Tender Graciousness/Tender Mercies

“I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.”
― Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace

The Three Graces were a trio of sister goddesses who evoked charm, beauty, humor, brightness, splendor, cheer, refinement, gentleness, blossoming, mirth, and joyfulness inspiring wisdom, love, culture and interaction. 

There used to be yearly competitions in music, literature, drama and athletics, with the usual dancing, food and the air of fair. The Games were called the Charitesia.  There were special symbols to represent the Three Graces, and winning someone's favor, by evening, was ended with dancing and everyone left with  new lessons in 'letting go' of things not meant to you, including revenge.  To have charity meant to be the bigger person, to respond with tenderness and grace.  

Justice has its own reason to be dealt with acceptance and acknowledgement that healing begins to take place the moment you apply grace.  Later you are able to sort through the hurt and anger and discard what does not fit and keep and change what you are given as a lesson in needing to change.  

Sometimes we meet those who have that immediate gentleness that it takes to be a woman of grace.  We can either envy them or study them and learn who she reacts to things needing grace.  It is a given that we know they had to sacrifice, sometimes, a great deal of themselves, in order to become such a grace-emanating person.  We know she bit her own tongue, gave up her needs, gave up the memememe, gave up the need to win, to be right or to defend herself.  There is, indeed grace in that, and to some of us, a foreign thing.  We can be Ego- stubborn.  We want it all for ourselves, we want to be the one to be right, to be blessed, to be whatever it is that gets us whatever, but is totally "I"-centered and we do not want to do the work needed to have earned such.  There are checks and balances, I believe, of karma.  There are lessons in everything.  You either grow into tender graciousness or are given reasons to be.  

I did this painting of a friend, over the late summer.  I knew she felt frustrated at her self-portrait and I did not want her to feel like it wasn't beautiful.  And so I did one for her, after she went south for the winter.  She is one who has a type of grace, an edgy person, someone so easy to be around.  She is funny and yet she is going to say exactly what she thinks.  She is funny about hardships and accepts what comes and does what she can to resolve those things.  She prepares to go South on her own and then drives all those miles to get there.  She is not giving in easily, to be sure.  She takes hard things as lessons and gets through them with apparent ease.  She has been an inspiration to me in many ways.  And, yes, sometimes she is weak, but you only know about it when she tells a funny, self-depreciating story about it later.  She is a low-maintenance friend and I miss her sense of humor this winter.  She has the grace to know what matters, and whom.  

©Carol Desjarlais 11.22.18