ATDTDA - grace

[Monte Davis]

Laura:
 
> Most of the examples you've 
> found definitely have a religious rather than "things exactly 
> as they are" connotation

I can finagle most of the connotations into concordance. If you're willing
to stretch "grace" way beyond its Christian matrix to "oneness and
timelessness" --

...i.e. roughly, from "confident that you are right with God at the moment
and will have eternal life hereafter"  

to "the distinction between this moment and eternity is illusory, if only
you knew it"...

Then "things exactly as they are" -- from which you are no longer alienated,
because you're no longer death-obsessed and resentful that "things" will go
on when you're gone -- can be mighty blissful. Like the man sez: "...and
now, in the Zone, later in the day he became a crossroad, after a heavy rain
he doesn't recall, Slothrop sees a very thick rainbow here, a stout rainbow
cock driven down out of pubic clouds into Earth, green wet valleyed Earth,
and his chest fills and he stands crying, not a thing in his head, just
feeling natural..."

Or in another idiom: "Before you study Zen, mountains are mountains and
rivers are rivers. While you are studying Zen, mountains are no longer
mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. Once you experience
enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers again rivers."

Grace = "things exactly as they are"...? Works for me.