Grace

   Habit, routine, and too much consistency numb our minds and pave the road for us to sleepwalk through our lives. Nothing stays the same. Everything passes, and everything changes.
   However, do not move too much. As an apple tree cannot bear fruit if it is too often transplanted, neither will a knight who is always building a new castle.
   Nature creates its balance with opposites. We need the sun and the rain, the glacier and the desert. Likewise, inside ourselves, we must accept the inevitability of change while deepening and strengthening our foundation.

   I would like to confess to you girls one of my clandestine prayers: that your legs be a little chubby or your nose just a touch crooked, because nothing gives a young woman permission to be weak-minded, lazy, and dull as much as being considered beautiful. Young people, women and men, often use the possession of beauty or wealth as permission to be uninteresting, undisciplined, and ill-informed. If they are fortunate enough to reach the age of twenty-eight or so, they become like coddled coyotes. Cute when little, but, upon adulthood, nasty, fearful, and living off the scraps of others.

A lady - and this is true for gentlemen too, does not overconcern herself with her own appearance or with the appearance of others. She is not slovenly, far from it. She is meticulous in the care and cleanliness of her body. Her garments are an expression of her humility: clean, simple, well made, and flattering. With her words a lady is truthful. In her dealings she is authentic. A lady does not care for such false diamonds as knowing royalty. She knows herself and concerns herself with her own development, her ideals, and how they manifest in her actions. Is the cardinal more lovely than the rosefinch because its feathers are a deeper shade of red?

As you grow into maturity, do not concern yourself with aging. A rose is striking in full bloom only because it will never be so again, but a budding rose is also stunning, as are the dark petals of autumn. It is the fact that time is passing that creaters it preciousness. A preoccupation with aesthetic beauty can be a distraction that leads young people away from pursuing a sincere exploration of their inner lives.
   All of us are asked to surrender the superficial beauty of youth and step towards something greater. We are being made ready for the spirit world. Each wrinkle is a crack in the shell of our conceit. Our conceit must be pulverized for the soul to fly.

Ethan Hawke - Rules for a knight

(picture by Gioacchino Passini)