Grace-full

You might say that I’m not graceful, or at least I haven’t been lately. The week before Christmas, I was carrying a full glass of water down the stairs at my house. I sort of missed one stair, stepping on just the edge of it in my slippered feet (now I know why they call them “slippers”). My feet went up, my beehind went down, and five stairs later I came to rest, flat out—except for the raised arm holding the glass of water. (Amazingly, not a drop of water spilled.) At first the pain started in the center of my back, but by the next morning, it was in my neck, radiating into a pounding headache. My chirocracker, whom I made a quick visit to that afternoon, suggested that next time I go ahead and spill the water and spare my body. He also said I sprained my neck. Not badly, mind you, but nevertheless I ask you how many people you know that have sprained their necks by carrying a glass of water downstairs? How glamorous is that? How graceful is that?

Today I had another opportunity to demonstrate my not-so-graceful form as Scott and I were taking advantage of the wonderful blessing of snow brought by the two recent Colorado blizzards. We had been snowshoeing on a trail on Mt. Blodgett, not far from our house. Obviously we weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the snow, as the trail was pretty hard-packed. On our descent, we decided to take a less-traveled path through steeper terrain and denser forest. In hindsight, I don’t think this path was really a trail, but more likely someone’s wanderings through the woods on their snowshoes. I know that (in hindsight) because real trails don’t have big rocks on them, or downed trees that you have to step over. So I didn’t see the stupid rock until it tripped me. I lurched forward headfirst, landing facedown with my head downhill and my feet uphill. As if that weren’t humiliation enough, my naked hands were still strapped into my poles, which were now crossed and flattened beneath me—and quite cold covered in the snow. I looked about as helpless as a turtle on its back. Thankfully, Scott didn’t laugh out loud, but simply helped to pick me up and set me upright once again. Oh, and thanks for asking, no I didn’t get hurt this time, except for what little pride I had up until that point.

For some reason, this all prompted me to look up “graceful” in my Merriam-Webster dictionary. Interestingly, it doesn’t have its own listing, but rather is an adjective form of the word “grace.” Since the suffix “-ful” translates to “full of,” the word “graceful” should translate to “full of grace.” So what is grace? The first definition listed is “unmerited help given to people by God.” Second is “freedom from sin given by divine grace” (hey, I thought you couldn’t use the same word in its own definition). Third is “a virtue coming from God.” Are you beginning to see a pattern here? That whole “ease of movement” idea that probably first pops into our heads doesn’t appear until the eleventh definition. It’s waaaay down the list in the grace thing. This gives me hope! I may actually be graceful after all, in spite of my clumsiness. After all, I am full of “unmerited help given to people by God” and I’m grateful for all my “freedom from sin given by divine grace” and I certainly have my share of “virtue coming from God.” So who cares about having “ease of movement” when you’ve got the top three definitions under your belt?

So the next time I do something stupid and feel like a total klutz, I’m going to remind myself that I’m really graceful. Thank God. Literally.

So, anyway, thanks for dropping by. And happy new year.