{"id":735,"date":"2007-12-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-18T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html"},"modified":"2007-12-18T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-18T09:00:00","slug":"saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html","title":{"rendered":"Saving Grace: Two Kinds of Loneliness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"revised%20grace.jpg\"
\nYou don\u2019t have to be Catholic to appreciate last night\u2019s episode of \u201cSaving Grace,\u201d<\/a> but it was especially entertaining if you are and have ever been Godparent to a young niece or nephew or a friend\u2019s child.
\nGrace (Holly Hunter) is Godmother to her nephew, which is an especially important job since his mom died in the Oklahoma bombings. Why in the world would Grace\u2019s sister choose a boozing, redneck of a woman who sleeps with a new guy every week (even if they\u2019re married) to instruct her son in faith matters?
\n\u201cBecause Grace loves others \u2026 more than she loves herself,\u201d explains Rhetta Rodriguez (Laura San Giacomo), Grace\u2019s best friend, to the good Sister who shows up at Grace\u2019s office to make sure she is attending her Godson\u2019s Confirmation.<\/p>\n


\nFrom the very first episode of this series, Grace\u2019s inner demons are getting the best of her. The war inside her soul rages visibly to everyone important to her: her living sister, who wants Grace to be more involved with the family; her priest brother who harasses her about returning to the Church; her cop partner who is in love and sleeping with Grace even though he\u2019s married; her best friend who is ever preaching morals and values, hoping to rub off some of her prudishness on Grace; Earl, her tobacco-chewing angel who forces her to think about God differently than the way she was raised to; and her nephew, whom she loves more than probably anyone else, and who secures her last doubt of goodness and hope in this world.
\nShe kicks. She screams. She yells. She cusses. She wrestles with the unsolved, profound mysteries of faith in her heart just like a depressive who wants to know peace more than anything. And even though all of these people in her life stretch out their hands for companionship and support along the way, she chooses the path of loneliness.
\nWhy?
\nBecause she loves others more than herself. And until she can begin to love herself, she\u2019ll stay lonely.
\nDepression certainly makes you hate yourself. The destructive thoughts that debilitate your body scream messages like \u201cyou are worthless,\u201d \u201cyou are stupid,\u201d \u201cyou are lazy,\u201d \u201cyou\u2019re a failure.\u201d At the end, you\u2019re left in a fetal position believing all of it to be true. And it is perhaps the loneliest disease because even on the good days, when you are connecting with people and feel good, there is the fear that you may plummet into that black hole at any moment, and in the black hole there is only room for one.
\nNobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison wrote this about loneliness:<\/p>\n

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship\u2019s, smoothes and contains the rocker. It\u2019s an inside kind \u2013 wrapped tight like skin. Then there is a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one\u2019s own feet going seems to come from a far-off place.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes Grace exhibits that kind of loneliness that can\u2019t be tempered\u2014like the afternoon she saw a teenager jump from the bleachers of his high school to his death\u2014when her sadness translated to a night of self-destruction with booze, cigarettes, and adulterous sex. But there are also those times, when she crawls into a fetal position on her couch with her dog and cries\u2014feeling the despair and sorrow of the world and grieving with it, open to the possibility of change.
\n\u201cEarl, I\u2019m just curious,\u201d Grace says after she finds out some high-powered LA attorney is coming to town to try to acquit the kid who confessed to killing his girlfriend, \u201cwhat does God ask a person like that when he gets to the pearly gates?\u201d
\n\u201cI reckon he asks him if he ever broke a promise to his nephew . . .\u201d Earl responds, knowing that Grace intends to blow off the confirmation of her Godson.
\nBut in the end she goes. Because buying a fountain of chocolate with marshmallows and strawberries to take to the Confirmation is just enough to rock and cradle her loneliness, possibly turning her eyes away from the darkness and toward the light. For today anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don\u2019t have to be Catholic to appreciate last night\u2019s episode of \u201cSaving Grace,\u201d but it was especially entertaining if you are and have ever been Godparent to a young niece or nephew or a friend\u2019s child. Grace (Holly Hunter) is Godmother to her nephew, which is an especially important job since his mom died…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nSaving Grace: Two Kinds of Loneliness - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saving Grace: Two Kinds of Loneliness - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You don\u2019t have to be Catholic to appreciate last night\u2019s episode of \u201cSaving Grace,\u201d but it was especially entertaining if you are and have ever been Godparent to a young niece or nephew or a friend\u2019s child. Grace (Holly Hunter) is Godmother to her nephew, which is an especially important job since his mom died…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-18T09:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/revised%20grace.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Saving Grace: Two Kinds of Loneliness - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Saving Grace: Two Kinds of Loneliness - Beyond Blue","og_description":"You don\u2019t have to be Catholic to appreciate last night\u2019s episode of \u201cSaving Grace,\u201d but it was especially entertaining if you are and have ever been Godparent to a young niece or nephew or a friend\u2019s child. Grace (Holly Hunter) is Godmother to her nephew, which is an especially important job since his mom died…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2007-12-18T09:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/revised%20grace.jpg"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html","name":"Saving Grace: Two Kinds of Loneliness - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/revised%20grace.jpg","datePublished":"2007-12-18T09:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-18T09:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/revised%20grace.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/revised%20grace.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/12\/saving-grace-two-kinds-of-lone.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Saving Grace: Two Kinds of Loneliness"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. 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