Grace Appears at the Level of Imbalance

In Flannery O'Conner's super-creepy short story "Revelation," the good and respectable Mrs. Turpin is literally conked on the head and choked by grace. 

By Mary Grace, that is--a college student who can't bear to hear Mrs. Turpin's gossipy hypocrisy in the doctor's office one more second and throws a book at her before jumping on her and choking her. At home, where she is hurt more in spirit than in body, Mrs. Turpin wails Why me?! and basically demands that God explain himself to her,

Which He does. 
Kind of. 

After her violent encounter with (G)race, Mrs. Turpin has a vision--a revelation about the true nature of virtue--beside a pig parlor.   

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I think of this story every time I hear the word ​grace.  Growing up, I heard grace defined as unearned favor with God--which sounds very sweet. 
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​But in real life, I have found grace to be both the thing that knocks me off-balance, and the thing that appears when the center does not hold.

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But in real life, I have found grace to be both the thing that knocks me off-balance, and the thing that appears when the center does not hold.

​Which is why I am utterly fascinated by Level 4 of the Enneagram Levels of Development, called "The Level of Imbalance."  Below Level 4 is "Interpersonal Conflict" (L5), followed by "Overcompensation" and various levels of unhealthy development.  And above Level 4 is "Social Value" (L3) and various levels of healthy development. 

Basically, below Level 4, our pre-conscious patterns of behavior, emotions, and thought are totally running the program--or rather--running us.  Because, icky as it may feel, we are the program the patterns are running--like non-updated software.  Below Level 4, our actions are not free; they are deeply conditioned.  But at those levels we don't know and can't care--because pre-conscious personality patterns just feel totally normal.  (Of course they do!  How could it be otherwise?) 

At Level 4, though, somehow, the patterns loosen, and things become unbalanced.  Something happens--some grace occurs--and we feel . . . different.   Maybe lighter, maybe more expansive, maybe brighter or clearer or more "real."  This shift from Level 5 to Level 4 is the beginning of transformation.  

So how does this shift happen?  How do we move from interpersonal conflict up to the not-always-comforting grace of imbalance?  

• Suffering can take us there.
• Practices can take us there.  (Breathing, yoga, qigong, hip-openers, heart-openers, self-awareness and mindfulness practices.)
• Nature and children and animals and love can take us there.

then I'm in love with grace, with the unknown whatever-it-is that cracks us open, and light shines through.  That's why I developed this workshop--a whole weekend of nature and breathing and art and Enneagram learnings.  18 CE's for social workers and therapists.  One more earlybird spot for August; four more for October.  

REgister for August Retreat

REgister for October REtreat

copyright:  The Enneagram Institute