Greg Cootsona: Finding Grace, Finding Space

In this conversation, we explore the notion of grace. We talk about it from a spiritual perspective: the Christian spiritual tradition which is Greg’s anchor, as well as other spiritual traditions.

Greg Cootsona is a Lecturer in Comparative Religion and Humanities at Chico State University ant the author of: Say Yes to No: Using the Power of No to Create the Best in Life, Work, and Love. Serge Prengel has been exploring how to live with an embodied sense of meaning and purpose.

Transcript

So Greg,

I heard you talk about the rhythms of grace,

And I'd like to invite you to say a little bit more about that.

Yes,

I mean,

The rhythms of grace is an important concept for me,

And more than a concept,

A direction for the way I want to live my life.

I think that when we think of life and come into the life we have as a experience of gifts,

Which is the center for me of what grace means,

Then we live in a way that brings,

I think,

Human flourishing and fullness of life.

So actually the term,

The rhythms of grace,

Comes from a paraphrase of the words of Jesus,

Which says,

Walk with me and work with me,

Watch how I do it,

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

And I just liked the way that spoke about life,

Not life as a boundary set or managed,

But as a flow of activity and rest.

And for me as a drummer,

I'm a percussionist,

That idea of notes and spaces is extremely important.

So those are some of the things that lead me to the idea of the rhythms of grace and why it's,

I think,

Central,

Not just as a concept,

But as a way of life.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So the notion of rhythm implicitly has the notion of some moment where something happens and some moments where something in a conventional sense does not happen,

Like a pause.

Right.

And of course,

If you're a musician,

Both are part of the music.

Exactly,

Yep.

And I think immature musicians,

Serge,

If I'm running over your question,

Let me know.

But I think less mature musicians will try to fill up all the space,

But more mature ones who have taken time to learn the beauty of music,

And the kind that I try to learn from,

Really use space as well as they use the notes.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Well,

This podcast is called Active Pause,

So you're preaching to the choir when you talk about the merits of the pause and how it's not a moment where nothing happens,

But it's very,

Very much part of the rhythm of life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

As I'm currently an instructor in comparative religion,

And as I've studied the great masters of spiritual or religious life,

They've all had this concept of rhythm and of a kind of fallow ground where you let the ground get its nutrients back so it can be fertile again.

I certainly think that's true for Jesus,

Who's the person I follow as a spiritual mentor,

And as the person I follow,

But also for the Buddha had the same sense of rest and of activity,

And you could go on with many,

Many other spiritual teachers.

So for me,

That's really critical,

That rest is seen as a positive.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So we're talking about a sense of that rhythm,

A sense of flow,

A sense of grace,

And the sense of grace being very much synonymous with a sense of the rhythm of life as it should be.

Exactly,

Yeah,

Yeah.

There was a reading that my wife,

Laura,

That she found yesterday in a book that she's been working through called Sabbath by Wayne Muller,

And he has a chapter in that book on the beginner mind,

Which really summarizes the same idea,

That we wanna take on life,

Or not take on life,

We wanna approach life as a beginner,

Always open to new experiences,

New learning,

And that allows us to have a time of rest so that we can experience anew the world before us and never feel like we've gotten it so by the scruff of the neck or something,

Life that is,

That we somehow just haven't managed completely,

But we're always open to seeing what new grace can enter into our lives.

Yeah,

So let's talk about grace.

You say new grace can enter into our life,

And so grace means something to you as somebody who believes in a given tradition,

And how can we translate that experience for people who don't necessarily have the same tradition?

Yes,

Yes.

Well,

Serge,

I certainly come out of the Christian tradition as you mentioned,

And it has grace that has some theological components to it,

But I think all of us have a common experience of grace.

I remember learning in developmental psychology that there are basically two things that children learn.

One is achievement orientation,

Which is getting food as a baby,

The mother's breast,

That you go for a certain goal and you achieve something.

And the second is that we have ascribed worth,

That we're simply held because we are who we are.

And I think it's that ascribed worth that gives us a sense of grace.

Nothing we did to achieve it,

We're loved because we are alive.

And as I look at the world around me,

Well,

First of all,

That's how we enter the world,

Right?

We enter completely helpless.

And the fact that we're able to have this conversation is we've had places where there has been that ascribed worth,

That grace.

But throughout our lives,

Even in my point in life,

In my midlife,

There's still so much grace to every day,

The ability to breathe,

The ability to live.

I'm looking outside in California right now,

And it's just a beautiful day,

Even though it's late fall.

So I think those are the ways that I can understand grace as a concept that isn't particular to the Christian tradition,

But is something of a human experience generally.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So would it be fair to say it corresponds to the dichotomy between doing and being,

And that's the enjoyment of being,

That's not taking being for granted.

Appreciate it.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think there's that phrase,

It's a little trite,

But it grabs something,

That we are human beings,

Not human doings.

Right.

And the only thing,

I don't wanna wordsmith this too much,

Because I appreciate what you said,

If I may add to it,

Is to say,

I think it's also receiving in addition to being,

That we open ourselves like a funnel.

It's like we open our lives up,

And we receive so much,

And that actually,

I think is extremely important.

There's an active side,

You might say,

To reception,

And the action is,

I'm open,

I'm ready,

I'm ready to receive.

Yeah,

Yeah,

So to be able to notice when we're receiving,

Not just it's there,

And we are not aware of it happening.

That's right.

And I think,

I believe your podcast is from New York City,

Isn't that right?

Yeah.

Yeah,

And when I lived in New York City,

My experience was that people were very aware of all they did to achieve things,

And that actually is one of the exciting elements of being in New York City,

But it was often hard as a New Yorker to just receive,

Because if you're focused on what you achieve,

It's almost antithetical in terms of action to simply be and simply receive.

And so I think for New Yorkers,

That was always a really important message.

I now live in Chico,

California.

We're a little more given over to having fun,

And so it's not as hard for people to understand that side of things,

I don't think.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

So is there kind of an aspect of vulnerability to the receiving,

To the being,

To the state of grace?

I think there is.

I think it's a great question.

There's a vulnerability,

Because if I've achieved everything,

I kind of managed the people around me.

And if I can,

I'll go back to my experience in New York City.

Again,

I love New York City,

So if I'm sounding negative,

It's not.

I just,

In my love,

I also realize some of the downsides.

You know,

I meet a person at a cocktail party or something,

And within about 30 seconds,

They would have given me their resume and what they've accomplished.

And it's almost a way of saying,

Here's how important I am.

It manages my relationship with you.

You should like me.

And there is a weakness to saying,

I'm just going to receive and be open.

And it's that weakness and that openness,

I think,

That allows us to live life to the fullest.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So that sense of accepting,

Not being in control.

That's right,

Yeah.

There's that beautiful Taoist image they often use in the Tao Te Ching of water and the fact that water flows around things and cannot be,

In that sense,

Stopped.

And that,

In the Tao,

We are encouraged to flow with life and to be open to the way it presents itself to us.

And I think that's really a powerful way of understanding things.

I think it's very,

By the way,

Very much in collaboration with my own Christian faith.

I don't see those as antithetical,

But I've learned a lot from the Tao in that way.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So reading one helps you deepen the other.

It does for me,

Yeah.

I mean,

My own commitment to my faith as a follower of Jesus allows me,

I think,

To find truth and insight from other traditions as well.

And so that idea of water,

I love that idea.

Like,

It just flows.

And I think for somebody like myself,

Who's a bit more type A,

As it were,

That's a really good word to hear.

And it was an important word for me to hear.

I think you encountered this book I wrote called Say Yes to No.

And when I was in my,

About 20 years ago,

I came to a point where I really had just tried to stretch everything too much and tried to do too many things.

And I needed to say more no's and open myself up to receiving instead of just doing.

So that's,

So for you,

The wisdom of receiving and of grace is not something that comes fully naturally.

It's something that is earned from experience of maybe the other side of it.

I think that's right,

Yes.

Yeah,

I think that's right.

I mean,

I grew up in the Silicon Valley,

In the mid-peninsula,

Well,

Everybody knows,

Many people know the Silicon Valley.

It wasn't quite the Silicon Valley when I was growing up yet.

But anyway,

The point being that people there are very aware of solving problems and being capable.

So I was really nurtured in that,

And nurtured in trying to achieve.

And I don't repudiate the desire to achieve,

But I also have found that there's a lot of grace and happiness and fulfillment in receiving.

There's a wonderful,

I love,

I guess I can be self-disclusive.

I was in a session of therapy at one point,

And my therapist said,

We were talking about this,

And she said,

Yeah,

There's a difference between climbing a tree to get away from a cheetah and climbing a tree to get a view.

And I think it's wonderful when you achieve because you wanna enjoy instead of you just got this,

This predator that's always after you,

That if you ever stop,

You're gonna be eaten.

And I think sometimes the achievement orientation that I learned as a kid and was nurtured in can have a sense of ceaseless striving.

And that's where I think grace and the rhythm of pause and of saying no,

It's been a really important word for me.

Yeah,

Yeah.

But so I'm really happy that you shared this image and this experience because it helps give it a very vivid quality to me.

And the story becomes a little bit more complex.

There is the cheetah,

Figuratively speaking,

That's always after us or after me,

And certainly I can identify with that.

And then there is that pause of just like the gesture of the pause of put a hand,

The wait a minute,

And wait a minute,

It's like the cheetah is not really so much after you,

It's not so dangerous.

It's okay,

You have a little more time than you think.

And then from that place,

Finding a different look at the situation and seeing there's more time to actually purely enjoy as opposed to running away.

That's right,

That's right,

That's beautifully said.

And I think for me as a musician,

Especially a percussionist,

There's a way in which my own musical work,

I've tended to rush.

I mean,

In drumming,

You think about certain,

The beat has a certain thickness to it.

Let's say in 4-4,

The quarter note has a certain thickness of time.

And I've tended to often play on the front side of the beat and to rush and the great drummers,

Especially in the kind of music that's pop or R&B or that sort of thing,

They play toward the backside of the beat and they create space for the rest of the band.

So they're just a little bit,

Not really behind,

But they're anchoring the backside instead of pushing toward the front side.

And that's been a really helpful metaphor,

But for me to understand how to live in the rhythms of grace.

But it also comes with being peaceful,

I think,

In your own soul.

So things like mindfulness meditation,

Contemplative prayer,

Simply being at rest,

Those things are really helpful for all kinds of activities as well.

But so if I go back to what you're describing of the drumming,

I'm not a musician.

So the explanation of the back of the beat versus the front of the beat is,

Flies way over me.

But what I'm getting from there is the sense that it's really something about moment by moment,

Tiny part of moment by tiny part of moment,

That you are shifting your attention to not doing what your default mode would be,

But kind of checking yourself and doing it with a little bit more space than you would normally have done.

Is that what you're talking about?

Yes,

I think that's right.

I think another way to think about,

Or to conceive this in conversation as well,

There are people that when you talk with them,

They are always,

You always feel like they're anxious for you to respond.

And then there are those people,

I would,

That's not a bad thing per se,

But if you have a problem where you have a complex thought,

It's better to have that dialogue partner who gives you a little bit of breathing room.

And maybe just raise one more pause,

One more beat as it were before they respond.

If I may offer an image of this that was really helpful,

When I was in New York City,

I worked as a pastor at a church and so I did weddings of course.

And one of the weddings,

I knew the bride fairly well,

But I did not know the groom to be.

And he was a CEO of a major corporation in New York City.

So he really wanted to meet me,

Which was great.

And I went to his office to meet him which was extremely impressive.

He not only had one,

But two administrative assistants.

It was in the top floor of a very nice building in Manhattan.

And I got there and back to my upbringing,

My whole upbringing was go and show him that I'm worthy of being this,

You know,

Officiant at his wedding.

So I need to give my resume,

I need to show how full I am.

But then I remembered these words from the Christian writer,

Henry Nouwen.

I actually don't remember,

This is a very broad quote.

I don't even know where Nouwen said it,

But basically that part of being the presence of Christ to people is to incarnate space basically and to show your weakness.

Cause it's in weakness where people find an ability to connect with you,

Not so often in strength.

And so I thought,

Okay,

With this person,

I'm sure everybody wants to impress him.

I'm gonna do something different.

I'm gonna show a place of grace.

And this would be grace for me,

A place of weakness,

A place of openness even more.

And I just tried to create space for that.

And it was amazing instead of perhaps a very,

You know,

Formal conversation,

He started opening up about his life and some of his childhood experiences,

Which were,

You know,

Difficult and even traumatic.

And I learned a lot from that.

This is back to creating space,

Not only in drumming,

But in conversation that allowed him to have a place where he could share his life.

And it was a very powerful experience for me to recognize,

Sometimes when we come into conversation with people,

We wanna present that strength,

We wanna present the notes,

But instead maybe we wanna create the space where they can share their lives as well.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And so,

Of course,

It's not just an abstract notion because you're describing a situation where understandably there would be a very strong presser for you to feel like you had to perform.

And the setup is not just something that comes from your imagination.

You know,

You obviously bring some background to it,

But,

You know,

The guy has all the trappings of a powerful CEO.

So that's the way he tends to want to be seen and the setup in which he implies that others see him.

So there was a major shift in,

At that moment,

Realizing it instead of being carried away by both your own background and the situation as it's set.

So it's a very,

Very powerful moment of shift.

Yes,

Yes,

I guess,

Right,

Yep.

And I hope that I take,

Yeah,

I think we take those moments and try to then make them part of the habits of life.

So we do it again.

Yeah,

Yeah,

And so what helped the shift,

You say,

Is you remember that quote,

And again,

Not the exact quote,

But the idea had stayed with you as a very powerful idea that grace is the ability to make space or something like that.

Yes,

I love that,

That's a great saying.

Grace is the ability to make space,

That's good,

I like that.

You know,

Grace and space rhyming together.

I love that,

That's good,

Yeah,

All right.

I got,

Put that into the next book or something,

I don't know.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And I think in a time pressed world we're in,

I mean,

Since,

You know,

That experience was a couple,

Almost a couple decades ago now.

And we've only gotten more accelerated with the presence of smartphones and other,

You know,

Other devices that insert themselves in our lives.

So to give that space,

Which is grace,

It's really,

It's a gift for people.

Cause I think a lot of us feel very hurried and hurried by the people we're around.

Yeah,

Yeah,

And so,

You know,

As we're talking about this,

I have a sense of kind of a,

Just settling a little bit more into it and getting it at a deeper level.

And now what's coming for me is that sense,

We have the metaphor that you mentioned at the beginning of grace,

You know,

Relating to the rhythm,

The rhythm of music,

The making space.

So I have that sense of,

You know,

A bunch of notes that are all jumbled together and widening,

Opening up and finding the space between them that allows to make sense of it,

To make music out of it,

As opposed to just noise.

And you're talking about it as a gift.

And so to sense that all of us tend to be in some kind of a pressure cooker where in some way or another,

Even in California,

We have a chance,

You know,

People achieve,

Do things.

And this is a moment of when we are a little bit in it,

We can give others the gift of having a little bit of that experience and of joining us in that experience.

That's beautiful.

Yes,

I think that's right.

I actually think that friendship is based on giving people that experience.

My cat,

By the way,

Is joining us with her Arrhythms of Grace.

But I think friendship is based on that in some ways,

You know,

Giving people space to be themselves and not forcing them into,

Through conversation or just not giving them breathing time to be able to experience their own flourishing as well.

There's a video that I really like by Rob Bell,

Who's a teacher,

He's done some work with Oprah and so on.

And he talks about how just the idea of breath has that sense also of space,

Right?

The breathing in and the breathing out.

And it's so critical to mindfulness meditation,

All meditative practices.

And that's,

I think,

We want to offer that kind of ability for people to breathe that are around us.

So I think that's a gift.

I guess it goes back to the idea of grace as a gift.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

So that kind of goes into how do we help each other going into that rhythm of grace?

And you're talking about that sense of,

You know,

Space,

Finding your own compulsion to not make space and changing it,

But more generally,

You know,

How do we do that in theoretical and practical ways?

Well,

That's great.

I mean,

I think that's one of the things that I have tried to move into in my own life is this beautiful phrase from the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam,

The healing of the world.

And part of the healing of the world,

I think,

Comes through our compassionate interaction with those around us.

Certainly Buddhism has the same teaching of universal compassion.

And I try to,

Well,

I guess I'm gonna start with that and say,

I think learning from the great traditions is really,

Really important.

And if there's one central element,

You could see it also in the Hadith of the Muslim tradition,

There's this sense of creating space for people and creating a way for them to understand,

You know,

The goodness of the world that's around us,

That the world is actually good or there's goodness in it at least.

So part of it is I think listening to the masters,

To the people who have taught before and have had the test of time.

I think also,

Probably it's repetitive,

But to say when we come into the presence with other people,

The presence of other people to be calm if possible,

So that they have a sense that they can share their lives with us.

That's particularly accurate,

I think,

In crises,

Other people's crises.

You know,

We so often wanna manage a loss or a crisis,

But what we can do best,

I think,

Is to just open up space and not try to solve those crises.

So I think that's,

I think that's opening up space.

I also think this is related to grace and to this rhythm of,

Rhythms of grace is gratitude.

And there's a whole bunch of different ways we can practice gratitude,

But one of them is great being grateful for one another.

And I know that in the theories and study of John Gottman,

His studies of marriage,

He's found that good marriages have a ratio of approximately five positive things that are said for every one thing that's said that's,

I want you to do something differently.

In other words,

With my wife,

Laura,

It's to say five times,

I appreciate you for this,

Thank you for that,

Great that you did this.

For the one time I say,

You know,

Could you pick up your shoots or whatever,

More often.

That if you have that ratio of gratitude with people that are friends or your spouse or anybody who's significant to you,

Or not even,

Not even just a colleague,

I think that creates a place of grace.

I think when we feel loved and appreciated,

We can then relax and as we offer other people that ability to feel loved and appreciated,

They're able to find space and that rhythm.

So they don't feel like they have to always be telling us how great they are.

They can just feel like they are great because we're thankful for them.

Because we show them,

Yeah.

Yeah.

But so what you're talking about there is something that requires some intentionality there to notice what we're doing and to tweak it.

That's right,

Yeah.

I think that's right.

And I think that for me,

I tend to be a,

I said type A,

Another word that's used in some personality indicators is an achiever.

And that means that every morning I get up and I think about the things to accomplish.

And I love the idea that even as you start your day,

You can learn again to push back against the voices of achievement or tasks,

You might say.

And hear a deeper voice.

There's a quote from the writer C.

S.

Lewis that I've always loved.

If you don't mind,

I'll just read it.

The first job each morning consists of shoving back all these voices and listening to that other voice,

Taking in that other point of view,

Letting that other larger,

Stronger,

Quieter life come flowing in.

And I certainly know that.

Like I have to,

As you said,

Intentionality,

It starts at the very first moment I'm awake is to say,

Okay,

I got these things around my plate,

But I want to take a moment to hear.

And for me,

It's the voice of the Holy Spirit,

The voice of God speaking.

I know that not everybody,

That's how they,

That's how they thematize it.

It could be the things that you enjoy and appreciate.

Just letting those come in,

You know?

Yeah,

So that's a beautiful quote,

Including that it is translating this into the language of achievement and doing,

Because it becomes your first achievement of the day.

And so that's a way that it can relate to,

As opposed to don't be an achiever.

But I certainly can relate to that.

That's good,

I think that's a beautiful way of describing it,

Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And apparently Lewis,

C.

S.

Lewis was one of those people he wrote about,

I think he lived until he was 65.

I believe he wrote almost 65 books.

And so he just,

While he was teaching at Oxford,

Cambridge,

So he,

I think he spoke that of his own experience and I think that you're right.

You know,

And Serge,

I think that you're saying something that's really important.

Part of this grace is not denying who we are,

Who we are.

I see that as who we're created,

But how we want to put it.

And I am a person who's created to do things.

So it's good to not deny that and invalidate it,

But to either put into a wider context of the spaces and the notes and spaces,

The activity and the rest,

Or that even that becomes part of what you,

As you said,

You achieved.

That's a language that can be understood.

This is my first job,

Right?

Yeah.

Every day.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So this feels like a good place to end,

But I want to check if you have,

There's something else you might want to add.

Well,

It does feel like a great place to end.

And I really appreciate,

I just want to say,

You're summarizing in your contributions.

And again,

I appreciate being on your podcast.

And I hope for myself,

I hope for those who listen to this idea of the rhythms of grace will be part of our lives,

Because I think that's how life is lived to the fullest.

That's human flourishing in my book.

And I hope it for myself,

But also for those who are around me.

Thanks,

Greg.

Thank you.