"the posture of grace" by Marilynne Robinson

(Jack is the prodigal son figure in her most recent novel, Home. The narrator is Jack's sister)


“There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding. Her father had said this more than once, in sermons, with appropriate texts, but the real text was Jack, and those to whom he spoke were himself and the row of Boughtons in the front pew, which usually did not include Jack, and then, of course, the congregation. If you forgive, he would say, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace.”

Marilynne Robinson, Home (London: Virago Press, 2008), p. 45.