Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Graceful or Graced...

   About twenty years ago or so, I was having a soda at Friendly's with an older ladyfriend after an A.A. Meeting.
  I mentioned I was interested in a mutual acquaintance. She politely told me I was not our friends type.
   " Shelly likes the GQ type, suave, sophisticated" she gently stated.
       " I can be suave and sophisticated " I said, defensively...
          Diet soda actually came out of her nose, she laughed so hard. 
         " You could NEVER be suave and sophisticated. Never." ( more laughter ) " The woman that ends up with you will NOT be with you because you are smooth or graceful. Sorry.. The good news is she will be with you for the qualities you actually have..."
            Wisdom and truth are wasted on the young and foolish.
            I spent many painful months(years) trying to prove my wise old friend wrong. Eventually, I  did prove the opposite; the extremely evident truth that I always inwardly knew but chose to ignore.
          I will never be graceful. 
               For some reason, I always resented and disliked " Those people ".
                   You know who I'm talking about. Tall. Attractive. Well built. Sleek and athletic.
   The people who make the impossible look easy, no miss-steps, no hair out of place, completely comfortable with an effortless charm and flowing words...
           I always believed they had it easy with the excessive gifts they were given. I envied them and actually coveted their way of being.
         Not only did they wear the right clothes, but what they wore looked GOOD on them. Always in style. I could put on a $500 suit, tailored and pressed but I will still look like a barroom brawler that was hijacked and dressed against his will. I would find a way to wrinkle a suit after the undertaker put me in it...
        Even in Church I saw these people. I would silently wish I knew the  special prayers they said.
        
                      But funny things do happen on the way to the forum...
               
  Since those early days a lot has happened. Early on, about the time of the above conversation,  I was graced with amazing opportunities to actually get to know some of these people, as .. people.  Past the small talk. Past the sports talk I knew nothing about. 
         I sat in circles and listened to some of these "paragons" as they fell apart. I learned how much effort they put into the appearance, the inward terror they had that someone might actually see past the well manicured show. In them i saw the exact same fears, insecurities and failabilities that were in ...me?
          I grew up on the wrong side of the street. Much different lessons, but still chained to the show. I learned to hide pain, creating a veneer that nothing really mattered, nothing touched me, in the vain attempt of the  terminally cool. I could lose all I had and laugh it off. I could laugh off anything.  If that didn't work I could do something crazy or stupid enough to distract anything the curtain wasnt able to hide...
       When we sat together, " Those People" and me and we got real, an incredible event took place.
          We realized that although we may have been polar opposites,  we were the same coin..
               It has been many years and I still look like a barroom brawler. I have heard some people still see me as un approachable. I do give that impression. I'm still not good at changing that body language. But... If you do walk up and start an actual conversation you will not be bamboozled by the show. I will talk about the things of my heart, my Wonderful Wife and three of the best boys the Lord has seen fit to put on this earth. I will tell you of my struggles, victories and occaisonal failures in trying to be a good man. If you stay long enough you will realize that the physical facade is just how my body looks.
         You know the same thing is often true of " Those People " too...
       I have found that if I walk up and start a conversation with them, a real conversation, the small talk disappears. We talk about about Wives and kids and the stupid human commonalities we all share.
      I may never be graceful. In fact, that is a certainty. But I have been excessively graced, allowed past not just my walls but also the walls of many others. If today God gave me the choice between graced and graceful it would be a no- brainier.
   Graced, every time.
              
             
            
      

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