Show me what a life lived in grace looks like: unfettered, joyous, rampant.

I told someone once that I wanted to have the guts to laugh at myself and loosen up a bit. I think I was born melancholy (and I protested as much when I tested so in a personality test–this much is true about my artist tendencies–but I hated the word. It made me sound depressed). Mainly what I saw and disliked in myself were my perfectionistic tendencies, because it’s easier to deal with knowns and facts and details and my capabilities than to face the chaos of messy-and-human.

Show me how to hold onto life loosely.

Perhaps what C.S. Lewis says is true, that having a grasp of our mortality does us a lot of good. I want to understand that our good moments don’t last forever, and that to savor them slowly is a gift in itself. And maybe the guts I wanted are the insides that I want filled with thick, hearty gratitude, shared and spilled over in the company of friends (I’m using soup imagery because Eric made a frickin good stew the other night. And it’s cold in here.).

Hearty, joyous, wise and gracious. I think that describes the man I’d like to grow into.