Talk a lot about guilt and shame and eventually, you’ll probably crave a hefty dose of grace! The conversation in Episode 172 is just that. Cynthia and Susan focus on challenges Latter-day Saints might have decoupling works and grace. Is it possible accepting grace actually requires more faith than depending on our own good works? How might pivoting toward grace propel us forward? Good news spoiler: We don’t have to save ourselves!

Notes & Quotes:

ALSSI Ep. 16: We Don’t Believe Our Own Stuff | Grace Edition
ALSSI Ep. 41: Grace is the Antidote
ALSSI Ep. 74: The Parable of the Laborers—Grace in Action
ALSSI Ep. 130: Speaking in Sacrament Meeting | The Cynthia Edition
Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus, by Robert Farrar Capon
The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind, by Cynthia Bourgeault
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, by Richard Rohr
Another Way to Get All Enlightened, by Duncan Fisher, No Sermons
Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith, by Sarah Bessey
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, by Anne Lamott


“(Jesus) does not come to see if we are good: he comes to disturb the caked conventions by which we pretend to be good. He does not come to see if we are sorry: he knows our repentance isn’t worth the hot air we put into it. He does not come to count anything……He comes only to forgive. For free. For nothing….We are saved gratis, by grace. We do nothing and we deserve nothing; it is all, absolutely and without qualification, one huge, hilarious gift.” — Robert Farrar Capon

“It’s not later, but lighter—some more subtle quality or dimension of experience accessible to you right in the moment. You don’t die into it, you awaken into it.” —Cynthia Bourgeault

“We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.” — Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

“You don’t ascend to God at all, in this way of doing things. If anything, you descend. You don’t engineer your success with your Creator. You fall into it. You give up your sense of self, which you learned as a way of coping with the world, and instead rest in the self you were given by God in the beginning. You’re generous like God is generous. You love, as Jesus had put it, ‘as I have loved you’. That is union with God.” — Duncan Fisher

“I think I used to confuse faith with my longing for control, particularly of the outcomes.” —Sarah Bessey

“The good news is that we’re all doomed, and you can give up any sense of control. Resistance is futile. Many things are going to get worse and weaker, especially democracy and the muscles in your upper arms.” —Anne Lamott

“Like any good Zen master, [Jesus] is out to completely short-circuit our mental wiring so that we are catapulted into a whole new way of seeing and being.” —Cynthia Bourgeault

P.E.E.L.
P – Pinpoint
E – Examine your thoughts/values
E – Exchange lie for truth 
L – List evidence for that truth