We could all do with a little more grace in our lives

Obama’s eulogy centred on the spiritual virtue, but it’s more than just the act of forgiveness

“What will happen can’t be stopped. Aim for grace.”

American author Ann Beattie wrote these powerful words years ago, referring mostly to dissolving personal relationships and bitter divorces.

The last three words stuck in my mind then as a pretty good mantra for life. (And a great title for a memoir when I write one.) In the midst of emotional chaos, I have often told myself to “aim for grace” although in my case, aiming isn’t necessarily achieving.

So when U.S. President Barack Obama, in an extraordinarily moving and deeply religious speech last week in the historic “Mother Emanuel” AME Church in Charleston, S.C., focused on the idea of “grace,” I paid close attention.

He was delivering the eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, one of nine parishioners slain by a white gunman, who wanted to start a race war but instead created a love-in.

Obama told the audience he had been thinking “about grace” all week, and indeed, he famously sang (albeit a little off-key) everyone’s favourite funeral hymn “Amazing Grace,” a classic tale of redemption. According to several online histories, the hymn was written by John Newton, a British slave trader who ironically continued to bring slaves to Charleston in the late 1700s even after he thanked God for bestowing grace on “a wretch like me.”

As Obama pointed out, grace isn’t something you earn, it comes, “unmerited,” in its religious embodiment, from God: “We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancour and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other — but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.” By “making the moral choice to change, “by tapping into our own “reservoir of goodness,” continued Obama, “we express God’s grace.”

Obama wasn’t pretending to be a preacher, he was using his full capacities — heart, soul and mind — as a leader to speak to all Americans from church, which he called “the beating heart” of the African-American community.

In matters of race and guns, he wanted America to change. But he was also displaying personal grace. I urge you to read the full text because it is as close to perfection as he will get and may well be the kind of speech schoolchildren recite a few years from now.

For me, it brought up the question that if grace is a religious concept, how does it work in secular life?

Great writers have played with the notion of grace for years. Think of Hemingway’s dictum that courage, in fact, was “grace under pressure.”

Grace is not gratitude and it’s not forgiveness, although in expressing forgiveness directly to the murderer in South Carolina, the families of the victims were bathed in grace.

Grace is a quality unto itself. And one we seem to desperately need in our lives — in our workplaces, where rudeness and mistreatment of others under stress is common. And we need it in our homes, where finding it and expressing it can save the day, not to mention a marriage.

There’s one place I see grace a lot these days. I see it in friends who are challenged by serious illness and end up cheering up the rest of us with their humour and warmth.

Grace requires humility. So I sadly don’t see it in most political leaders, but instead a shocking absence of it. Dean Del Mastro, former Conserva- tive MP and parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, displayed not a shred of grace when he was convicted of electoral fraud last week and sentenced to a month in jail. The verdict, he unrepentantly sniffed, was just the judge’s “opinion.” That guy wouldn’t know grace if it robocalled him.

Donald Trump is a grace-free zone — a hate-mongering, bigmouthed, often-failed businessman who promises to “make America great again” by running for president, and instead makes his country small and petty just by participating in its public discourse.

But I don’t give up hope for grace in public life. Elizabeth May, leader of the Green party and several times acknowledged as parliamentarian of the year, has often displayed grace (despite a notable lack of it during an attempt at comedy at the most recent Parliamentary press gallery dinner).

Samara Canada, a foundation that encourages citizen involvement, posts exit interviews of retiring MPs, the latest of which featured members who told personal tales of across the floor grace — colleagues supporting each other in times of illness or trouble. Why can’t politicians show that kind of grace toward us and each other in solving our country’s problems?

Tennis player Eugenie Bouchard demonstrates grace, not only on the courts, but when she sends out a funny, self-deprecating tweet as she did on the weekend, featuring the famous Lion King image with the son asking the father “Dad, what’s winning?” and the father replying, “We don’t know son, we’re Eugenie Bouchard fans.” “Ok I’ll admit I laughed,” she tweeted. And no doubt garnered even more fans.

We adore grace in our lives. It softens the day, and when a tired boss or a stubborn mate exhibits grace, we melt. It’s amazing what a little grace can do. Heading into a campaign, our leaders should try it. Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson

Grace requires humility. So I sadly don’t see it in most political leaders, but instead a shocking absence of it