In her wonderful art, Abrah Griggs, an artist and book developer who has somehow entered the consciousness of insects and bugs, drew this arresting sketch: If You Rest In The Sunshine Long Enough, You’ll Fly Again. As I connect more and more with the natural world in my life, I have seen dragonflies and bees and flies stilled by the damp and cold, only to come to life again if they rest in the sunshine long enough.

Abrah, a friend and artist and book developer, a member of the Creative Group at Bedlam Farm and blogger, grasped the spiritual implications of this before I did. There is a lot of wisdom in it, especially for people grappling with fear and anger and the complexities of modern life. I asked her if I could purchase the sketch and she mailed it to me.

I asked Abrah I could pay for it. She messaged me instantly and forcefully: “If I were there in person I would give you the treatment that my small group of friends and I give each other. Looking you in the eye and saying “Accept. Graciously.” in a stern sort of voice.”

I have only known Abrah a short while,I grow fonder and more respectful of her individuality, intuition and art all the time.

It was a stern message.

Thank you, I answered. I get it. The sketch graces my study next to my computer.

I know this idea of Gracious Acceptance, I have been working on it a long time, I first heard it in my hospice volunteer work, the social workers talked about it often. It is a cousin of Active Listening. In hospice we learn not to challenge or deny the reality of death, we accept it graciously and without comment or argument.  There is no honor that comes from telling someone at the edge of life a lie.

In one sense, gracious acceptance is just what it sounds like, accepting something as well as giving something. It is curious and compelling thing in my therapy work with Red, many of the people we see have memory loss, and I have realized over time that most have forgotten how to complain or be unhappy or judgmental. They have shed many of the genes that strive for something else, or lament the past, or blame others for their lives.

They embrace Gracious Acceptance, and are often a joy to be around. They know how to receive.

Gracious acceptance is an art, we have to learn how to receive as well as give, and that is something many people – me, certainly – struggle with. People like me fear gifts, they often came with strings attached and were dangerous to me. Another way for people to get too close.

But you cannot give if you can’t receive, and I appreciate Abrah’s gentle jog.

Gracious Acceptance is valuable in life, valuable in spiritual work as well. It is also, for me, broader and more complicated as I seek to understand and develop my own identity and way of life. Thoreau and Emerson, among others, understood the fragility and sanctity of one’s way of life.

For me, Gracious Acceptance means refraining from giving advice, refraining from the affairs of others, even though my motives might be pure and without condition. Gracious Acceptance challenges me to refrain from tampering with another person’s way of life, it is a simple idea, really, until I try to do it, it is a difficult thing to balance with my idea of friendship and service.

I have a good friend who is a secret smoker, he vanishes into basements and hiding places to smoke. I sometimes thinks he wants someone to stop him, and as a former smoker and heart patient, I often think I should try to stop him. But mostly, I don’t. Smoking is a part of his way of life, his way of coping with a challenging and demanding life. We all have our own system of life, and doctors and friends and family members often sigh and grimace at the way in which people will defend their system and way of life.

I think of how much struggle and suffering many people I know have had to endure their families refusal to accept them and their choices and their way of life, I doubt they know how much pain and anguish they cause by their refusal to embrace Gracious Acceptance.

Gracious Acceptance means not playing God, and thinking i know what others should believe and how they should live. If you love someone, your wish for them is to be happy, not to bend to your will.

Writing in public, I am almost daily confronted with advice and people – well-meaning and pure and good people – offering me advice on my affairs, And I, in turn, am finally learning Gracious Acceptance. It is kind of them to offer it to me, and I don’t have to take it.  It is a gift, I finally see that.Gracious Acceptance would not be so difficult if didn’t seem to fly against so much of human nature, and of the human desire to do good and save others.

The political events of the last few weeks have caused me to take this idea of Gracious Acceptance even more seriously than I already have. I have the right to stand in my truth and practice my own way of life, I do not have the right to tamper with another person’s way of life, or to use the fear and anger of others as an excuse to be contemptuous of the affairs of others, or to be drawn into hate and rage.

Gracious Acceptance leads me to do good and work for good in the best way I can, for as long as I can. It asks me to stop there. If I Rest In The Sunshine, I Will Fly Again. Thanks for the sketch, Abrah.