Love Month Series #15: GRACE

Learning  is one advantage I get from blogging.

While thinking of a blog to post I got engaged in chatting with a friend about music. He was listening  to the trio Al de Meola, Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin playing a piece called  Passion,  Grace and Fire.

I confided to him that I was having a case of writer's block and had not written a blog.  He suggested that I write a grand finale for my Love Month Series.

"Write about passion, grace and love," he said.

I toyed with the idea and decided I'd zero-in on Grace, which I thought the least exploited  concept in relation to love.

Grace is  nebulous and has many meanings. I found  the definition of Grace that best suits me  from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary : "a disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency."

I twirled the idea and realized that unconsciously I've been practicing grace all along.  

A friend chatters continuously, repetitively and regardless of whether I'm busy or not.  She drives me insane but I understand. She needs clarity and admiration. I really think she's hilarious.

Another, who is usually sweet, cheerful and funny, turns sour and brusque during bad-hair days. I fall back on what he joyfully announces every morning: "Something wonderful is going to happen to me today!"

Another constantly whines about not having money for her mortgage payment despite my continuous advice to prioritize her expenses. She would   travel to Vegas or abroad knowing fully well that she was putting her house at risk of being foreclosed on.  Her confusion exasperates me until I remember all that she went through in having to pull the plug on her brain-dead  20 year old son's life-support system and, after that,  in battling  breast cancer. Life has become too short.

Grace kept me from slapping a friend who drunkenly  not just came on to me; she dared touch my breasts.  She hates being alone. I understand the underlying issues behind her behavior.

Another talks to me only to pick my brain and does not even ask how I am.  I must look like a vending machine.  I'm still calling for more grace to help me with that one.

Grace finds the exceptional in otherwise unremarkable romance or in a relationship gone awry.

Grace  barrels through vulnerability to annoyance, disappointment and hurt. It is freedom from the  ego, vanity, pride, indifference and expectations. There can be no patience, compassion, forgiveness and acceptance without grace.

There's a saying that wisdom comes with age.   I've learned that grace comes with wisdom.
 

Grace and wisdom make love.

 

Source: artofdharma.com

- Ariel Murphy