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Hank Aaron, the baseball slugger suffered racist death threats because he was hitting enough homeruns to surpass Babe Ruth’s record. Part of Aaron’s history is that he handled that unfair situation with such grace. 

In current day usage grace is a noun that morphs into an adjective or adverb, graceful or gracefully. It becomes a movement exercise as in sports or dance.  Another common definition of grace is from Western Christian theology defined as the love and mercy of God because God desires us to have it, not because we deserve it. Grace is a legacy attribute, a tried-and-true staple, part of us from the outset. In its fullest form it is a verb. It’s active.  It’s certainly not only for saints and heroes, and only dead ones at that.

It’s easier to recognize the opposite, disgrace. The past month gave us a whopper of that negative example when our Capitol was disgraced.  I want to know the real thing, the verb to grace, not any of its cheap relatives.

For certain, grace and entitlement are mutually exclusive. Those who seek the spotlight or are living a totally upper-case version of themselves are choosing not to embrace it. Similar to the virus that continues to plague all of us without discrimination, old and young, rich and poor, all religions and ethnicities can offer grace. It is needed most when one finds themselves in a situation that makes them feel that they are in way over their heads. It can be a wish to settle down and work through a problem such as a student taking a deep breath before an exam. Of course, this example is both simplistic and selfish.

Grace is so much more than kindness on steroids. Kindness is not an active verb like to grace.  It is without grandiosity or any intent or hope of reciprocity. Grace is always in service to others. It’s in saying the meaningful words or performing the meaningful action in a situation that you cannot solve but have the power to add some lightness. Sometimes it is having the courage to simply be there.

It’s not old fashion concept, to grace is a very necessary attribute for today. It is an encouragement that we offer to others unconditionally. The purveyor is never without concern that it’s the best they got and it is offered with the hope it helps. Grace makes us lighter, less burdened.

During the Inauguration of Joe Biden, on the same Capitol stairs that was stormed by the worst of us a few days before, Amanda Gorman graced the American people with her poem The Hill We Climb.  The problems and the worry for our country and our democracy were not changed but for a brief moment the country felt lighter.

Western Christian theology suggests that being in the state of grace is beginning without sin.  That’s equating a good life with the absence of a prison record. That is bland and static. The state of grace is the inner strength that is always ready to reach out. It is a strength meant to be shared as a reminder that it is in each of us. The state of grace is a willingness to connect our light, our stars, with the light and stars of others. And maybe then we can lighten our world.