Semantics

Ageing gracefully is an oxymoron, unless you are a devoted Pilates practitioner.  Joints and muscles are less cooperative as the body powers down.  For age-ed  people, graceful movement  requires   maintenance.   

In a Lutheran Church once upon a time, a definition of Grace popped up in a Sunday sermon: "Time is a sign of Grace."   The Pastor expanded: resolution and forgiveness and acceptance happens, given time. Given time, things can work out. Simple. Those words have simmered in my brain for years.   

Clearly, Grace plus Time doesn't work for everyone in the same way.  A young man I knew who died of asthma at 16 had a much shorter Time to find Grace.  When babies die, we believe, they remain in a state of Grace they are born in, before they have Time to leave it.  For some people, all the Time in the world might not bring Grace, if they don't want it. 

What is Grace?  How do I get it?  Time is getting short.

I have a neighbor whom we will call Attila the Hun.  This man has-evil-eyed me for a decade.  But recently, his wife has been sporting a bald head and those pink-ribbon pins. It's no fun to carry a grudge against people who are facing their mortality.  They smiled at me once, and how could I not nod back at them?  Grace?

I swore off my birth siblings decades ago.  We had issues. Recently Mom died, and we have kept in touch.   Scattered around the country, we text each other once in a while: "Nice day here," "Thought of Mom today,"  and such.  Grace?

Time, like water, does have a way of wearing away stone.

I may be ageing Gracefully.