“Together, on his back porch, his cigarette smoke rising like incense to the heavens, we spoke to the God of grace we both are so grateful to know up close and personal. It may be the most beautiful prayer I've ever heard. Jesus, for some reason you've given us another day, and you've set us in Narnia. There are people who still think it's frozen, and there are people who are longing to be thawed but don't know it. God, I pray that what you've called us to do would be the subversive work of the kingdom, that we would help participate in the melting of Narnia, and that people would come alive and would drink and dance and sing and just celebrate life in ways that are so marvelous that the world would press its face against the glass and see the redeemed celebrate life. Amen.”

“Outside, it feels like there is less standing between the Creator and us. There is a lingering visceral connection we can hear and see and smell, reminders of the bond between Creator and creation, like the mountain sage crushed up in the pocket of the sweatshirt I was wearing on a short, muddy hike the other day. “In”

“While it's true that you may lose your religion during the course of a lifetime, you never lose your salvation. Once you let Jesus in your kitchen, he just keeps on making peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and he never leaves.”

“I would say that grace is startling,” Jean told me as he began retelling the story of how he wound up as pastor of Lagniappe Presbyterian Church, a growing congregation that meets in a glorified metal hangar in Bay St. Louis. “It's just startling. It isn't supposed to work. This wasn't supposed to work.”

“Some theologians argue that one kind of grace is better than another, and that some people think they're experiencing “divine” grace when it's actually just “common.”To me, that's like bickering about what color God's eyes are. (They're hazel, in case you were wondering.)”

“Everyone experiences grace, even if they don't realize it. It's kind of like Moby's music. You could ask your average sixty-something-year-old retired banker in Connecticut if he's ever heard of Moby and/or his music and the response you'd receive more than likely would be a resounding, “No—what's a Moby?” But if you say, “Remember that American Express commercial where Tiger Woods is putting around New York City? Remember the song playing? That was Moby.” “Oh, then, OK. I guess I have heard Moby,” our theoretical retired banker in New Canaan might say. “So … what exactly is a Moby?” That's like grace. Not that grace is a pretentious vegan techno-rocker, but you get the idea. Grace is everywhere, all around us, all of the time. We only need the ears to hear it and the eyes to see it.”

“Trying to explain or define grace is like catching the wind in a cardboard box or describing the color green.”

“In her inestimable audacity, Julia was the catalyst in my life for something beautiful. I hadn't anticipated her—hadn't even wanted her, truthfully—but there she was. A little something extra that made all the difference in the world.”

“This is where Jean's stubbornness and, perhaps, God's stubborn grace came into play. “My definition of grace would be multifaceted, but part of it would certainly be God's passion for brokenness. He does, he really does love brokenness,” Jean told me. “Grace doesn't obsess with ourselves. It obsesses with people and with brokenness. This is a hard place to live, but God is bigger than hard places to live.”

“Sometimes grace is having the strength to persevere through the storm.Sometimes it's having the guts to rebuild, to take a chance, to follow your nose and your heart rather than your head.Sometimes grace is finding out that your preconceived notions are dead wrong. Sometimes it's being surprised by joy. Sometimes grace is something you can feel even if you can't see it. And sometimes it's a bowl of watermelon gazpacho when you were expecting Taco Bell.”

“Grace has a way of sneaking up on you like that. When you least deserve it.”