The Grace to Live

Grace means more than gifts. In grace something is transcended, once and for all overcome. Grace happens in spite of something; it happens in spite of separateness and alienation. Grace means that life is once again united with life, self is reconciled with self. Grace means accepting the abandoned one. Grace transforms fate into a meaningful vocation. It transforms guilt to trust and courage. The word grace has something triumphant in it. - Srjo Kallinen

I found this quote from a website I bookmarked a year or two ago. The website has many thoughtful, funny, interesting quotes about life and wisdom. I am glad that I happened to click on the link today. It is a comfort to me.

Srjo Kallinen, George Kallinen, was the Minister of Defense and Education in Finland. He lived from June 15, 1886 until January 1, 1976. He is now remembered as being the first and most significant pacifist of Finland. He was Minister of Defense from 1946-1948. He was an avid supporter and advocate of Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhism. Despite his support of Buddhism, he did not identify himself with any of the religions of the world. Instead, he tried to find similarities among them.

This quote from him really resonated in my heart and mind. To me, grace is a gift that is bestowed on us. To him, grace is something more...it's about the pieces of life coming together. It's about people accepting themselves, people accepting the pain and mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and overcoming them to be better than who they are and finding a lasting people because of it. There are so many things that happen to each of us. We meet people who mistreat us, we find ourselves in unhealthy relationships and/or unhealthy environments, we lose the ones we love most, and so on. We blame ourselves for the bad that befalls us. We blame it on fate or we think that we deserve it, for whatever reason, irrational or reasonable reason as it may sound. We have these regrets. For many, it's very hard to forgive and move on. Each day it's such a task for me to smile and convince myself that I shouldn't blame myself for everything that has gone wrong or not according to plan. But sometimes you can't really plan life...things just happen.

As I wrote this entry yesterday, I heard a song by The Carpenters, "Hurting Each Other." The lines I feel are relevant are:

Can't we stop hurting each other
Gotta stop hurting each other
Making each other cry
Breaking each other's heart
Tearing each other apart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqkVNHwJfKc

I feel like there's a lot of self-hating going on in today's world. Many people try to be something they're not. Heck, I used to want to be dropdead gorgeous, tall, and popular. It took me a few years to accept that I could never be any of those things and popularity isn't as good as they make it out to be in those teen movies and teen shows from the 80s up till now.

What will it take for the people to finally say, "Let's just stop the ineffectualness of our ways and learn to love ourselves for how we are", huh?

Posted around 6:24pm on Dec. 9th.