“I found a kind of serenity, it no longer seemed important whether everyone loved me or not-more important was to love them. Feeling this way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving.”  ~Beverly Sills

I have started a year of living graciously. I am trying to discover what it means to be a person of ultimate goodwill, and I want to spend my year writing about and trying to discover what it means to be that kind of person. The kind of person Beverly Sills tried to be. I picked a funny time to do this because now, with mounting political crisis and a seeming end to goodwill all over the planet, the very idea of being the kind of person I want to be seems unfathomable. Every day delivers a new blow to my ability to offer grace. Every day offers me a lesson.

True story: A woman I know, who happens to also be Muslim, tells a collective group of mostly white, presumably Christian women that she wants them to invite her to their church. “I’ll bring my three boys and donuts,” she says. “I want all those people to know me and see that we are just like them. I want those people to hide me and my family if it comes to that.”

She is sarcastic and breezy, and we laugh a little but the core of what she is saying chills me to the bone. My friend can envision a USA that includes people going into hiding. My friend can envision a USA that would force naturally born (not that that matters really.) American citizens into hiding to prevent them being rounded up or persecuted. I picture her holding a big box of Dunkin Donuts at the entrance to a local church with her three elementary age boys in tow.

There must be a better way, I think. Do we really expect this woman to serve donuts in our mid-western churches to win over the hearts and minds of Christian America? But really I should be thinking, that going into hiding for Muslim Americans will never happen. Will it? I honor her very real worry. It is all I can do.

True story: In the Kroger parking lot yesterday, I am thwarted a second time while trying to park my car. I am in my car getting ready to turn into a spot when a van comes driving through from the other side. “Really!” I scream in my car. I throw up my hands and drive around to the other side, if I hurry I’ll get the space that the van driver vacated with his van. The driver must have seen me in my in the car moment of exasperation (and dare I say rage) because he stood patiently in the space he vacated waiting for me. He was saving the space for me.

I felt embarrassed. Thank you I said. He explained that his car had died and he was waiting for a tow truck, and he thought it would be easier to tow from this angle. He had been parked there all night and just now got the opportunity to push it through. I was embarrassed because you know, be more gracious, and try as I might I never quite pass the parking lot test. This sweet man holding me a spot in the Kroger parking lot must have seen me shrieking at him from behind my car wheel. (I think being magnanimous in the Kroger parking lot will be my white whale this year.)

True story: Someone I love very much, I actually hate because of their beliefs. I can’t believe I am even writing these words. I have put this feeling under a microscope and am examining it like crazy. How can I possibly have this year of being gracious if I can’t figure out lesson number one? How can I confront this horrible glorious hatred in myself? How can I be like the light? How can I believe love triumphs, if I can’t control my own hatred? It is the question that vexes me most as I try to make sense of the world in the post truth era. Meanwhile, I have blocked their posts and will erase any comments they make and when they like something I have done, I snarl under my teeth because I know they don’t really, and they are spoiling for a fight.  Or perhaps I am?

It is easy to have compassion for my Muslim friend, to have righteous anger directed at those voters and Kelly Ann and Sean and DT himself. It is an easily learned lesson that any spot is fine in the Kroger parking lot. But I can’t seem to take it further than that. I can’t find it in my heart to understand and really embrace this person I love. It is making my heart hard and my year of living graciously almost impossible.

What is your true story of living graciously in an ungracious world?

Amy for the PGM