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After the Writer was imprisoned, (for political reasons, naturally) the General gave an order which he himself did not understand, on the advice of one or another of the powerfully bland, grey-haired men to whom he owed his victory.

The Writer, ordered the General, was to be allowed neither paper nor any instrument of writing.

The General was not a fool, and he believed that he had given the order out of respect for the considerable power of symbols and those who wield them. The General’s advisor, however, had just won a war of symbols; what he feared was magic.

The Writer lingered in prison. He was not an eloquent man, and the guards regarded with disdain his attempts to charm them. His presence was not commanding but shrewish, and he could not even beg successfully for cigarettes.

After a few months, the Writer pricked his finger with a fork, and he wrote on the wall a single, perfect sentence. Profound and subtle, carrying as it were all of the sadness, all of the beauty of the world; loss and redemption strung together along the flawless syntax.

In the morning, the guard who brought him his bread read the sentence on the wall, and the moment overcame him, and he wept.

The Writer escaped, and was shot in the head three months later in Buenos Aries. The sentence faded, and has been lost.

A Christian, to answer a question posed recently by an acquaintance, should look like the best possible version of the particular human he or she happens to be. Grace means two things. It first refers to poise and simplicity in one’s own comportment, and second, to kindness and compassion toward those lacking poise and simplicity in theirs.
If we cannot be flawless, we can at least choose our flaws with care. We should be too forgiving; too generous; too forthright in our own mistakes; too hard-working. We should love too much: they’ll know we are Christians.