ATDTDA - grace

[Mark Kohut]

I think Ms. Kelber is correct....TRP's use of 'grace" is anti the Calvinist/Fate one... it is the "grace' of the preterite....the unfavored in life or by Religion.

Joseph T <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:   
    On Feb 10, 2007, at 4:07 PM, Joseph T wrote:

    "He understood that things were exactly what they were.  It seemed more than he could bear."
  He doesn't exactly give away the store on that one. 

   thoughts on grace: The word first appears in the english translations of the Bible when "Noah found grace in the eyes of the lord" here it means favor . Of all the people on earth God just really liked Noah,everyone else could pretty much drown. But the roots of the word are in Roman/Latin mythology and language. The Charites, figures of Greek mythology known as "The Three Graces". In Greek mythology, a Charis is one of several Charites (Χάριτες; Greek: "Graces"), goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They ordinarily numbered three, from youngest to oldest: Aglaea ("Beauty"), Euphrosyne ("Mirth"), and Thalia ("Good Cheer"). In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae.   

  The word projects in 2 directions, physical gracefulness and spiritual blessedness.    

    The word is big  in the writings of Paul and "John", and takes on the meaning of  the unmerited favor of God accessed through the atonement of Christ.  In the reformation the concept of Grace was a little like Shambalah in ATD; everyone wants to get their first, colonize and own the keys.  Calvin says grace is pre-determined : you're either doomed or saved , nothing you can do about it, the good just know they're good(which is why they can act like such pricks). Luther and Arminius have different takes focused on choice and mercy, and so ad infinitum. 
  

  Lew's vision of "grace" feels Calvinistic and hard. Miles and the Chums  seem to be headed toward a much friendlier interpretation.      
  
  
    

  

  

  On Feb 10, 2007, at 1:28 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

    SPOILER ALERT -- last page
  

  

  

  TRP uses (and defines) the word "grace," on p.42.  It's also the final word of the novel.  Not sure if there are other references in between.
  

  P. 42:
  "One mild and ordinary work-morning in Chicago, Lew happened to find himself on a public conveyance, head and eyes inclined nowhere in particular, when he entered, all too briefly, a condition he had no memory of having sought, which he later came to think of as grace."  Next paragraph:  "He understood that things were exactly what they were.  It seemed more than he could bear."
  

  Right after this, he's hired by White City Investigations, after impressing Nate with his ability to observe things (just as they are?).
  

  A couple of reviewers seemed to take the mention of grace at the end of the book in its religious sense.  The Inconvenience has become sort of a public conveyance, the world in microcosm, and it flies toward grace.  But if grace is understanding that things are exactly what they are, it seems that TRP has something other than the religious connotation in mind.  Things that are exactly what they are don't have any particular grace of god bestowed on them.  They belong more to the preterite than the elect.
  

  On a totally different plane, maybe TRP had this in mind:
  

  

  "The goal of the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) space mission is to obtain accurate global and high-resolution determination of both the static and the time-variable components of the Earth's gravity field."
  

  

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Recovery_and_Climate_Experiment
  

  Laura










 
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