There but for the grace of God...

In the circles I travel, that saying is frequently quoted. Or misquoted.

Oh, they get the words right. "There, but for the grace of God, go I." Sounds real good. Right up there with some of the other shibboleths --- "Live and Let Live"    "Keep it Simple"

What I hear frequently is a sincere paean to the great good fortune of being on the right side of a capricious diety. If it weren't for me and my best bud, God, I'd be just like that poor slob over there. Whew, dodged that bullet. And as long as I keep being good, doing all the right stuff, keep my buddy God happy, I'll be ok.

But that's not it. Take out the clause in the middle and what are you left with?

"There go I."

And that, my friends, is the message. That person, the one I've formed a judgment about because of how she looks or what he says or how he smells or how unfortunate her circumstances of birth, that person IS me. We are the same.

It's odd to me that one would invoke the image of some sort of chess-playing Being to separate us from people we don't want to claim relationship to. Wouldn't it logically seem that any God who keeps me from being (fill in the blank) could just as easily change his mind and throw me overboard on a whim? Or is it, indeed, my placating behavior, my attempts to be perfect in this system of dos and don'ts, that keeps me in the Diety's good graces?

"There go I."

Not thank goodness I'm not her. Thank goodness I know better than to break the law, do drugs, quit my job or yell at a cop. Thank my lucky stars I don't have cancer, my children are good citizens, I was born in the USA, I'm not poor or black or an immigrant or living with AIDS. Whew. God must love me.

 "There go I."

I AM the poor woman with diabetes and three children and no more unemployment. I AM the child soldier, kidnapped into fighting for people who don't care about me. I AM the wife of the CEO who is married to his money.

It's good to be grateful for what I have. It keeps the wants and desires under control and introduces humility into my consciousness. But gratitude tainted with entitlement, with arrogance ---- especially spiritual arrogance --- is not gratitude at all. I'll even cite some of those scriptures people love to trot out to prove a point, (See, I can do it too!) They  have poetically captured it: I am as the lily of the field. The air, sun, soil and rain bless me freely, and all other life as well. I am a lily among lilies. A person among persons. And when I see or hear or touch another person, there go I.