Welcome to the inaugural edition of the brand new version of my website. Following my sister’s example, from now on I’ll be posting thoughts and musings in this space every so often. So make yourself at home.

My site has been up for four or five years or so, and it’s certainly grown substantially. One of the major questions people have asked me about it, one that I’ve never been able to answer to my satisfaction, is, “Why do you have a website?” Maybe it’s pride. Maybe I’m a little egotistical. Maybe I like to wear my heart on my sleeve. Maybe I like to come into contact with people I’d never meet otherwise. I don’t know, except that it’s fun and doesn’t take much work.

The new title of this website is “The Edge of Grace.” If you’ve visited my Literary Showcase, you might notice that there is a story there with the same title, which I wrote in high school. It’s not well-written, in fact it’s an example of terrible in-your-face allegory that should never be considered good literature; but it has soul, and so it is dear to my heart. The story referred to a place called the Edge, a place of sublime horror and death, where despair was master. It was also, in the end, a place of redemption.

We walk in such states all the time. Yet the despair is unnecessary. The Edge is an expression of grace, not of despair.

According to my disembodied guru Seth, “The state of grace is a condition in which all growth is effortless, a transparent, joyful acquiescence that is a ground requirement of all existence. Your own body grows naturally and easily from its time of birth, not expecting resistance but taking its miraculous unfolding for granted; using all of itself with great, gracious, creatively aggressive abandon. You were born into a state of grace, therefore. It is impossible for you to leave it.”

I see grace as an edge walked: A boundary between life and death, between sleeping and waking, between love and oblivion. You either know it or you don’t, at every moment of your life. It is order in chaos and it is chaotic order. Finding the balance on the edge of grace means truly living life in the flow, in zazen, in the Sacred Silence, or whatever other term you might put to it. Walking the edge of grace is living life as it should be lived.

So now you have the story of my state-of-the-art website. Any and all suggestions for its further improvement are greatly welcomed. I’m lacking in artistic ability so if you’d like to donate any talent, let me know. I’d be grateful. Otherwise … enjoy at your leisure.

While I’m at it, I’d like to say hello and thanks to Tom for his friendship, and to Kirsten for her love of life and her very worthwhile Apologia.

Stay tuned for more in the weeks to come.