Please respond with a moment of grace that you have experienced or given. Or post your favorite quote about or articulation of grace.
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Reason Breeds Insanity 
Grace…
She carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings…
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace finds goodness in everything
(from U2’s “Grace”)
Growing up Lutheran, I never heard about grace. Only works. Salvation doesn’t occur unless you prove to God through your deeds (through what you display on the outside) that everything inside is good and worthy. I hear you talk about grace all the time, but I don’t really know what it means. I’m a former ballet dancer. I know what landing a triple piquay turn means, or flawlessly moving your body through difficult routines and knowing, just knowing, that even though you may not be technically perfect, even though your turn out may not reach 180 degrees, that something unfathomable has just happened. And until I met you, Corby, I always thought that THAT was grace. But now I don’t know. So instead of talking about grace, I’m going to talk a little about heaven. Maybe you’ll find an overlap.
This past September, I flew down to Memphis with my fiance, Bobbie, and his parents, Bob and Sandy. Our first night there, we walked down to the end of Beale, and there on the streetcorner was a man playing a cigar box guitar and banging out the rhythm on a tired set of foot drums. And I started dancing. It was easily 85 degrees outside, and the relative humidity was at least that high, but I couldn’t stop my body from moving. I danced until I sweated through my shirt, so I wrapped it around my fist and kept dancing, with my belly and back wet and exposed. I dance with a homeless man named Felix. I danced by myself. I caught the eye of the guitar player, and I knew from the smile on his face that he was playing that street corner juke joint jam just for me. Bob and Sandy weren’t impressed. I hadn’t meant to forget them. I had forgotten myself. Bobbie, standing with his parents (and painfully aware of their disapproval), grabbed me by the wrist and tried to pull me back down off the curb. I saw the look on his and his parents’ faces and suddenly I could feel the weight of the heat. I had never felt so choked.
Shortly after, the guitar player put down his equipment to take a break. He walked over to me and shook my hand. I was proud to shake his. He smiled at me, bent real close to my face, until I could see the seafoam blue of his eyes, and he said, “You’re in heaven. That’s what that was. All these other people, they’re in hell. Never learned how to uncross their arms. But you? You’re in heaven.”
So, when you ask me to think about grace, I actually think about heaven. And about dancing. Which I suppose is kind of like work. But it sure doesn’t feel that way.
Grace is a feeling of well being. I feel it whenever I am troubled and feel my dad’s presence andthat makes me feel calm. Maybe what I’m saying is that grace is another word for Dad.