“The Spirituality of Imperfection”
A Sermon by Rev. Megan Lynes
Delivered on Sunday, January 30, 2011
At The First Parish in Bedford, Massachusetts
Reading
The Imperfectionist
Forrest Church
The reason I’ve been able to produce
so much is that I’m not a perfectionist
– I’m an imperfectionist.
I’m confident that everything I say
can be improved upon by others,
and that’s my great strength,
because I know that it won’t been improved upon by others
unless I take the first step.
When we only do things which please us,
or don’t frighten us,
after a while fewer and fewer things please us.
Over time, our circle of options diminishes
until we are prisoners in gardens of our own making.
The more decisions you make in your life,
the more times you act,
the more certain it is that you will be wrong.
To be fulfilled we need to recognize,
all of us,
that the world doesn’t owe us a living
– rather we owe the world a living.
And in the brief time that is given us,
we must somehow learn to give ourselves away.
Sermon
This is a hat I made. It’s actually the only hat I’ve ever made. It’s lopsided. I had to sew the ribbing of it to itself because it had started to flail out like a flying saucer. I definitely didn’t follow the pattern right. Actually I made up the pattern, and then changed it a few times, probably within the same row.
It’s perfectly imperfect. There is absolutely nothing I’d change about it. I’ll tell you why.
I was on a long train ride from Shanghai to Beijing, where I lived for a year when I was 20. I’d gotten on the train by accident because I hadn’t understood that a cheaper ticket meant that I was on the “slow train” which stopped at absolutely every stop along the way. So instead of a 12-hour ride or so, I was on a 23-hour ride. I was frustrated at myself for my error. It was crowded. And all I had was my knitting, no book, and I wasn’t good at knitting. I admit, I like to be good at what I’m doing. I was glowering. My elbows were practically poking the elderly woman on my right, though I think she found that funny. I had the feeling that the woman across from me, who’s knees were touching mine, was correcting my stitches in her mind. Finally, unable to sit still anymore, I got up to find the bathroom, leaving my knitting on my seat to mark that the seat wasn’t empty.
When I came back a short while later, I was astonished to find one of the ladies in our booth, intently knitting my hat! She’d clearly observed my pattern, for what it was, and was following along exactly. A whole new section was complete!! She’d even fixed a few of my most recent mistakes! What was she doing?! My hat! How could she take over my project? I didn’t know this lady, and to add to it all, she was really showing me up, surpassing any speed I’d ever witnessed before.
Upon seeing my face, she grinned. Handing back my hat, she said simply, “I helped.” It took a good while in conversation for me to understand how to see her effort from a new perspective. In her life experience, people who could afford it, bought new machine-made clothes. Only those who couldn’t afford new clothes or who lived far from the cities, knitted or sewed their clothes at home. Seen in that light, a half knitted hat was simply a project to be completed. One worker helping another. These women were farmers, and they knew the value of sharing a day’s work. Whereas, my mindset was on doing a challenging thing well, creating a hat as near to perfect as I could make it. Asking for help along the way would have highlighted my own lack of ability (heaven forbid!). My mindset wasn’t wrong, just limiting.
My companion, or to use a word out of communist China, my “Comrade” (tongzhi) had her mind on collaboration, getting the work done together, and being helpful to someone in need. She wasn’t doing it to make any sort of point or show off. She was just helping. It was good to suddenly see myself as someone in need, a person of comparable privilege and lucky life circumstances. How good it was to remember that we are all in need, each in our own ways, almost all the time. None of us is perfect and we all need help. With my new mindset, one which allowed in her caring, I could let my guard down, and stop trying so hard. I smiled back and offered some of my roasted nuts, and together we watched the hillsides passing by, simply enjoying our knitting and snoozing on each other’s shoulders. This hat, especially these two stripes right here, remind me that imperfection is perfectly fine.
When I chose the topic of perfectionism a few weeks ago, I did so because John had just reminded me that the best sermons come from our own struggles or places of unknowing. So I stand before you now, saying I am not an expert on perfectionism, or how to rid one’s self of it. I myself would very much like to become, as the late Forrest Church suggested, a proud “imperfectionist.” I love the idea that we do our best, and our efforts are far from perfect, and then others add to this beginning. It’s a humbling thought, that our very mediocrity allows others creative room.
Are you an imperfectionist? What do you strive for? Do you have passions you keep at bay because you feel they aren’t up to snuff? Or are you able to do what you love, and in turn bless the world?
For 35 years Paul Cézanne lived in obscurity, producing masterpieces that he gave away to unsuspecting neighbors. So great was his love for his work that he never gave thought to achieving recognition, nor did he suspect that someday he would be looked upon as the father of modern painting.
Cézanne owes his first name to a Paris dealer who chanced upon his paintings, put some of them together, and presented the world of art with the first Cézanne exhibition. The world was astonished to discover the presence of a master.
The master was just as astonished. Shortly after the exhibition opened, Cézanne, arrived at the gallery leaning on the arm of his son, could not contain his amazement when he saw his paintings on display. Turning to his son he exclaimed, “look, they have framed them!”[1]
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that to aim for perfection is useful on occasion. Great things have occurred because of strategic excellence. If we’re talking about getting a computer program right so that it can map the inner workings of a human brain, then it matters. If we’re talking about millionths of a degree when aiming a telescope to look at a distant star, then it matters. But in so many of our human endeavors, it is almost impossible to be perfect.
Sometimes our society focuses on perfection to such an extent that we end up with a skewed image of what’s possible or what goals we should set, and we become hard on ourselves or others. I am thinking of the teens I know of who long for perfect grades, excellence in sports achievements or a certain kind of physique. I am thinking of the tiny gymnasts who choose an Olympic career at age seven, never to live at home again. I am thinking of the corporate world my friend described to me the other day, in which managers rank their equally hard working team members by their financial successes and then reward them with unequal bonuses to make them more competitive with one another. The idea that perfection is attainable is confusing, in part because sometimes we do get an A, or a compliment or promotion, and it motivates us further. But in general, aiming to be perfect is both unrealistic and exhausting.
This little story from the Muslim tradition tells it well.
One afternoon, Nasruddin and his friend were sitting in a cafe, drinking tea, and talking about life and love. “How come you never got married, Nasruddin?” asked his friend at one point. “Well,” said Nasruddin, “to tell you the truth, I spent my youth looking for the perfect woman. In Cairo, I met a beautiful and intelligent woman, with eyes like dark olives, but she was unkind. Then in Baghdad, I met a woman who was a wonderful and generous soul, but we had no interests in common. One woman after another would seem just right, but there would always be something missing. Then one day, I met her. She was beautiful, intelligent, generous and kind. We had everything in common. In fact she was perfect.” “Well,” said Nasruddin’s friend, “what happened? Why didn’t you marry her?” Nasruddin sipped his tea reflectively. “Well,” he replied, “it’s a sad thing. Seems she was looking for the perfect man.”[2]
The quest for the unattainable spurs us on, though there are often other goals more interesting, useful and important. Just ask a parent of a kindergartener, or someone mastering daily living with chronic illness – what matters in a day are the smallest of details, the first written word, or the navigation of a wheelchair down a ramp out into the sunshine. The perfect day has an entirely new focus and meaning, perhaps perfection is not even a goal at all… but rather just getting through. Or, like my Chinese companions knitting together, the task at hand is simply the task at hand.
Yet for many of us a perfectionist streak is back against our wills. Again and again in my own life I wrestle my own harsh critic to the ground, telling myself what I’ve done is good enough, that what I will learn from the mistakes will be my greatest learnings, and that no one but me will care as much as I do about getting it just right. Actually, since UU churches typically have no particular spot for confession, I honestly want to know: if you too are your own harshest critic, and you feel comfortable, will you raise your hand? We are not alone. We are not bad. And we are forgiven.
You know, recently we’ve been starting small groups with themes… We have a Caregivers group and a Parents of Teens group. How about an Imperfectionists group?
I decided to unpack the phrase which I believe is often the underlying sentiment behind the Protestant work ethic in America today. Have you heard this somewhere? “Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” It’s from the first century writer (or writers) known as Matthew. The phrase falls at the very end of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount, right after he’s talked about loving one’s enemies. Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.
The meaning of the word “perfect,” in modern times, is to be without any blemish or sin, implying that someone or something is absolutely 100% morally pure.
Yet the Greek word used in Matthew’s gospel is “teleo” which is a word meaning fulfillment, wholeness, completion. It is not a word which means moral perfection.
The Cottonpatch Bible – yes that’s its real name (at least it’s not cabbage patch) – says “be mature as your heavenly father is mature.” The English Bible says, “There must be no limit to your goodness as there is no limit to God’s goodness.” That sounds like the heart of the Universalist message to me! And maturity and goodness are quite different from perfection, at least to my ears.
Now of course, teleo, defined more correctly helps, but still, none of us human beings is fully “accomplished, whole, complete, or fulfilled.” But our Universalist theology would say that this is where the sense of God’s love comes in. No matter how imperfect we are, all souls are eventually brought into harmony with the divine. God’s Grace, in the Universalist view is that, imperfect as we all are, there is Grace enough to go around.
Hosea Ballou, our Universalist forefather, preached that the love of God compels us to want to do good works in gratitude for God’s good grace. I lift this quote from Ballou’s famous work, The Nature of Atonement:
“There is nothing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, that can do away sin, but love; and we have reason to be eternally thankful that love is stronger than death, that many waters cannot quench it, nor the floods drown it; that it hath power to remove the moral maladies of mankind, and to make us free from the law of sin and death, to reconcile us with God, and to wash us pure in the blood, or life, of the everlasting covenant. Oh, love, thou great physician of souls, what a work hast thou undertaken! All soul’s are thy patients; prosperous be thy labours, thou bruiser of the head of carnal mind.”
I think the Universalists had it right. We are lovable despite our imperfections. This is the root of our weekly offering message; freely we have received, freely we give. Our Universalist ancestors were very strong on good works personally and collectively. That’s why they pushed so hard against slavery and for women’s rights, prisoner rights, and temperance, because they believed that God loved them and did not demand perfection but effort.
Napoleon Lovely, who is said to have served this church briefly, said:
“Though our knowledge is incomplete, our truth partial and our love imperfect, we believe that new light is ever waiting to break through individual hearts and minds to enlighten the ways of women and men, that there is mutual strength in willing cooperation and that the bonds of love keep open the gates of freedom.”
It is this grounding that gives us the confidence to organize our religious life not around a quest for perfection, but around an open covenant, a mutual promise freely entered into of mutual support. And the commitments we affirm in that covenant become a way that we imagine and set in motion, inspiring ourselves and one another even at the times when we fall short in our day-to-day lives.
We live as spiritual imperfectionists in community because we see that our good work, our fulfilling work, it is work we cannot do alone. However brilliant and enlightened we may be, we cannot escape our foibles and our blind spots. As Forrest Church puts it, “We need guidance in recognizing our tears in each other’s eyes. We need prompting to raise our moral sights. We need companions in the work of love and justice. . . . And, yes, we choose to join our hands and hearts because we know how easily we slip back into mechanical habits that blunt our consciousness. We need – and know we need – to be reminded week in and week out how precious life is and how fragile.”[3]
This afternoon, our parish will come together for a Special Meeting of the Parish, the outcome of which has little possibility of being “perfect,” for the simple reason that there is no way to please absolutely everyone. This is hard to face. But I think too, that most of us trust one another and recognize the thoroughness of our task forces, committees, our governing Board, and all the input that’s been gathered from all of us along the way. We know how to be civil and be kind, even while speaking our truths. And it is so very clear that we all do want what’s best for the whole, and that imperfection is inevitable while planning for our future together. We are already living out our vision of an inclusive, welcoming community. We do this well, and yet we are a work in progress, always. This day is an important day on a long journey that began long ago and we honor all that has brought us to this day.
Collectively, our good work today matters. And individually, for each of us, I would like to be able to say this about our painting, writing, knitting, living, about our highest ideals: …I’d like to say that we jumped in, and the technique was not perfect, and the angle was off, but that the love of living was embedded in the paint, knitted into the fabric of our lives.
Let us pray, then, that we do not shun the struggle. To be an imperfectionist takes the strength of a community to hold us lovingly, forgiving us when we ourselves cannot, calling us to our highest ideals, but not demanding perfection. May we attend with mindfulness, generosity, and compassion to all that is imperfect in our lives. May we live fully in each flawed and too human moment, and in the end, may we give ourselves away.
Amen.
[1] The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketchum, p. 161.