41 for 40
For most of my childhood, I expected to be dead by 30. I had no compelling reason to believe this. My health was excellent. There were no hereditary conditions driving my fear. But it was real and present and I fully expected to die young.
Maybe it was the Cold War ethos of the 80s; the thought that the bomb was just a day away from dropping. Maybe it was the end of days talk that still runs through churches periodically and seems to coincide with my general notion of how insignificant I am. Maybe I’m just a fatalist.
Then I hit my 30s and I was left wondering what happened and what I’d let happen as a result of fearing I’d never make it that far. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t sleep. Haven’t for a long time. I guess there could be a connection. Then again, correlation does not automatically signify causation, or so my grad school friends are fond of saying.
So, now I’m just over the edge of 40 and I decided I needed to take some stock in that. A decade older than I thought I’d ever be. Middle aged and everything. Three kid having and everything. Gray hair finding and everything. Formerly minivan driving and everything. Get-off-my-lawn-yelling and everything.
The results became the following 41 ideas that are not lessons for others, merely vistas I’ve stumbled upon along the way. They were written individually over the past six months. Interestingly, when I looked at them as a whole, I seemed to be speaking to myself in groups of two. So, over the next four weeks, I’ll be sharing them in pairs I didn’t know I was creating, five days a week (with an extra thrown in one day). Most are short and some a bit longer. But all are gestures at the core of who I am.
Look, I figure turning 40 allows me to invoke honey badger privilege with this one. I do what I want. What follows, then, are the first two of those ideas. I hope you’ll follow along and, if you feel so inclined, let me know what you think. I’m open to conversation on any and all of these thoughts.
Love and Grace (If You Will)
Love done right is exhausting. If you aren't moved from the center of the frame by how and whom you love, you aren't doing it right. If you aren't challenged and discomforted by how and whom you love, you're not doing it right. If you love only because you get something out of it, you're not doing it right. If you love only the people and things you’ve deemed deserving of your love, you're not doing it right. If the way you love doesn't cost you anything, and possibly everything, you're not doing it right.
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Grace is the most difficult and most necessary choice we make, and we don't make that choice nearly enough. The capacity for grace in humans is evidence of the divine. The lack of grace in humans is evidence of our need for that divinity. I am increasingly convinced that grace—dirty, costly, unrequited grace—is more important than love because love can't be real without it.
And let's be very clear: grace is not ours to give. The moment we begin thinking of it as our gift to others is the same moment we’ve made it about ourselves. When we see grace as something we have to give, we see ourselves as superior to those we are seeking to give grace. This echoes the notion of tolerance, which inherently establishes one group as tolerant and another as tolerated. Most people I know hate feeling merely tolerated. In the same way, most people hate it when those who claim to be helping them are really helping themselves.
Grace, rather, must be a lifestyle, something people cannot separate from who you are. It's not a pose or a tool in the toolbox of being a good person. It is the toolbox.