GRACE
by the Editor
It's a funny thing about grace. It means the kind of elegance that comes with courtesy. It means simplicity rather than put-on grandeur. It means the fur lined raincoat as opposed to the fur coat with no knickers–it means giving the fur lined raincoat away without fuss when somebody else needs it more. It means the beauty that comes with kindness. All those things.
And then it has that other meaning, too. It has the meaning of the unexpected aid, the unlooked for courtesy, that comes to us out of nowhere, from the universe, from the gods, from unseen forces and unseen worlds.
All of that is very EAP. All of that kindness stuff, from any of us, or to any of us. And the acknowledgement that the second kind of grace is unearned, can't be coaxed from the Outside Powers. Although you can put yourself in the way of it if you avoid the resentments that come with the kind of petty entitlements that we all seem to fall prey to, now and then. All of that is what we aspire to, and what we aim toward, and what we hold up as an ideal. It doesn't sound particularly cutting edge. But it is…graceful.
The thing about Grace, both the kind we have and the kind that's given to us, is that it waits its turn. It lets other people go first, and it scorns to mock them if they seem a little uncertain about things. Not just from politeness, but because Grace knows that it's that uncertainty, that amateur ability to risk a pratfall, that questing for the best way, it's those things that lead out to new ideas, new ways of doing things, new routes out of cul de sacs (even the most brilliant cul de sacs, which, by the way, are sometimes the hardest to get out of).
So Grace is important to us because we hold it as a value that when there's a problem, everyone with a voice has an obligation to think what they have to say over carefully and then to say it. We're all in this together, as they say. (And they say right.)
Also in this with us, according to EAPers this month, are Grandmothers. Grandmothers appear in starring roles in three different stories: Julie Prince's Brown Needles, L. S. Ayers' GRACE, or Maybe Alfred E. Neuman Had It Right, and Graeme K. Talboys' Declarations . There's even one in the background of Amber Garner's Kicking Tad Out of the Kitchen. And at the start of BJ Beauchamp's BJ's LA Diary .
Why is that, I wonder? It's a kind of grace, I guess.
We have a lot of new contributors this month, too (special welcome to everyone, readers/writers/both, who joined us from Wordstock in Portland…what a blast that was), and very graceful they are. Check out Mark Saltveit's American Koans , a particular favorite of mine. And Glenis Burgess, with her The Tops of Cupboards . (You owe me a bio, Glenis, don't forget).
If you only have time to read one or two pieces, go straight to Harvey Lillywhite's Wrestling With Grace . Harvey writes about the grace of being a middle aged poet, one who grew up in the Sixties and who takes his adult responsibilities both seriously and poetically, and reading about how he comes smack up against the reality of his older sister's undeserved homelessness really shook me. I think it would shake you.
And please read David Budbill's poem, Grace . Grace is a person, and she very much deserves to be heard.
As do all the excluded voices, excluded by the gracelessness of those who've stopped looking for help and answers to anyone but a chosen few.
Welcome back.
(And if you want a little visual stuff this month, have a look at the videos for EAP's two new books, 3 DEAD PRINCES: An Anarchist Fairy Tale, by Danbert Nobacon …and DIRK QUIGBY'S GUIDE TO THE AFTERLIFE, by E. E. King. Thanks to Two Dogs Filming, as always…)