Category: Musings

By: Carolyn Ancell

Flaws, everybody’s got ’em. You can bet your last two dollars.

There ain’t no 10s. All them flaws, The ones you came with, and (the ones that got caused).

We all got flaws. — ‘Flaws,’ song by Alan Jackson, edited

Salvador Dali said, ‘Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.’ Despite the airbrushed 10s on magazine covers, the sports stars breaking records, the artists, scientists and academics carrying imagination and knowledge to new heights, we are human, every one of us flawed.

Jesus said, ‘So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48). He wasn’t meaning that we should, or even could, make ourselves perfect, rather that we might forever strive to improve. And he certainly wasn’t talking about physical perfection.

When I was young, I stressed about my too-curly hair, my crooked teeth, my inability to stand on one foot. Now that I am old, I stress over loss of physical strength, memory glitches, and — still — my inability to stand on one foot. I am flawed.

Should never be ashamed, embarrassed or afraid ‘Cause everyone has something they don’t like.

Remember, we’re all made with water, dirt and grace.

We’re all perfect in the eyes that see. — Jackson Some of our physical, mental or emotional ‘flaws’ are inherited.

Some are caused by aging, injury or illness. Some we cause ourselves by not seeing ourselves as God sees us. We are anxious, we compare ourselves to others, we are self-deprecating, we are impatient with ourselves and others. We are unable or unwilling to see the God-given beauty we do possess, in abundance.

Only God is perfect. We are flawed. But therein — potentially — lies our perfection.

All those beautiful flaws Staring back at me Every scar … makes me a masterpiece. — ‘Flaws,’ song by Lily

Meola

Rather than obsessing over perfection, artists and architects of our medieval past, and some present cultural communities, do not find a work complete until it contains a flaw.

‘Medieval masons believed that only God could be perfect, or create perfection, and though cathedrals were built to glorify God, they were built by people, so they must contain flaws. They built their humanity into the building, in the form of human mistakes, to remind them of the power of God,’ said Jay Hulme, writer and poet.

That God is perfect and humans are not is also a principle in Islamic architecture. The beautifully decorated vaulted ceilings of many mosques in the Arab world appear symmetric but have minor intentional irregularities imperceptible to most visitors.

Since the 16th century, influenced by the Zen Buddhist principle of wabi-sabi, Japanese artists have created deliberate imperfections in their art. Wabi indicates the imperfection, impermanence and incompleteness of beauty itself. Sabi reflects the beauty of things as they age, like the patina on old metal. How might we apply wabi-sabi to ourselves?

In Japan, we also find kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the cracks and flaws with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum, making the bowl or pot more beautiful in its broken state than it was when it was whole.

Applying kintsugi to ourselves, we might ask: Do we fill our imperfections, our incompleteness, our cracks and flaws with the gold of God’s ever-creative Spirit? If we observe what we define as a flaw in another, do we fill it with judgment, disapproval and disdain, or with the gold of God’s unconditional love? If we sense cracks in the perfection in the world around us, do we fill those
cracks with criticism, and divisive thoughts and words that make the cracks larger; or do we fill the cracks with the shimmering gold of our active contributions, and encouraging thoughts and words? So, yes, we are flawed. Let our flaws be divine opportunities. Let us celebrate our flaws, and open them to the gold.

Oh that’s flawless, isn’t it? — Jackson

Carolyn Ancell

Carolyn Ancell, a writer, therapeutic harpist and interfaith minister, lives in Sun City Oro Valley with her
husband, Ron

Courtey of the Arizona Daily Star

Copyright © 2023 Arizona Daily Star

There is this judge, Jesus says, who has neither decency nor conscience, a corrupt public official interested only in his own advantage. A widow appears in his courtroom. She is a poor and powerless woman, somebody not noticed by the movers and shakers in her town. She has no money to bribe this crooked judge; she cannot afford a lawyer to speak up for her. So she speaks up for herself: “Defend me from my adversary! Defend me from my adversary! “Defend me…” To spare himself of further annoyance, he grants her justice.

Jesus tells us this story to encourage us to continue in prayer and not to lose heart. But what is the point? Is the unscrupulous judge, who does justice to spare himself annoyance, a portrait of God? Though that is how some people look at the practice of prayer, that is not the message of this story.

Some people paint a picture of God as an unscrupulous judge or petty bureaucrat or an arbitrary boss…or an abusive parent. With such a picture before them, it is startling that they ever pray at all. God is not like that! Instead, the Lord is the author of all justice and compassion.

Many people have trouble with prayer or even give up the practice. The primary effect of prayers is not on God, but on us. God’s love is already unconditional; his justice perfect; his compassion without limit. He recognizes our needs even before we do. It is not God who needs to change, it is up to us to get in line with God’s program and prayer is a large part of how that comes about.

Prayer is our declaration that we do not want to be a closed universe, dependent only on ourselves and our own solutions. Prayer is our desire to be open to God.

In our prayer, the Holy Spirit speaks in the voice of the poor widow who demanded justice from the unscrupulous judge. The miracle of prayer is that the judge’s resistance breaks down and for once he does what is right and may even do so again in the future.

That widow would not have succeeded that she not been persistent, confident, and unconcerned with what others thought of her. She had what is known in Yiddish as chutzpah. Our prayers need to have chutzpah! Not because God is deaf, but because opening our hearts to God is no easy matter.

There are things in each of us that can keep God out. Self interest is not the only obstacle. Attitudes of mind may keep the door shut and bolted. We may doubt that God hears us. We may consider ourselves unworthy. We may think God has better and more worthy things to do… These attitudes can be driven out by persistent prayer. Just like the voice of the widow who refuses to take no for an answer.

There is a wonderful story about a girl who watched a holy man praying at the riverbank. Once that man had finished his prayer, the girl approached him and asked, “Will you teach me to pray?” The holy man studied the girl’s face and agreed to her request. He took her into the river. The holy man instructed her to lean over, so her face was close to the water. The girl did as she was told.

Then the holy man pushed her whole head under the water. Soon the girl struggled to free herself in order to breathe. Once she got her breath back she gasped, “Why did you do push and hold me under water?” The holy man said, “I gave you your first lesson.” “What do you mean?” asked the astonished girl. He answered, “When you long to pray as much as you long to breathe, then I will be able to teach you how to pray.”

May each of us long to pray, and learn to pray, and persist in our pray. Not so we can change God, but so that God can change us to enjoy the fullness of life that he intends for us.

AMEN

The Reverend Brian Couvillion, October 20, 2019

The common view is we are donkeys pulling a cart. There is a driver behind us, holding a stick and waving a carrot before us. We are trying to avoid the stick, and reach for the carrot. The driver is God, whom we cannot see because He is behind us and we wear blinders, holds and controls the stick, Hell and judgment, and waves the carrot, Heaven, before us. The cart, God’s Plan, is the task we move to some completion.

Change your view. You, we, I are not separate from God’s plan, and are not separate from God. We are NOT God, but IN God, indivisible from God, for without God we would not be. In this view (if you must hold on to the analogy), the cart, driver, and donkey are one. There is no need for a carrot or a stick, because we are a unit, an entity.

The cart, driver, donkey, stick, and carrot have, through the ages, been our world view. It’s expressed in the Bible, but now we can better understand, by experience, Creation, God, and ourselves. We are not alone, separate, burdened, fearing punishment, hoping for blessing. We are, well, not exactly a team, but a whole. And as such we are Whole.

You can go through life with the cart and donkey world view, if you find it difficult to leave that theology behind. I just suggest you try a new view, maybe a better picture (Not by any means totally accurate, but evolving), until we grow more.