The Imperfection of Being

One of my favorites quotes by St. Francis of Assisi is that he wanted to be the keyhole through which others saw God. That is an arrogant and also  awe-some pursuit and I am strangely attracted to his quest.  I believe that we all contain the essence of the Divine...whatever that Divine may be.           (I think we all have different names for the same IS-ness.) So, if we are all part Divine, it would not be unreasonable to think that each of us can reveal a bit of the Divine to all we meet.

The problem I have with this strange endeavor is that sometimes the parts of me I reveal to others are not nice parts and are not, I believe, glimpses of God, but instead glimpses of fear and insecurity. I don't want to reveal those parts of me but since I am human and others have eyes and ears, I give my 'not best self' away often. That makes me particularly sad and angry with myself for failing at being my 'best self' and reflecting fear instead of love.


I can hear you thinking something like this right about now:
"None of us are perfect and sometimes we act out of emotions that are not love and compassion. That is what it means to be human."


Yes, that is the sad fact. We cannot always be our best selves. Yet, if we say we want to be the keyhole through which others see God and others are looking at us expecting to see the love of the Divine flowing through us, and we deliver fear and insecurity instead of that compassionate love, that leaves us in a vulnerable spot. It might mean that, seeing our flaws, those around us realize we are far from perfect...which we already knew but hate to have to acknowledge. What is much more at stake for me is the hard realization that I am an imperfect being who has just behaved in a way that I am not proud of. I have a very difficult time not allowing my imperfections to define me.


Nothing is ever as easy as we want to make it out to be. We do not always exhibit love, even if that is what we intend and pray for. Emotions, feelings, insecurities, fear, doubt, and being imperfectly human gets in the way often and shows up in that darned keyhole instead of the glow of love.


What do we do when that happens? How do we treat ourselves? How do we treat those imperfect others?

Can we allow forgiveness and understanding to guide us? How do forgiveness and understanding play out in our lives?

How do we practice forgiveness for ourselves? ( a particularly tough question since we often find it easier to forgive others that we do ourselves.)

Do we have a support system of understanding friends who can help us to see that being imperfect is okay and give us a view of the big picture of our lives when we are tempted to focus on our transgressions?

What resources have we put in place to help us deal with our imperfections in a healthy way instead of turning to things like drugs and alcohol, violence, or self abuse? 

If we believe in a comapssionate Divine, how do we allow that compassion that surely is there for us to permeate the cloak of shame we are tempted to don and wear for far too long?


Peace Be With Us All as we attempt to live out lives of compassion and authentic love.

More Contentment

At the end of last week's blog I said: "In reality, all of us could be without a home or a vehicle or...insert words here...in an instant. There are no guarantees."


I used to work at a church and one of the parts of the job I really enjoyed was answering the door when people came looking for help. In the course of trying to find how best the church could help them, I had many conversations with the seekers. One thing that made an impression on me year after year was that most of the people at the door did not have relationships with friends or family that could sustain them in their time of need. I came to see that homelessness, especially in the case of single individuals, said something not only about the person's ability to find and hold down a paying job but also about the state of their relationships with others.


That brings me to happiness and the second quality of people who are happy.
The happiest people are those who invest in relationships with others.

One must be careful when reading the above statement. Even though happy people generally invest themselves in relationships, we are each responsible for our own happiness. Looking to other people to make us happy does not work. Saying that I must be in a relationship with so-and-so in order to be happy is a slippery slope.


True happiness comes from within and not from others.



Yale University Psychologist June Gruber: “The strongest predictor of happiness is not money, or external recognition through success or fame, it’s having meaningful social relationships. That means the best way to increase your happiness is to stop worrying about being happy and instead divert your energy to nurturing the social bonds you have with other people."



Investing in relationships means spending time with others, giving of yourself to others and allowing them to give back to you. At the heart of investing in relationships is the ability to be open and vulnerable and allow yourself to receive comfort from others.



So find occasions to enjoy and nurture the relationships you already have and also to encourage new friendships. One of the ways you can strengthen your relationships is to do a certain thing together....no....I'm not talking about anything sexual....more about that next time.




In the meantime, here's something else for you to do:

The Oxford Happiness Inventory, developed by psychologists Michael Argyle and Peter Hills at Oxford University in 2001, shows positive correlations for happiness with satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and sociability.

Take the Happiness Inventory for yourself at
http://www.meaningandhappiness.com/oxford-happiness-questionnaire/214/