Rudolph Ruzicka:
Weeks Memorial Bridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts
(1927)

Unchangeable Until It Isn't
I have been quietly and happily dispatching long procrastinated chores this summer. Such efforts only commence after I've reached a certain level of self-loathing. I can shove stuff to the back of the closet for only so long, and it's over once I cross that border. I'm not reforming then, not repenting, just entering a later stage of the same form I had been inhabiting. It's a magical time, though. As I convey each clog, another appears, and each seems less daunting to dispatch. I gained a growing sense of personal authority as if I were discovering long-lost superpowers. Those powers were never lost but merely waiting for conducive conditions to arise. This summer of my discontent presents those conducive conditions, like late summer, which presents differing conditions from seemingly endless same-old, same-old days. I might never understand how change arises from sameness, but I can nonetheless depend upon its eventual emergence. Nothing can never be quite the same again, or really even for a first time. It's all different except my discernment, which seems unchangeable until it isn't.

—

Weekly Writing Summary

This Grace Story starts this writing week with a question: Do I possess Discipline? If I do or don't, what evidence present at this moment might confirm or disconfirm its presence?

Will Hicock Low: He Met Within the Murmurous Vestibule, His Young Disciple (1885)
"Almost nothing demands more Discipline than this!"
—

Today's Grace Story finds me discovering considerable Grace lurking within my Diligence.

Cornelis Bos:  Allegory: Industry Rewarding Diligence and Punishing Indolence (c. 1540)
"I seem to need a somewhat stiff wind in my face to find that most satisfying sort of Grace."
—
This Grace Story considers my defiant nature and the self-destruction I engage in when feeling self-righteous. Defiance might be our inheritance, but it often seems it intends to do us in.

Édouard Manet: Excerpt from a book, Les Chats (1870), published by J. Rothschild and Libraire de la Société Botanique de France typography by Gustave Silbermann, printed by Cardart et Luce. Book with five etchings, two with aquatint and three with plate tone, one color lithograph, and line block prints, two with hand-coloring, with letterpress in black on ivory wove paper, with cardboard and paper cover and leather spine with gilt lettering
"May Grace grant us respite from our Defiant nature, even when we steadfastly refuse to ask for it."
—
This Grace Story attempts to describe the connection between Delusion and useful creation.

Odilon Redon: Flower Clouds (c. 1903)
" … not even Delusion could save my bacon this time around."
—
This Grace Story speaks of Disappointment. Some days seem to inhabit a hyperactive Disappointment engine.

Jan Lievens: Still Life with Books (c. 1627-28)
"Maybe I was meant to f#ck up that last one!"
—
This Grace Story praises *Doubt not as something to be conquered but to be embraced. Nobody ever receives the benefit of any doubt without first investing in some doubting. This story proved the most popular this period!

Wouter Pietersz II Crabeth: The Incredulity of St Thomas (c. 1626-30)
"I might conclude that confidence isn't required …"
—
This has been a most unusual writing week. It was the first to satisfy The Alliteration Test because, for some unknown and likely unknowable reason, like no reason at all, each story's title began with the same letter of the alphabet. This convention added no value besides potentially visual for those like me who even notice such things. The stories seemed to investigate edges of Grace in different guises. I suspect that anyone could concoct a reasonable story explaining why anything and everything probably embodies some aspect of Grace, and that might have been my underlying purpose this week had I thought to include an underlying purpose. The 'D' beginning of each story's title was just one of those things that somehow gets started and then replicates itself, to the delight of evolutionists and critics. Discipline, Diligence, Defiance, Delusion, Disappointment, and Doubt each appeared in succession in the title section of this week's writing. I feel grateful that this presentation didn't chase you off. Thank you for following along!
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