Becoming vulnerable

by Paul Burmeister

So the operational relationship between grace and purity may be stated: as the desire for purity in an operation increases, the opportunity for grace decreases. We observe that grace can grow and persist when an operation does not consciously insist on exclusive (and reductive) triumph or purity. Gracefulness is achieved by becoming vulnerable.

(applied from an 1988 essay by Wendell Berry on the writer's style)