At dinner with friends tonight, I looked at family pictures with the hostess as she says, "We try to enjoy life."

"You seem to do a good job of it. I know there are hard times, but . . ."

"We see them as learning experiences. I don't see my first marriage as a bad one, just as a learning experience."

I myself am quite unlearned. I feel I shouldn't complain of such a thing in this context, so I won't, and I'm not going to complain of all the goods things I have, as that would be a silliness that I hope even I would not stoop to. I wonder, though, if it's wrong of me to want more life experience. Not that I wish for bad things to happen, just for something to make me stronger, wiser, more capable of living a great life. (Ah, vanity.)

It will come, I know. I won't have to ask for it. Maybe I'm in it now, and won't realize it until I have a group of younger people over for dinner and tell them that I try to enjoy life and all its learning experiences. Then I can show them pictures of some of the best times and tell them stories of some of the other times, and they can go away from it with the feeling of wonder and beauty of living this life, as I did tonight.

Until then, may grace be granted to me, and anyone else who needs it, to live as I should (Monday mornings and all) and have faith in the bigger picture. May Grace remind me that it's there, and that I'm in it.