AtDTDA: [38] p. 1085 They fly towards grace.

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

The final sentence of Against the Day—"They fly towards 
Grace"—contains an unresolvable paradox or two.

Grace has a number of meanings, though local context in the 
tale's final page nearly singles this line into a specific Christian 
meaning. This review from "The American Prospect" points to
primary puritan meanings of "Grace":

          From his Puritan ancestors Pynchon learned that grace 
          comes to some of us and not others according to God's 
          inscrutable wishes. What we do does not affect our salvation. 
          We who believe in a gospel of success cannot easily imagine 
          a people convinced of its irrelevance. But suppose corruption 
          had thoroughly rotted a society: a God indifferent to worldly 
          opinion might grow in popularity. If officially virtuous people 
          were really villains, maybe publicly despised people were 
          really saints. If everything you heard was a lie, perhaps 
          only God could winnow truth.

          Early in Against the Day Pynchon reminds us of this idea and 
          expresses it graphically: "Many people believe that there is 
          a mathematical correlation between sin, penance, and 
          redemption. More sin, more penance, and so forth... 
          [But t]here is no connection.... You are redeemed not through 
          doing penance but because it happens. Or doesn't happen." 
          The salvation story we might like -- we do good and we get 
          rewarded -- implies a line whose equation we could plot. But 
          the arbitrary Puritan God robs us of plottable lines. Grace 
          comes when He pleases and at no predictable moment.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=12356

But the Buddhist concept of Grace seems to apply 
here as well, Karmic awareness that lets the light in.

From:
Buddhism and Christianity: Interpreting A New Testament Passage

by Alfred Bloom Emeritus Professor of Religion University of Hawaii

          The principle of grace which permeates the New Testament 
          was singled out as the  singular focal point for Christian 
          theology by the German reformer Martin Luther  (1483-1546). 
          Sola Fide, faith alone, was proclaimed as the witness to the  
          acceptance and trust in God’s grace.

          However, 200 years before Luther, Shinran established the 
          paradigm of true  entrusting endowed through the gift of 
          Amida Buddha’s compassion and wisdom as  the paradigm 
          for salvation in Pure Land Buddhism. Where Christianity 
          taught that  salvation is not by works but by faith and grace, 
          described as God’s unmerited  favor, Shinran taught that we 
          cannot attain enlightenment through self-inspired,  self-striving 
          practices. Rather, we can attain salvation only through trust and  
          reliance on Amida’s unconditional compassion expressed in 
          his Primal Vow.  Consequently, trust in God’s grace or trust 
          (shinjin) in Amida’s unconditional  compassion became 
          watchwords in the respective traditions.

          Shin Buddhists can look upon the principle of grace in Christianity 
          and Shin  Buddhism as significant evidence for the universality 
          of trust in human  experience. Faith is the basis for living and 
          meaning in everyday human  existence. A measure of trust and 
          faith is involved in every dimension of life,  especially in human 
          relations. Religious faith and symbolism opens our eyes to  
          the fact that our everyday life rests on the gift of love and 
          compassion shared  by family, friendships and community.

          Nevertheless, this parable, so influential in Christianity, is 
          essentially  Buddhist in character. The sheep did not rebel 
          against the master or shepherd.  Rather, it wandered off 
          from the flock and lost its way. It was, by implication,  in 
          error and ignorant, but not sinful which is viewed in the 
          Bible as rebellion against God.

http://www.shindharmanet.com/writings/b&c.htm

. . . .or the abattoir. . . .

          Soon they will see the pressure-gauge begin to fall. 
          They will feel the turn in the wind. They will put on 
          smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to 
          part the sky. They fly toward grace

If I plug "the glory of what is coming to part the sky" into Google,
the very first thing to come up is an article on the "Second Coming",
the Rapture. Of course, there's also a review of Against the Day as well:

from: Thomas Pynchon and the myth of invisibility
by Sophie Ratcliffe 

          The Chums are the most important characters for Pynchon, 
          for two reasons. First, they have ultimate faith in invisibility
           their own existence in the narrative depends on their state— 
          of perceived, altruistic absence from the world. The second 
          reason becomes evident in the closing pages of the novel, 
          when the Inconvenience, “once a vehicle of sky-pilgrimage”, 
          is transformed into its own destination. It is a place “where 
          any wish that can be made is at least addressed, if not always 
          granted” . . . .

          This sounds like classic Pynchon, but there is something newly 
          visible. The cadences are so lulling that it would be easy to see 
          this as, if not celebration, an endearing closing sentimentality. 
          But on a closer look, the final scene has disturbing resonances, 
          as if a crew of Boy’s Own suicide bombers were setting out on 
          a self-effacing mission to destruct. Of all the attempted explosions 
          in the book, this is the biggest. It is Thomas Pynchon’s attempt 
          to explode the myth of invisibility. It speaks of now, as well as 
          then.

http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25339-2477997,00.html

Like Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra", Against the Day 
ends Bi-Tonally:

          One of the major compositional themes of the piece is the contrast 
          between the keys of B major, representing humanity, and C major, 
          representing the universe. Although B and C are adjacent notes, 
          these keys are tonally dissimilar: B major uses five sharps, while 
          C major has none.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Also_sprach_Zarathustra_(Richard_Strauss)

Touched as I am by the sense of the story lines "singling up", I am
also aware where exclusion of options ultimately leads.