Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

Grace. We didn't talk about grace in the Mormon church when I was growing up. But the word has been rattling around in my head, banging pots and pans in my mind attic, trying to get my attention. Grace is, I think, the gap between who you want to be and who you discover you actually are. It's the gap between your potential and your visions and your plans, and the rough and sketchy road life drags you down. It's the map plotting the difference between the person you thought your parent was, and who they really are. It's the terrible equation to describe the  blank wasteland between who you wish you could be for your kids, and the paltry whatever's on hand you can provide. Crumbles, handfuls, castoffs. My living beating heart, all my love-blood. It's the creep of old age across unrealized dreams. It's the slipping of the mind, the stutter of the senses. It's the unreliability of the narratives we tell ourselves to soothe or shape the senseles...

First, let me say, I don't know anything. Go ahead and read my know-nothing thoughts, you've been warned. The thing with ceremony is, it doesn't happen in normal time. You cross a border into another world. It's not benign, it's not easy. You need help. There's a reason fairy tales are populated with helpers, with wise old guides in guises. You can't go it alone, you can't muddle through safely. You need to walk with someone. Ceremony is personal. It's happening in the outside world, of course. It's happening in the world of dirt and fire and dust and sweat. But it's really happening inside your own na'au, your own gut, the seat of your spirit. Although an observer can describe or name or categorize or claim ownership of the outer stuff, what happens in your own brain and guts and whatever that bloody breakable organ that houses love is-- that's entirely your own. When I'm close to ceremony, I can't talk about it becau...