Grace is the divine influence. Sometimes it is used to mean elegance. Elegance and divinity are linked because the sacred power of the divine, the Godly, is the Source of real beauty and elegance. Most powerful of all is the grace which saves a person from self-harm, humiliation or ‘disgrace’; in this situation, grace is an act of love, of compassion, of mercy. Grace need not always come from a Higher Power. Sometimes it comes from one’s self, directed towards one’s self. Sometimes grace comes to a person through serendipity. Serendipity is the art of finding something whilst searching for something else.
This entry is beginning to sound a little Christian. True, I have borrowed many words from Christian discourse: grace, mercy, serendipity. And even the title of this entry comes from a famous Christian anthem:
Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me…
I once was lost
But now I’m found,
Was blind
But now I see…
I am not ashamed of borrowing concepts from any religion, if I feel those concepts are truly profound, sacred and, in fact, universal. I don’t believe in the Calvinist notion that some people on Earth have been chosen above others. I believe that we are equals in the eyes of God, and ultimately we all find our way. The reason I want to write about grace is because, for me, it is one of the things that makes life worth living.
Grace is a transformer, especially in the hands of that great alchemist, Fate. Grace transforms a life from being routine, mundane, ordinary, into being magical, unpredictable and extraordinary. And the shift occurs in the most subtle way.
For me, grace is when a person who has little material wealth feels themselves to be a king because they feel the guiding hand of God. Grace is someone who is about to commit a crime against another person but, in the last moment, they are overcome with compassion. Grace is when a person who is ridiculed by the world finally sees that the world was wrong, and that they are beautiful. I came to think about grace whilst thinking about a friend of mine who has anorexia. She feels she is fat and her bookshelves are stacked full of manuals on how to lose weight; all this despite the fact that she is starkly underweight. Surely, she has been influenced by a culture that venerates size zero models. The same society which, two hundred years ago, projected beauty through Victorian images of plump women. Beauty somehow linked to economic fact - whatever was harder to achieve, nutritionally, became more desirable. This same friend of mine used to be in perfect health, slim, athletic and attractive. But now, in her eyes, ‘too thin’ is an idea which does not exist. You could say it’s about control, thinking that if you are thin enough then various other things will happen for you. Grace is the moment when you realise that it’s a lie. That you are beautiful in the way that God created you, not in the way you are trying to recreate yourself.
So, to every single person who may be thinking right now that they are not cool enough, bright enough, thin enough, tall enough… to all those people who are besieged by their own criticism towards themselves (and therefore, probably also towards others, because we tend to notice the same things in others as we do in ourselves), may there come a harbinger of grace, which transforms hatred into love. Grace comes after a time of difficulty, of delusion, which is why its entrance is all the more poignant and amazing. Grace allows us to rejoice in what we are, and what others are. Because grace applauds God’s creativity.
