The Grace Zone

Have you ever had one of those magic moments when time seemed to stop and everything just flowed the way it should? I'm not an athlete, but I've spent a lot of years performing music. We practice and practice, rehearse and rehearse, and mostly we do a good job of performing. Most times the audience enjoys itself and we don't fall off the stage. But once in a while there is a magic moment when everything just comes together. Every note falls effortlessly into place - high notes sail, fingers effortlessly toss off those 16th note passages. You can't make those happen, you can't force them. Just sometimes, like grace, the moment arrives. You never forget, and you always hope it happens again, but you can't make it or fake it. You just have to keep practicing and wait.

Last night in the Olympics I saw an athlete will perform a personal best far beyond what she have ever done before. Her magic moment comes at the right time. You know that physically her body was capable of it all along, but for unknown reasons, only at one particular magic moment, it happened. Champions find ways to perform at that level regularly, but even champions rarely enter into that space where it all seems effortless.  There a lot of pop terms for those magic moments. I choose to call them  grace. But here's the thing, those moments of grace don't come along unless the hard work was done first, The hard work enables them, but it can't force them.

Stewards prepare mentally, spiritually, and physically so that when it's time to perform a personal best we're ready. We can't guarantee the moment of grace, but we can put ourselves in a position to receive it when it comes.