Day 39. I got to go to see a ballet today, which means I had a few moments of madly-grinning-unbridled joy watching 2 dozen dancers in formation throwing snow confetti and/or convincingly impersonating flowers in bloom. There was a lot of grace on display. Dance is hard work and the effortlessness of floating is the hardest part.

I want to display a bit more grace myself. I want to speak the truth and to speak it with grace. I struggle with this because I can be a bit, shall we say, direct. Less than graceful.

I read this article today about Derek Black, a man who grew up the son of Don Black (founder of Stormfront), the Godson of David Duke. He was a self-styled white nationalist, and he was an active one – he had a radio show with his father and had helped to popularize the concept of a white genocide. Until he went to college, and in a more diverse environment than he’d ever known, he began to feel uncomfortable with the beliefs he’d been living comfortably with his whole life. While he was away for a semester abroad, news of his past got out on a campus forum; when he returned he was ostracized.

Then Matthew Stevenson invited him to Shabbat dinner.

Stevenson displayed a lot of grace that night, and for many nights at many Shabbat dinners over the weeks and months that followed. Reading Eli Saslow’s article, it’s clear to me that Black’s mind would not have been changed if he hadn’t been invited and if he hadn’t been treated with such grace.

It’s not the answer to everything. But it’s something I can control.

I’m aiming to reach out to people who might not agree with me in the coming week, and to do so with grace. It won’t be effortless but I’ll try to make it look so.