"I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where we found it." -Anne Lamott
When I was young, and would tumble and blow around our drafty house with so much undirected energy, my mother would often say, "You have the grace of an elephant. Calm down." She was of course referring to physical grace and, I am certain, nothing more.
Grace was a mysterious word to me back then. Yes, I was uncoordinated, and awkward, and maybe at times I would even allow clumsy - but then why didn't she just say that. This word, grace, seemed to imply more than just the fact that in my adolescence I couldn't always get my body to behave the way I wanted it to. The way I told it to. Being graceful was so much more than just being coordinated. And what in the world did being
calm have to do with it?
Over the years the concept of grace has become both more and less mysterious to me. Physical grace. Emotional grace. Spiritual grace. In all realms there is an implication of control, of acceptance and yes, turns out mom was right, even of calmness. But it is also so much more than that.
I looked it up, "Grace", in Merriam-Webster on-line; but could not find any single definition that satisfied me.
Grace is more than a physical attribute, more than a virtue, more than a gift or a favor that is given or bestowed from one person to another. It's also more than just about how one deals with life, the good times and the bad. It's intrinsic in a person's outlook, their world view. One might say that it's the lens through which a person can choose to view life's many shades of gray.
So, while I'm still not fully satisfied even with my own ability to define grace, here's what I do know:
This still somewhat mysterious grace is something that I aspire to in all areas of my life. As with most things in life - sometimes I'm winning, and sometimes I'm losing. I'm always somewhere on the spectrum though. Living my life in shades of gray, and shades of grace.
