{"id":10556,"date":"2022-10-22T02:12:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T02:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10556"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:48","slug":"there-but-for-the-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10556","title":{"rendered":"THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“There but for the grace of God go I.”<\/p>\n\n\n

I don’t remember the first time I heard this quote as a kid, but I do recall that it tied my brains in knots for years.<\/p>\n\n\n

It impressed me as a sentence holding profound meaning (I was right!), but I couldn’t tease it out. I guess my brain could not untangle the twisted syntax.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

That inversion of sentence order, though, was the very thing that made the sentence sticky. It came to mind often.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

I don’t know how old I was when the light finally came on, but when I finally “got it”, I not only understood the sentiment – the truth it revealed burrowed deep into my heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

This is why I can’t walk away after meeting a woman like this …<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

… And just forget about her. Or feel no responsibility to help her.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

She is a farmer and she is standing in her field. Can you feel how difficult her life is? I don’t think you or I could guess the half of it.<\/p>\n\n\n

Do I bear no obligation to her?<\/p>\n\n\n

What if she were my mother?<\/p>\n\n\n

My sister?<\/p>\n\n\n

My wife?<\/p>\n\n\n

Or what if I were her?<\/p>\n\n\n

There but for the grace of God go I.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“There but for the grace of God go I.” I don’t remember the first time I heard this quote as a kid, but I do recall that it tied my brains in knots for years. It impressed me as a sentence holding profound meaning (I was right!), but I couldn’t tease it out. I guess […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10558,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10556\/revisions\/10558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}