Real and Imperfect

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, Brian Johnson, divine nature, forgive, imperfection, perfect, perspective, real world, Richard Rohr, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

At this moment we’re closing in on what looks to me personally at some moments like an entire month of wasted time. I wake up each morning and gradually a plan for the day emerges in my mind. As I ready for sleep each night, looking back on the day, I ask myself what I have accomplished and can rarely come up with anything more than a zoom call or two in which I have participated. It’s hard not to be disappointed in myself.

This morning I had the good fortune to read two things that assuaged my conscience and shifted my perspective. Speaking of life and how we live it, Brian Johnson (optimize.me) quoted Richard Rohr – one of his new heroes. Father Richard says the following: “A ‘perfect’ person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.” Great insight! My favorite line is elsewhere in the text, however, where he writes: “What a clever place for God to hide holiness.”

Alan Cohen, in his book, A Deep Breath of Life, was talking about “the real world” and our participation in it. Although he didn’t speak of perfection directly, he wrote a lovely paragraph that I saw as related. As he sees it: “The real world is a world of kindness, caring, vision, and service. All these qualities are attributes of our divine nature. As children of God, we can only be what God is, and that is everything that is good. We are born of light, and we return to the light. To live in light is to live in the real world.”

So here’s the message that has been renewed in my consciousness once again: Who we are is much more important than what we do. So regardless of how many or how few tasks are crossed off on my ever-present lists, I can be satisfied in this time-out-of-time to be living an imperfect real life!

The Blame Game

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Adam and Eve, blame, forbidden fruit, God, love, perfect, shame, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

It takes courage sometimes to own up to our faults and failings and some of us have a more difficult time than others in doing so. “Why is that?” I asked myself this morning as I read the passage from Genesis 3 where God asks Adam and Eve who told them they were naked. If that wasn’t enough, God also admits to knowing they ate the forbidden fruit. “The woman made me do it,” Adam says. “The serpent made me to it,” Eve chimes in. It seems there’s always someone around – or some circumstance – that’s a logical place to put the blame. But why not just admit that we are not perfect?

Think about it. The God that created all the universes that ever were or will be deigned to create each one of us uniquely. Even our fingerprints are different from everyone else’s. There must be enough forgiveness in the world for each of us to receive what we need when we make mistakes or even do terrible things. (If you are reading this, you probably don’t belong in the “most wicked” category.) Why are we so afraid of imperfection? 

We have been taught to be ashamed of our bodies as well as of our bad habits. We didn’t come in that way. Think of the babies that you know or that you see on television commercials. They are delighted with everything. When does the blaming start? And why? God “knows the number of the stars and calls us each by name.” How can we doubt that kind of care? It seems today must be a day for a sign on our mirrors to read while brushing our teeth or our hair if we still have any. (Did you know that baldness is “in” these days?)

The sign should say “I am a marvelous creature of God” or “God loves me just as I am and so should you!” Or make up your own declaration – the bolder the better. Trust me; the world will benefit from our efforts and from any smiles that result from this practice.

Going the Distance

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anger, eclipse, follow, go the distance, gossip, Lazarus, let go, love, Martha, Mary, Matthew, perfect, sin, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I am sometimes awed at how much can be packed into a few verses of Scripture. What I mean is more likely where my mind and heart go after reading a short section, like today’s gospel about the rich young man who couldn’t quite “go the distance” in surrender. (MT 19:16-22)

Like most of us he claims having kept the commandments as they’re written and as Jesus enumerates them for him. No killing, no adultery, no stealing…easy enough, we might say. A closer examination might see us falling off that wagon though in the small things that lead to those greater sins. What about a burst of anger or joining in on a conversation about someone that might lead to stealing a bit of his or her reputation? And then there’s that last one: Love your neighbor as yourself. That one could be the subject of a very long retreat…

The last section of the text is very disturbing to many people. It’s the two sentences that would send many of us away sad like the rich young man. Jesus says to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” I stop after typing that because it is too difficult to interpret for anyone but myself. Okay, even for myself. I did have two thoughts for consideration though and they are connected.

1. I preached at my mother’s funeral about Mary and Martha because, as she moved deeper and deeper into dementia, I saw my mother let go of everything that seemed important to her in her younger day. In the end, she was like a bright light “sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him” like Mary, the sister of Lazarus, in the gospel. I noted her transformation as a process of letting go that I saw begin at the age of 45 when she had to move away from everything she had known because of my father’s job change. As she tested the waters of this move, she found new friends and new activities that soon allowed her to let go, to dive in and live fully – loving well even into eternity. What I said about her divestment was that she did not necessarily give up all her possessions – but rather that she gave up the need of them as she lived the totality of her life for God.
2. In one of St. Paul’s letters he speaks of his willingness to live whether he is rich or poor, has enough or not, as long as he can “have Christ…”

I think the two are synonymous and instructive in this conversation I’m having with myself. I will think on these things as I drive home today and as I contemplate the darkness of the eclipse that will overshadow the light of afternoon…another symbol, perhaps, of letting go only to welcome the light again as it returns. Stay safe out there, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

Who Are You Really?

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A Deep Breath of Life, affirmation, Alan Cohen, assessment, being, doing, highests self, holy, humility, intention, magnificence, Peace, perfect, purpose, self-effacement, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth

I had a conversation yesterday with a woman who has difficulty seeing herself as others see her, i.e. holy. We spent some time with the difference between “holy” and “perfect” and I was reminded of the definition of humility as truth rather than self-effacement. Tangentially, there is the relative importance of doing vs. being to consider in our assessment of our success as humans.

I smiled this morning when I read Alan Cohen’s thought for the day (A Deep Breath of Life) that ended with an intention and an affirmation – a perfect afterthought from yesterday. He wrote: Let me remember who I really am, that I may be at peace with myself and my purpose. And then (the part that actually made me chuckle): Today I choose to be my highest self and live my magnificence.

May it be so!

Perspective

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abundance, clear, consciousness, just, perception, perfect, precept, psalm 19, right, the law of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, true, trustworthy, understanding, unity, Wisdom School

In reading this morning’s psalm response from the lectionary (PS 19:8-11) I was taken by the refrain (The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart.) Even more interesting, I thought, were the descriptive words in the whole text – adjectives to describe the law of God (perfect, trustworthy, right, clear, true and just) and even more, in the last verse, the analogies. (They are more precious than gold, than a heap of precious gold; sweeter also than syrup or honey from the comb.) I started thinking that the psalmist’s attitude toward law was very mature and developed and wondered which laws, exactly, he was discussing. Then I played with the word precept which would have been an interesting interpolation if I had inverted the r and the first e. I would then be on my way to speaking of perception which I think has a lot to do with our attitudes as well…

Trusting that God’s laws exist for our good and flow from love, I can see why the psalmist described them that way. Would that all earthly laws would show us the same face. Still, I think there is a message here, on this day when I am halfway through a “Wisdom School” event where we are attempting to go to a deep place in consciousness in order to see from a stance of unity and abundance rather than duality and scarcity. Perhaps I might do well to reflect on some precept that I find distasteful or annoying and see if I can, by going to the root purpose of it, have a better and more appreciative understanding and acceptance. While probably not a life-changing process for any major laws of the land, this exercise might prove a worthy practice for seeing things more often in a positive light.

A Higher Law

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covenant, creation, Deuteronomy, God, heart, Israelites, Jesus, letting go, Lord, love, Matthew, perfect, perfection, Sermon on the Mount, soul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Much more comfortable with readings that speak plainly of love than of law, I wasn’t thrilled this morning to see Deuteronomy show up with a first line of “this day the Lord God commands you…” I was pleasantly surprised, however as I read on and heard that the observation of the law was to be not with the mind and will (although that would necessarily be involved) but with “all your heart and all your soul.” The entire section (DT 26:16-19) was based on an agreement that sounded quite mutual, resulting in the Israelites becoming “a people peculiarly his own, as he promised.”

Jesus took this theme and expanded it at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (MT 5:43-48) – an extraordinary section that calls us to love those we would not and sometimes think we could not: our enemies and those who hate us. There is that line at the end that people (including myself) are always trying to translate in a softer way than what we learned as children. It says be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. What dawned on me this morning, however, in putting the two readings together (I really am a slow learner sometimes!) is that the perfection is not the perfection that comes from the mind – working hard at while still resisting internally what the “law” calls for. Rather, Jesus is talking about that law of the covenant in Deuteronomy, that agreement of God with his people that comes from the heart and the soul. That law is not about resisting anything but rather letting go of what holds us back and allowing love to flow through us as God does in the entire creation. The perfection of love is what God already is. It is only in God that we can accept the terms of this law and move toward it each day anew so that, in the end, when we see God “face to face” we will recognize ourselves in God’s eyes the way that God already sees us.