JFSC Community Chaplain Lesley Machon: Mending Without Measuring

By: Lesley Machon, JFSC Community Chaplain

(Calgary) – This season is not just about the lights or the feasts, but about the sacred moments that remind us of our shared responsibility to one another. In my role as a teacher and as a chaplain, I have had the privilege of witnessing grace in some of life’s most profound and raw moments.

This month, as Hanukkah approaches, I want to explore the revolutionary and uncommon power of grace. Grace is one of those beautiful words that’s also theologically loaded (across faith traditions), but I invite us to gloss over the theology and marinate instead in its beauty. Hanukkah itself is an act of grace: the miracle of the oil lasting beyond expectation and the survival of a community against all odds.

This kind of beauty can be confronting, even unnerving at times. The concept of grace is so counter-cultural, it is almost grating. Grace flies in the face of cause-and-effect, or the simple notion of fairness, meaning each person “getting what they deserve.” Grace has nothing to do with our deservingness.

Grace is love and forgiveness, freely given. The unconditional kind. The “just because” kind.

The kind that mends the rips and tears of our spiritual lives. As former Episcopal priest and professor Barbara Brown Taylor writes:

“By the grace of God, I am being mended, and God has called me to be a mender too. Since many threads are stronger than one, God has put me on a sewing team. Day by day, our job is to hunt the places where the world is ripped and bend over the damage to do what we can. Every good deed, every kind word, every act of justice and compassion tugs the torn edges closer together.”

You might have thought we are just a community, but in fact, this is a sewing team. We are all entrusted with the task of weaving this thread of healing and restoration into the world, a world that can be brutal at time.

Terror attacks on Israel, the rise in antisemitic attacks globally, including physical violence and discriminatory rhetoric, alarming mental health statistics, domestic violence, environmental destruction, and the list goes on. The layers of trauma and suffering can feel overwhelming at times. Maybe you’ve wondered where to even begin or doubted whether anything you do matters.

And yet, in the midst of so much pain and brokenness, grace offers us a way forward.

The invitation of grace–of love and compassion that is senseless and unmoderated–is about moving beyond sporadic philanthropy. If we accept the invitation of grace, we can no longer treat generosity as a hobby, volunteering or donating to whatever cause pulls our heart strings.

Instead, we are being invited into a total reorganization of our values and priorities. Re-drawing the boundaries of our circles, widening them to include those who are struggling in our local ecosystems. Grace asks us to spread our arms and stretch our fingertips beyond what feels comfortable, normal, or socially-acceptable – to see who we can reach. Walking in grace means mending the gaps in our communities. So, where do we begin when the world feels overwhelming? Right here. We begin right here.

Grace is the starting point, the place of new beginnings.

I didn’t always know what grace looked like. Of course, I had an intellectual grasp, but I wouldn’t have recognized it in a photo, or a moment on the street.

I appreciate Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s philosophy on grace, which circulates around radical liberation and acceptance. He equates the Hebrew word “chesed” (which means loving-kindness) with grace. Shapiro’s perspective is that God is “be-ing” itself, the verb, like God IS grace-in-action. Grace as the inherent, unconditional, and all-inclusive love of creation. Grace, like sunlight, is not selectively given but rather an undiscriminating warmth and source of life for all that exists.

To live with grace, according to Rabbi Shapiro, is to accept life’s chaotic reality, embracing both joy and sorrow.

Part of this process involves acknowledging our darker sides and recognizing our need for forgiveness. Forgiveness allows us to experience the grace that is already present and return to our true nature as carriers of light and vehicles of grace.

Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to find yourself in the company of people whose hearts are captured by grace. Living a grace-filled life is a daily practice, and it’s not always easy. What’s easy is to feel indignant, hurt, self-righteous, or offended by the people we share this planet with. Operating with compassionate assumptions and forgiveness is unexpected.

As poet Mary Oliver writes, “put yourself in the way of grace.” This means being open to the unexpected moments of kindness and beauty that life offers. We do not have to be good to receive grace; it is a gift that “meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us,” as Anne Lamott so poignantly puts it.

Thankfully, this year, I got in the way of grace. I don’t know if I put myself there so much as stumbled over it, but in some unavoidable way or another, I got drenched in it.

This year was a hard one for me. I also isolated myself when I most needed to lean into this community.

Grace found me through the generous love and support of my rabbi and my family doctor. They were grace in action. Love as a verb.

My rabbi stayed by my side through breakdowns, guiding me to breakthroughs. My family doctor (thank you Dr. Noelle O’Riordan), in a province where doctors’ time is scarce, offered generous care and a compassionate presence beyond the limits of the system.

Today, I can confidently say I do know what grace looks like. It looks like a stylish, intelligent, and big-hearted Irish doctor who looks you in the eye and prescribes connection and community over a pill, and who does not let a broken health care system dictate how she shows up. Grace looks like a highly compassionate, deep-thinking justice-driven rabbi who encourages you to wait patiently for joy, knowing it will always return.

These two grace-filled humans remind me of who I want to be in the world: a person who creates enough room for others to be fully themselves, without trying to change, fix, or rush them. I want to give generously without wanting or needing to receive, seeing interactions not as transactions. I want to be the kind of person who allows grace to permeate deep into my being and shape how I move through the world.

The best part is that this foundation of grace and community eventually stretches further. The doctor and rabbi helped me, and I impact my students and fellow staff, who then go out into the world carrying the same torch. This is why we’re talking about grace today. It’s with the intention of creating whirlpools of change in our local ecosystems and eventually the world beyond them.

We all need grace. Grace is where the light fills the cracks, cracks shaped like our deepest wounds and vulnerabilities. It is undiscriminating and contagious, and it often comes from unsuspecting places. Grace is active, not passive, and it serves the transformation of a hurting world into a healing world. Allow yourself to be permeable to grace and extend that grace to those around you.

Grace changes us. It softens our hearts, opens our minds, and heals our wounds. It reminds us of our inherent worth and the divine love that surrounds us. As we continue this journey of mending and being mended, let us hold onto the transformative power of grace, allowing it to guide our actions and shape our world. And as you light your menorah this Hanukkah, may the flickering candles remind you of grace—its quiet, persistent glow that inspires us to be vessels of light in a world that longs for it.

Lesley Machon is the JFSC Community Chaplain.