The veil has many hooks to deal with.

M9:Week 3: Grace in the Sent Life of the Body

Day 3: Grace Crossing Ordinary Distances

Today’s Veil to Pierce

You have been taught that crossing toward others requires a special assignment or dramatic opportunity.
That teaching is the veil of illusion at its most postponing.

The false self waits for the large, obvious sending — a trip, a program, a crisis — before it considers movement. It whispers that the people across the street, across the office, or across the table are not the real field. This veil creates the illusion that the steadfast love that holds the body only travels far. In our shared contemplations, this distortion echoes those who could speak of distant mission while remaining closed to the neighbor already near.

Grace does not wait for dramatic distance.
It crosses ordinary distances as the natural movement of the love that has already claimed the body.

Grace’s Revelatory Power

Grace crossing ordinary distances reveals that the eternal root of Charis — the steadfast, covenantal love of God — is always moving toward the one who is near and not yet included. This love does not require a passport before it can travel. Charis is this same love now visible when the body notices the person already present and takes the small step across discomfort, difference, or routine. This power is local and costly: grace exposes the deceptive veil of “real sending happens elsewhere,” dissolving the illusion that ordinary nearness is spiritually secondary. Through this, grace restores true movement: the false self’s postponement fades, allowing the body to cross the distances that are already in front of it.

Contemplative Depth

Take one ordinary distance you have been leaving uncrossed — a neighbor, a coworker, a relative, a quiet tension.
Not to force a conversation. Just to look at the space between you.

Feel the veil tighten — the subtle delay, the preference for later, the assumption that this distance is too small to matter. Then let grace do what it does best: nothing dramatic. Just a gentle turn of attention.

You do not need a larger field before movement becomes real.
You only need to notice that the steadfast love anchored before time is already crossing toward the one who is near, and Charis is inviting the body to participate — right now, in this ordinary gap.

Crossing ordinary distances is not lesser mission.
It is an invitation to stop resisting what is already true.

Applying the Insight

When the impulse to wait for a bigger sending arises and the nearby distance remains uncrossed, pause.
Ask yourself one quiet question:
“Am I postponing movement from fear, or resting in the love already given?”

Then breathe.
The answer usually changes everything.

Daily Reflection Prompt

Choose one ordinary distance that has remained uncrossed. Sit with it for five minutes without forcing action. Notice where the veil tightens. Then ask: What if the steadfast love is already crossing this distance as Charis? Write what arises.

Something Extra…

Chesed and Charis – Two Sides to the Same Coin

If you’re interested in learning more about the relationship between Chesed and Charis, you can find this recent release where I explore some of the finer points.

Go here to order your copy