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Perfectly Human

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Kamloops

Reading

Story – cracked pot – précis

- old Chinese woman – daily walked to the well – carried two pots on a pole over her shoulder – one had a crack – arrived with 1 ½ pots full of water

The cracked pot was ashamed of itself. It knew that for years, the woman had only been able to deliver a partial supply of water, because this pot was broken. The other pot, the uncracked one, was proud of its ability to carry water.

The woman, though, said to the cracked pot – have you noticed that along the pathway, on your side only, there are flowers growing? You have been watering seeds and plants all this time. You have been creating beauty out of your brokenness. On the other side of the path, where the perfect pot is – no flowers.

SERMON – Perfectly Human

Our theme this month is the Practice of Forgiveness. It is a subject that is often approached from a secular psychological angle. But of course, there is also a spiritual or religious perspective. Religiously, forgiveness is central to Christianity and Buddhism, and certainly finds its place in Judaism, Islam and Hinduism. As Unitarian Universalists, we draw on our Judeo-Christian heritage, and many other sources of wisdom. Our religious grounding for a practice of forgiveness connects, for example, to our first principle (inherent worth and dignity), as well as Justice and equity, compassion in human relations. Rev. Katie Stein Sather led a service two weeks ago in which she spoke of our Universalist forebear, Hosea Ballou. Last week’s meditation service also addressed forgiveness.

Today I look at some of the ways we encounter opportunities for forgiveness in our ordinary day-to-day lives.

Rev. Jane Rzepka offers some “statistics” – this list of perfectly human characteristics.[1]

Out of every hundred people,

  • Those who always know better: 52
  • Unsure of every step: almost all the rest
  • Ready to help, if it doesn’t take long: 49 …
  • Able to admire without envy: 18 …
  • Those not to be messed with: four-and-forty
  • Living in constant fear of someone or something: 77
  • Capable of happiness: twenty-some-odd at most
  • Harmless alone, turning savage in crowds: more than half, for sure.
  • Cruel when forced by circumstances: it’s better not to know, not even approximately …
  • Balled up in pain and without a flashlight in the dark: 83, sooner or later
  • Those who are just: quite a few, 35
  • But if it takes effort to understand: 3
  • Worthy of empathy: 99
  • Mortal: 100 out of 100 – a figure that has never varied yet.

We are imperfect but we are too often intolerant of imperfection

Why do we even Want perfection?

Maybe it helps to take a step back to look at it.

We are seduced into an expectation that Perfect is attainable, by advertising and the common culture around us. It encourages people to compare themselves to an impossibly perfect image – remembering that “perfect” is not the same as “excellent”. Think about all these arenas of life:

  • Housekeeping
  • Clothing or fashion
  • Fitness levels, healthy diets, every week we read about new ways to perfect our bodies. (I imagine you have noticed, as have I, that our aging bodies are considerably less perfectable than they once were!)
  • Stuff to own – cars, interior decorating, refrigerators … always an “improvement” on the last one – ironically, even the search for the Perfect outdoor gear, which is supposed to support our connections with nature, draws us farther into an anti-Nature consumerism gone mad
  • Spiritual depth (my guru is better than your guru, one form of yoga, meditation, etc. competes with another, or we are offered indirect invitations to become closer to perfect, somehow …)

How can we accept and forgive ourselves for being not as good as what is shown to us? For not being PERFECT?

There is a difference between perfection and excellence. Perfectionism has to do with unrealistic images and expectations. It has to do with oppressive ideals and demands.

Excellence is willing to be wrong. Perfection is being right.

Excellence is risk. Perfection is fear.

Excellence is powerful. Perfection is anger and frustration.

Excellence is spontaneous. Perfection is control.

Excellence allows for forgiveness.

Other people are also imperfect

What do we do with THAT truth?

Take, for example, any group of two or more people – even this one!

  • Sometimes we find it difficult to get along with one another.
  • Can we forgive one another? Day to day forgiveness – in a marriage, there are lots of opportunities – daily in fact, to practise letting go of that expectation of perfect connection.
  • I’m learning to move on from that place, and forgive him for doing things differently from me, and forgive myself for being cranky with him about his difference.
  • Example: someone snaps at you, disrupts your sense of harmony, shakes up your peacefulness, your connection with the community – can you speak to him/her about the incident, and then let it go? Or must you carry your burden of pain and anxiety, or leave the group?
  • On our best days, the usual process around here is to be forgiving of minor incidents, imperfections – to simply say “oh, that’s just Dennis, or Wendy, or Judy, or Mitch …”

Finding Balance – When is the transgression something you can live with, and when is it beyond that? What is the most healing response in the moment?

We know that in each of us and in every situation, as Leonard Cohen sings -

There is Crack in everything, it’s how the light gets in.

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”

Can we forgive ourselves and each other for our mis-steps? Can we take the risk of staying present, staying in the relationship, instead of running away, - and maybe in staying, being forgiven for our mistakes? Can we look for the light that comes in through the cracks, or the water that drips out and nourishes?

It’s all about relationships.

Forgiveness & past vs. future

“Forgiveness … means giving up all hope of having a better past. … Forgiveness is always a choice.” [2]

Consequences of not forgiving – freedom vs. prison

Resentment is its own prison. Like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Free yourself from that prison.

Nelson Mandela, when he was finally released from prison, felt all the anger welling up again. He told himself, they already had taken 27 years of his life. He wasn’t going to give them the rest, so he had to let it go.

What gets in our way of forgiveness?

We give power to minutiae, to unimportant or unchangeable things

What barriers to love or forgiveness have you built within yourself?

Katie Stein Sather told the story of the Grudges that people carry in Grudgeville.

Confessing our brokenness, though, seems to be hard for us.

  • It is difficult to admit to being wrong. Requires humility
  • Humility and perfection are not bedfellows
  • People don’t generally rush to expose our vulnerability and our sins / errors / mistakes / wrongs

My self-talk sometimes goes like this:

  • What if someone sees my imperfections? I want to hide or control what you see of me. Self-forgiveness. Forgiveness of you for seeing me as I am. Loving you for seeing me as I am, and still hanging around. I don’t mind YOUR imperfections, just my own. And only if I’m afraid you will leave me, when you discover them. And by leave me, I mean also condemn, judge me.

To ASK for or OFFER forgiveness can be risky for everyone –

  • For the asker (perp), the risk is that s/he is rejected
  • For the person who wants to offer forgiveness, the culprit might be arrogant, not ready or willing to apologize and ask to be forgiven.

Excellence is accepting. Perfection is judgment.

Excellence is confidence. Perfection is doubt.

Excellence is flowing. Perfection is pressure.

Excellence is journey. Perfection is destination. (Author unknown)

What about UUFK?

When we fall in love, we are willing to overlook all kinds of imperfections. In fact, we are maybe even Blind to another’s faults. That lasts for a while, and then … well, you know the rest.

There is a phenomenon that sometimes happens, where a person “finds” a UU congregation, and is so delighted with it that they put it up on a pedestal as being absolutely the best thing ever invented. That lasts for a short while. Gradually, of course, the pedestal, or the sand beneath it, begins to erode.

That’s when it gets more difficult – do I stay or do I go? This place isn’t nearly as wonderful as it pretended to be - and it must have been pretending, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been fooled by it. It is just as corrupt, hypocritical, cranky, or otherwise imperfect as other groups – how dare it declare itself to be perfect? I’m leaving.

  • OR – Hmm, this is a group of people just like any other group of people, all of whom are human beings, mostly trying to be good, sometimes succeeding really well, making do with what they have, working on their own goodness … Can I still find a place for myself here? Can I live with it and still feel fed?

Forgiveness is not just a single act. It’s a way of life, a daily practice.

A person I once was, wrote this:

“In a way, forgiveness is giving up. Surrendering. That is what is so meaningful, so moving, and so difficult.

I give up. You are not the perfect person I wanted you to be, and I have no control over that. I can be angry with you all I want, but it does not satisfy my deeper longing for connection. And so, I give up. I surrender. I give the whole thing to God, or to the heavens, or to the universe. I give up.

I cannot undo what has been done. I am not surrendering to you, and your power. I am not giving up on things in despair and going into a depression. I am giving up my unrealistic expectations; I am giving up my attempts to control what cannot be controlled. That’s how I am able to forgive.

I forgive you. And I will go on with you as my partner, my friend, my colleague. More real, more open, less defended.”

Forgiving is deciding it is no longer useful, necessary, or healthy to hold onto being right, wrong, injured, angry, self-righteous, fearful … It is to surrender to something larger, a higher power, or the enormity of life itself. It’s letting go of resistance.

Healing comes through befriending self and other, in our wholeness. Like in the hymn – Words that we hold tight – “show us, o spirit, how to befriend, … show us forgiveness that we may live.”

The question we need always to be asking ourselves is: where does healing lie, in our relationships?

There is a song we once sang in this building: it speaks to our common humanity, and our ultimate interconnectedness. The words in their entirety are:

“Who are you who stands here before me? I am you in another form.”

May we never forget this truth.

[1]By Wislawa Szymborska, translated by Joanna Trzeciak, exerpted from The Atlantic Monthly, May 1997, as seen in CLF by Jane Rzepka, date not known.

[2]Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith, Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflict: Stories of transformation and forgiveness p 172