The Mercury – Monday (getting ahead of deadlines)
Grace
While life as we know it is impossible without Divine Grace, Grace extended to all. I am particularly interested in the interpersonal grace we each can generously offer all other people, from intimates to total strangers.
Yes, we can be agents of grace.
I have seen it powerfully at work for many years.
It includes:
• Giving others a very wide berth, room to make mistakes, to be opinionated, to be socially clumsy, without my interference or my thinking, feeling I should offer my guidance, correction, or opinion.
• Extending “grace-in-reverse” by not allowing any person’s past errors, tough, dark, or even sordid history, to hinder my perceptions, my experience of who and what they are in the present. This acknowledges people really can grow and change.
• Allowing others to own their story and to tell it in their way, without interruption, without uninvited interpretation, and certainly without being “one-upped” by something from my own life, something usually bigger, stronger, better, or more dramatic.
• Forgiving from the outset, without necessarily receiving an apology or explanation, and for that forgiveness to be unconditional and complete.
• Exercising radical hospitality. This is embracing fully (not limited to a hug) others who are not like us!
How do I know about such grace?
It’s been offered to me, time and again. The challenge is to give it to others.
difficultrelationships.com 
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