necessary. It’s taken care of.
The task, then, is to receive these things whole-heartedly and without pretense, as a child. So freed, we can respond to this abundance with wild generosity.
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