Grace

For most of us.

Grace

“Ya wanna know what a Russian woman is like? Ya got a dog at home?” The remark came from a soldier, a battle-hardened, reality-stabilized, intrinsically no-bullshit man. That he said it with a smirk meant that he didn’t really mean it. And yet, he did. And, he said it.

I had two choices, as I saw it, one was to just let that go. After all, he didn’t really know me, not really. He also didn’t know the Russian woman I knew (the most beautiful, sweet and kind human I’d seen, or ever would see), or even that I knew her. The other choice would have resulted in a fight, but you see, I considered this man to be a friend of mine.

I really didn’t have to think about it. I responded with a crooked half-smile and kept working, because that’s what we were doing.

I never forgot what Will said, and I admit, it bothers me still, but I’ll never think less of him for having said it. That’s because there is grace.

I’m much older now, and I recently went back to work. It’s not the job I once had, and it’s only important to the building supplies chain that pays me. It does, however, help to feed my creatures. It’s an overnight receiver-stocker job, one that taxes my remaining strength and mobility. It’s also a high-turnover position, so people are coming and going all the time. Just recently, one new face turned up, belonging to a young man who apparently thinks a lot of himself. Tattooed, short-sleeve shirts that expose unimpressive biceps, carries himself straight and tall, and he always stands with folded arms and surveys the scene, before he steps into it.

This fellow seems to think I don’t belong there, obviously because of my age. His attitude has already manifested itself in a variety of ways, but, hey, he’s new on the job and still unaware. And the only thing he really has on me is that he’s taller. My own son would dwarf him, with his six-foot-five, two-eighty build, and he could deck the guy too. And would.

But again, there’s grace.

If you look up grace in any recent dictionary, you probably won’t find any reference to the thing I’m talking about. There’s the sort of grace that comes with movement, and that’s what they choose to define, how convenient.

The grace I’m talking about is Christian in origin, the forgiveness and acceptance and compassion that comes undeserved, borne on and born of, tolerance. It is something the world truly needs more of, with or without the Christianity. Nevertheless, you say, grace comes from God, not from you, and that is very, very true. Before you dismiss the thought, try just for a moment, considering what it really means.

There is no way to know which persons or what activities might garner God’s grace. As a Christian I am instructed not to judge, either, the single most difficult part of the faith. Not that anyone seems to choose to make it easier; political cartoon caricatures are designed to make us snort and to hate the objects. A grinning, smirking “Sleepy Joe” and “Trump the orange baboon” accomplish nothing, but we’re human, aren’t we? Wartime caricatures of angry soldiers...not the fucking leadership that made them soldiers...have adorned walls and lamp posts. “Uncle Sam wants you!” No, he doesn’t. The leadership looks nothing like him, there are no parallels to that cartoon portrait, anywhere.

Because, it is never populations that make war, it is the leaders, unelected, honestly-elected, or not. Rabble-rousers are just that, and nothing more. “You can’t reason with MAGA!” “Progressive ideas all suck!” Y’know what, if there’s any truth to either of those statements, it escapes me. And if there is ever common ground to be found anywhere, it won’t come from either of those viewpoints. Because, the truth is somewhere in between. To me it certainly isn’t in the middle, but that’s just limited old me. I am a conservative. Anyone doesn’t like that, tough nuts.

Grace is offered for free, it is undeserved, it is tolerant, kind, loving. Grace is lenience, merciful, compassionate; it is clemency. While we do not know for whom it will come, the instruction not to judge steps in front. Nevertheless, I am human, to live is to breathe, and like that. So what should I think of disagreeable people?

Today I read a Substack post that advocated destruction of those who ascribe to “make America great again.” “You can’t reason with these people,” the writer shouted. “The sooner we have free health care and free education…”

As if. If he doesn’t understand that the federal government has no money, what am I to think? So he thinks that they will take your money and feed it back to you as “free” health care and “free” education, minus its bureaucratic cut, undefined as that may be? So, he’s a socialist, or a communist. I am immediately inclined to think, “no grace for you.” But, where is the clemency in that thought?

So, where I would draw the line would be with the leadership. After all it is they who control elections, it is they who pollute the system with graft and illicit favors, it is they who make capitalism look bad and who make communists shine.

In my estimation, if you lead, there should be no grace for you. You know what you are doing, whoever you are and whatever nation or state you lead.

For just about everyone else, there is grace.

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