The Sacrament of the Present Moment (Part III): Invitation

At this point someone might reasonably object:

“Wait a minute, Joe. This doesn’t make sense. Your entire livelihood is built on helping people with problems that are very clearly not your domain. Not your email. Not your servers. Not your data. Not your network. Not your customers. So how can grace be present there? Isn’t that a contradiction?”

It’s a good question.

And the answer turns on a single, very important word:

Invitation.

When I work for a customer, something fundamental changes. I do not bring my dance into their situation. I am invited to participate in their dance.

It is not my rodeo.
It is not my circus.
It is not my monkeys.

None of it belongs to me.

But when I am invited, I may enter.

That invitation establishes the boundaries. Not me. The customer does. It arrives in very practical forms:

·         Fix this.
·         Help us mitigate that.
·         Document this situation.
·         Advise us here.

And it stops exactly there.

I don’t overstep. I don’t expand the scope. I don’t take responsibility that wasn’t given to me. If legal steps in, my scope usually shrinks—and that’s a good thing. Lawyers handle what lawyers handle. I don’t need to know everything, and I don’t want to. I don’t ask. I act when told.

That’s not passivity. That’s discipline.

So yes—it is not my jurisdiction.
It is not my domain.
It is not my dance.

But with an invitation, I may step onto the floor.

And only then does grace cooperate.

This is the difference between participation and intrusion. Between service and saviorhood. Between harmony and chaos. Grace does not flow through self‑appointed responsibility. It flows through received responsibility.

I do not show up without an invitation.

And when I am invited, I stay exactly where I was asked to stand—no farther, no closer.

 That, I’ve learned, is where the dance remains a dance. ❤️