Full of grace and full of Grace

I hope you are prepared for me to go a little religious nerd here. Don't worry, I can mix it up with some self-deprecation, just to keep it fun...

If you look up "Nancy" in one of those baby name books it will tell you that my name is a derivation of "Ann" and it means "Full of grace". This has always been a source of amusement for me, since as much as I love things like dance, and as much as I enjoy actually participating in it, graceful I am not. Yes, I can dance. No I will never be invited to join a ballet company. I can dance well enough so a director doesn't have to worry about me keeping up, but I certainly will never be cast in a dance-centered role. I can kick it up with the chorus, but ask me to leap across a stage solo and you will hear something that can only be described as "Gallumphing". I could go on for days.

But I digress. My gracefulness came into full view the other day, much to the delight of more than one of my co-workers. In my defense, it's been crazy weather here lately, which tends to mess up my knees quite a bit. I stumbled into work on Weds knowing that I should probably stay home and give them a rest, but also knowing that since it was field trip day, they couldn't spare the staff. I (fairly literally) girded up my loins with ace bandages and painkillers and set my mind to the task of ignoring the ache. We organized the 20 children into 4 teams of 5 before setting out to catch our bus to the museum. My little ensemble consisted of "Future Serial Killer" (you've met him before), "Pees his pants daily" (at nearly 6 years old he should probably be getting over this), "Mommy I won't be a princess without my jewelry" (she also has come up before), and "unfortunate child of the most neurotic parent" (He's actually a great kid, its his parental figure I struggle with), and of course I had the flex spot, the empty space available to the kid who was scheduled to come but his parents didn't get there in time so we would give it away to the kid who wasn't scheduled to come, which is irksome at best and if you are a parent that is reading this you should never be either of those to any teacher. *deep breath*

We headed out the door at 9am, which on any college campus is the heaviest time of day for traffic, simply because people who work and attend college campuses are generally too lazy to actually function before then. (I dream of the day I can join their ranks) and we stepped out onto the road , joined hands raised up in the air, to make us taller so the cars could see we were crossing. But suddenly my knees were no longer coming to the party. In fact, they checked out entirely leaving a heap of Nancy in the street, still attached to the 5 year olds who were simply staring in a state of utter confusion. Teachers don't fall down. Especially not while doing something basic like walking. And the kids were kind of looking at each other and looking at me wondering what the heck just happened when suddenly (and I should have expected this) all of their preschool training kicked in. It started with "Mommy I won't be a princess".

"That's ok Miss Nancy, you are a tough girl! You can get up and we will be tough girls together!" (growl grunt snort) "Tough girls!"

Then "Pees his pants daily" chimed in: "Do you need a bandaid or a hug? Let me help you up" (grunts as he tries to grab my arm and pull) "Wow, you are a tough girl, you are strong!"

"Yeah, you can do it!" adds "unfortunate child of neurotic parent". I'm afraid he's not quite as creative in his encouragement, and as much as I would like to psychoanalyze that, I simply need to add here that Future Serial Killer just stood there staring at me the whole time. (Insert your own guesses as to what his thoughts were, I shudder to even consider it)

Many of you may have experienced similar moments of gracelessness, falls in front of co-workers (in this case it was still in view of the office windows at work, and I heard later that everyone saw and enjoyed my moment) and many of you may have had the luxury of tripping up in front of strangers. But I tell you there is nothing quite so humiliating as falling in front of both co-workers and strangers, stopping the cars full of strangers who are late for work, most of whom work in my building or complex, so they are strangers that I will continue to see every day, all the while being patronized by 5 year olds. It was the "tough girl" comment that stung the worst, since I knew exactly where she had learned it from.

But of course, I had a job to do, so I picked myself up and we went on our merry way. It wasn't until about 4 hours later that I finally got a break enough to check the damage. One knee was bloody but had scabbed over. The other was bruised and clearly had a lump on it that was growing to a fully swollen knee, and one ankle was nearly the same size as the swollen knee.

Full of grace. Graceful. Nancy.

But there's more! You see, as I was contemplating this blog post, in the face of those same co-workers who took delight in my tumble, I was faced with a fascinating little conversation. I was exiting my classroom today headed out for a lunch break when I accidentally walked into a debate in progress.

"It's not a church song" says co-worker that I just don't get.

"Yes it is, where did you learn it?" counters raging lesbian.

"I don't know, probably from TV or something" inserts chatty friendly co-worker.

"What song?" I ask, because, well, I'm me.

"Amazing Grace" They all reply.

"Oh, well, it's not in the LDS hymnbook, but the Tab choir still does it and it has been sung at the funerals of several different leaders in the church"

"Oh, are you saying that since it's not LDS then its not a church song?" (Raging lesbian tends to hate on some of the culture here. It happens.) She stomps off without waiting for a reply.

"Actually, I learned it in the Lutheran church. And it's in pretty much every church hymnal except the LDS. Why?" (That's me again.)

"Well it doesn't talk about anything church in it" says chatty friendly co-worker.

"Yeah, it was just about freeing the slaves" inserts co-worker that I just don't get.

"Umm, allow me to help you out" I proceed to recite the first verse of Amazing Grace to them.

"See, nothing churchy in it!" They both concur. And I am APPALLED. I know that Co-worker I just don't get is referring to the movie that was made about the song, but if she is still convinced that there is no religion in that text, I wonder how she can claim to have seen the movie? Are the people I work with really this clueless?

Silly Nancy, glutton for punishment, continues the conversation where she could have just left it alone.

Yeah, nothing churchy at all, except that the term "Grace" is always capitalized, indicating that it actually refers to the Grace of God, which in Protestantism is a direct reference to Jesus Christ and His crucifixion. Grace means Atonement in that text. As in "Amazing {Atonement} how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me..." or in the next verse, "How precious did that {Atonement} appear the hour I first believed..." I could go on, I know seven verses, and don't even get me started on the foreign translations I know. And where do you think the "there" is when you sing "when we've been there ten thousand years, ...we've no less days to sing God's praise"? Have you ever even thought about the text?

There was more, questioning and answering, but that pretty well sums it up.

And once again, everybody sort of stared at me and made a few jokes as I stumbled out of the room. And I thought, as I painfully navigated the furniture while trying to stay upright, that I was probably at that moment the last person who could lecture on the term "Grace". But then I wonder how many people out there have never looked beyond their own circle of experience and thought about the things around them. And I wonder if somehow their unawareness of an entire philosophy, an entire branch of their own religious roots left unexplored, is related to those kids that threw some cliches at me simply because that is what we have trained them to do. Their responses weren't bad. It's not wrong to call someone a tough girl so she won't cry when she falls. And I suppose it's not wrong to limit your knowledge to personal experience. It's not wrong to dance the correct steps with a bit of a thud. It's not wrong, but it's certainly not the best way.

Which I suppose is where gracefulness comes into play. You see, the protestants that wrote "Amazing Grace" were lumping a whole lot of doctrine into one word. There was the necessary Grace that saves each of us, there was the extra Grace that we can ask for, there was the concept of Father and Son in one, and there was the concept of Father and Son as separate. All things considered, the message of the enire song is, there are ways to do things blind, lost, and faithless, but life goes so much more smoothly with a little Grace. It's not wrong to stumble around in the dark. But there is a better way. And for as many people that think they are doing the world a favor by leaving the lights off, there could stand to be more of us willing to turn the lights on.

Go ahead and laugh with me at my stumbles, grace is overrated. I will continue to trip and gallumph my way around busy streets and stages. But let's see if I can't manage to work on being more full of Grace.