Grace

Ya know, I should probably be dedicated to the kind encouragement of Robin Adair Sherwood and others like her. I should probably honor the hope that the content of my thoughts someday reaches the quality of style which she and other more qualifying types appreciate. Then again, I could just stay on this rocky course, bouncing over the cute and the ridiculous, the pleasant and the unpleasant, with equal suspicion. Mb

There are people in this world who are born with a natural and simple grace. Those lucky people seem to learn very early in life the proper way to share with others and say thank you to another person. They easily gather the clues on how to be considerate to other people and seem to have an innate sense of good timing.

We can argue how this happens. Maybe there’s an academy, hidden somewhere in a deep forest, instructing young people how to be kind to each other. Maybe this kind of knowledge just flows around us or forms like the morning dew, clinging tightly along select branches of our tall hereditary tree.

We may believe that such grace only comes from a life guided by sunny thoughts or the privilege of success. It might be easier for many folks to accept and give muted credit when the going is good, when things magically fall into place, rather than when they don’t.

But for some beautiful people, this modest quality manifests itself even when things go horribly wrong.

If you heard any of the consolation talk of Harold Ford, Jr, who lost the Tennessee senate race last year, then you know of these kinds of graceful people. You heard how a man can admit his own disappointment while confidently looking forward and acknowledging the kindness of those who helped him open the door however slightly.

You’ve witnessed, then, how someone can say thank you for the opportunity to succeed and remain humble even in the face of failure.

Rather than ancient family fortunes, we are primarily led to believe this charming human condition of grace arises from within those who are blessed with golden self-assurance. We suppose or reasonably assume people learn through a proper and loving upbringing to extend the same benefits which they themselves may have once enjoyed.

We’ve come to expect this result since when the opposite happens, when the early benefits of a privileged life are less valuable or obvious, then a different kind of person often emerges from the trees.

Such strange, lonely creatures often experience difficulty in the art of human expression. In spite of their wealth, education or blood lines, these individuals may initially be prone to certain impediments, bashfulness and odd self-consuming indulgence. Their uncertainty about themselves leads to uncertainty about everyone else. Having never struck the proper balance, their moods may swing violently from the extremes of furious rage against their enemies to unquestioning love for their most loyal friends. They are left with very little grace or compassion for anything or anyone in between.

We know these kinds of people by their defensive reaction to confrontation. They tend to blame their personal difficulties on others. Their signature adorns no compromise, their deceit is contagious and their stubbornness has no limit. A concession to their own failures, admitting the mistakes committed by their own hands, the simple acknowledgements which regular people do with grace each and every day, are impossible tasks.

And if they are in positions of leadership, then they obstinately take everyone down with them.

This, then, is the lesson of Charles I. This was the immature man who was blessed to be King of England yet earned the grace of neither man nor God. This was the man who pushed his countrymen into failed war after failed war always for the pettiest of reasons. This was the man who claimed the Divine Right of Kings while his distinct inability to negotiate his personal failures led him to a natural inability to negotiate the failure of his rule.

As we know from the fantastic portrayals on BBC history, when challenged with confrontation Charles I would close his circle and lash out. When his policies faced the rejection of his people and his parliament, he would only more loudly repeat his demand that they obey him. And when the deliberate confrontation and rejection refused to cease, he cavalierly ignored them.

Thus, unable to bargain with such impudence by any graceful manner, guided only by his historic lack of self-confidence, he would escape behind a masquerade.

The masque was a charade designed to hide his insecurity. On the outside, it displayed unswerving confidence in the powers of the King to force all opposing minds into accord with his own. The costumed bit players in the charade would trot out on stage and urge faith in the brilliance of the King to bring all chaos into order. But behind it all, the masque of authority disguised a timid man who had no idea how to humble himself before his people in real life.

Dr. Richard Crust at the University of Birmingham reminds us in the closing scene of the final masquerade for Charles I, the chorus from the Salmacida Spolia of 1640 sang:

All that are harsh, all that are rude,

Are by your harmony subdued;

Yet so into obedience wrought,

As if not forc'd to it but taught.

Charles I did not know how to reach out or to teach. He couldn’t share or make concessions. Having been subdued by his own anxiety, he only knew how to subdue others. He knew no other way. He knew no grace. As a result, he lost his crown and his head.

Cheers,

Mb