November 13, 2025
“Gratitude is one of the chief graces of human existence and is crowned in heaven with a consciousness of unity.” Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind, page 497.
Sometimes the messages that I prepare and deliver linger in my mind. Each topic ripples in the pool of my awareness long after the message is delivered. It’s teaching continues.
Today, the agreement to always do my best dropped in and somehow led me to gratitude and grace.
When I agree to always do my best, I sometimes hear the thought “you could have done better.” Upon closer examination of this thought, I see where former agreements might lead me to take myself a bit too seriously.
Sometimes it reveals a harsh inner critic. With this teaching, I see evidence of former domestication I now deny. With the new agreements, I see myself and the world through the lens of grace.
What is grace?
It is a versatile word. Grace can refer to elegance of movement, a measure of good will, a period of reprieve like a "time out," and the religious idea of divine favor.
I came to learn that Grace was the gentleness of divine consciousness that understands we are all part of the same energy of our creator – peace, power, love, intelligence – in whole, as the Christ Consciousness.
Somewhere along the way of religious pathways, this concept became special or exclusive to the one called Jesus. Unity teaches that Jesus was not the exception, but the great example. He showed us that the Christ as a consciousness is within each of us. We are Spirit first and foremost. This is our Divine Identity, the “us” before birth and after what we call death.
Just like pilots reposition the plane back on course, we too may continuously realign to our divine identity back on course. The pilot expects to be off course at times in their journey. There’s no judgment. They simply become aware and bring the plane back on course.
Let us regard ourselves with gentleness and grace.
Let us trust our commitment to do our best by trusting ourselves to be true to our divinity and simply realign when we notice we’re “off course.” Let us know and trust that there are perfect teachings and insights in these moments. Let us be grateful. And let us give grace to ourselves and others.
Every time I pause and “give thanks” I am also “saying grace.” Words of grace that become affirmations of love and truth.
May we walk in gratitude and with grace this day.
May we enter the collective energetic portal called Thanksgiving with great awareness, gratitude and grace.
I give thanks to you & Unity Renaissance Spiritual Life Center.
We are filled with and blessed by grace.
I love you, Reverend René