June 22, 2026

Grace Illuminated by Shadow: Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew

Knowingness, 

or 

Claiming It

Today I'm pondering the claiming of my growth as self-actualization — when the power to probe my depths was never mine to claim. It belongs to a power greater than myself.

There's a subtle movement: taking the gift of an experience and quietly turning it into *my* knowing, *my* experience, *my* achievement. Taking grace and adding it to the marquee of my achievements. 

Oh, how subtle 

— 

the slide from gift to rightful reward.

I've done this with Gnosticism, AA, every Blessing — made my exploration an assistant to my grand intellect, claiming the transmogrification of knowing as a footnote in my own grand adventure. Hubris dressed as growth.

But even this catching — even seeing the fallacy — isn't mine to claim either. The seeing is also a gift. So let me not claim the realization of the trap as one more achievement. Let me just be grateful I was shown it.

Humility over hubris. Gratitude over ownership. Not my grand adventure — grace, moving through me, for which I had no hand but the willingness to receive it.

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