Everything that’s trending on the web currently, regarding the death of Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia, and the subsequent discussion of his friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has caused me to spend some time thinking about the grace of such friendship.  Ginsburg was quoted as saying:

“I disagreed with most of what he said, but I loved the way he said it.”

Theirs was apparently a friendship based not on the compatibility of social or political ideology, but on shared respect for one another’s intellect, passions, interests, humor, shared experience and humanity.  Rather than holding their disagreements under a spotlight, I think that they must have instead blended what could have been seen as plenteous flaws into what became the perfect wholeness of the other.  That seems to me to be one definition of grace.  It’s what I treasure in the friendships I hold most dear – the knowing that perfectly harmonious opinions, interests and beliefs are not necessary, or even particularly desired, for joyous relationships to thrive.

I imagine that it might be exactly the thing that God does in offering us the grace of perfect love.  I’m betting that God may actually agree with only a tiny fraction of what goes on inside of me and the way I follow through on God’s guiding. I imagine that’s true for most people on earth – past, present and future.  And not because we aren’t doing our best and don’t have good intentions.  I believe we mess it up simply because our understanding is small and weak, and in the words of a Monty Python movie, “Oh Lord … you are so big, so absolutely huge!” Yet, despite our inability to be in perfect agreement with God, Love and Grace abound!

So rather than ponder the political ramifications of an empty chair in the Supreme Court, I am just going to take this opportunity to look for ways to emulate a couple of justices — two dear friends who seemed to have a deep understanding of generous grace, as garnered through a precious, treasured and thoroughly unlikely relationship.