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
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