Finding grace in Salt Lake City
a dispatch from the Wasatch
I didn’t feel anything when my sister mentioned it was the ten-year anniversary of our brother Spencer going missing. I was unbothered, as if she was talking about the coffee she drank that morning. But a week later, hiking up City Creek Canyon in Salt Lake City, beyond monuments to Utah’s fallen sons, it started snowing — and that’s when it hit me. My Florida running clothes weren’t made for winter in the Rockies, and a chill ran through me as the wind whipped and flurries watered my eyes. The bone-cold awakened the memory — my brother lost in the mountains of southern Oregon during winter. Found dead along an icy creek bed. I thought of everything that’s happened in the ten years since then, a decade that’s book-ended my forties. I didn’t feel sad. I felt grateful. I felt… grace.
Grace is a word that can make me wince. It evokes religious platitudes, moralizing sermons, and monarchical condescension — “anything you say, Your Grace.” But it’s also one of the most beautiful concepts in the world. On that trail, as flurries swirled around me, I knew I’d experienced a moment of grace. But until writing this essay, I would’ve struggled to explain what it means.
At its core, grace means kindness and forgiveness, with a touch of the divine. To give someone grace is to treat them with compassion they may not fully deserve; to give ourselves grace is to do the same, though that’s often harder. Grace, in other words, is a generosity of spirit. This is the definition I first had in mind when I started writing this. But it’s incomplete. It’s not what I felt when I thought about Spencer in that moment.
Grace is a perspective too. It’s like putting on special glasses that soften the world, allowing us to see it through gentler eyes. It is recognizing the hand of a higher power, a sense of spiritual presence, or something sacred. When connected to faith, we are connected to grace.
Another way to think about it is as a kind of magic. Grace is like fairy dust, a trail of sparkle that enshrines a moment. These magical moments of connection, recognition, or generosity are fleeting, like the weather. You have to catch them when they come.
More than anything, grace is an appreciation of life. It’s a deep exhale that says: I’m lucky to be alive and grateful for the way my life has come together — the good, bad, and ugly. Like snow, it hushes the world, softens sharp edges, and creates a serene glow.
This is the grace I felt in that moment when I thought of Spencer. It wasn’t sadness but love. It wasn’t grief but gratitude — for him, for everything since, for the opportunity to be in Salt Lake City with family.
I was there to see my niece in a musical. She played Kira in Xanadu at the University of Utah, performing a dozen songs on roller-skates. It was amazing. My sister sat next to a man in a Carhartt jacket and boots, a local fire chief and father of a performer. I watched him lean forward and smile as his son danced as a gender-ambiguous muse (lol). There was a sacredness in his quiet support, a steady fatherly grace. I’m sure I was projecting something, but it moved me.
Growing up LDS, Utah feels familiar. I wasn’t raised there, but visiting is like eating the casseroles my mom used to make. The guys at City Creek Mall had back stories like mine: gay ex-Mormons and other scattered scions of Zion who could recite the Boy Scout Oath and name half a dozen siblings. At the BYU Creamery inside Deseret Books, I had the best ice cream I’ve tasted in years — a Mint Brownie concoction that was cold, sweet, and rich. Like snow.
It’s tempting to feel bitter toward the LDS church. My parents were converts, their divorce shattered our family, and I haven’t been a member for 30+ years. If I wanted to rejoin — which I don’t — the church would probably ex-communicate me. It hasn’t fully reckoned with its own sins, including the Mountain Meadow Massacre featured in the Neflix series American Primeval. But I don’t resent it. I’ve stitched my LDS upbringing into the quilt of my life, one patch among many, but not the whole. I’m grateful for it.
Grace is like that. It allows us to take the details of our lives and turn them into art. I’m not saying I’ve done this very well. There are residues of shame and guilt within me that deserve more grace than I can offer. There are people in my life, including family, I don’t have capacity to give grace to right now. There are many moments when basic kindness is a struggle, when the soft, divine glow of the world is just absent.
But it was there on my hike in City Creek Canyon, when the snow thickened, my socks felt wet, and the ghosts of Memory Grove provoked my own memory. The mountains above were like the Holy Spirit, draped in white and bearing witness. I thought of my present life and how much I wanted to call my brother and update him on it — my kid riding a bike, my niece on roller-skates, the spontaneous gathering of family in Salt Lake City.
It wasn’t transcendence but a deep breath. And I realized grace doesn’t always arrive in grand gestures or big churches. It’s in the quiet spaces and small moments too. It falls softly like snow, calming our souls and reminding us that life is precious and magical.
Special thanks to for draft feedback.
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Related note
While thinking about grace, I wrote a note advocating for “grace culture” versus cancel culture:
“Grace is a perspective, too. It’s like putting on special glasses that soften the world, allowing us to see it through gentler eyes.” really stood out to me - great reminder that we can allow ourselves to have and to give grace. For those who don’t wear glasses all I can say is I can’t see without them, but also that I often forget that I am wearing them.
Hi Jeff, what a beautiful meditation on grace, and one I will likely return to in the future. Loved especially this:
"More than anything, grace is an appreciation of life. It’s a deep exhale that says: I’m lucky to be alive and grateful for the way my life has come together — the good, bad, and ugly. Like snow, it hushes the world, softens sharp edges, and creates a serene glow."