Imperfection

“There is a kind of beauty in imperfection,” wrote Conrad Hall, in a counter-culture quote.

Media mostly indicates otherwise. Years ago I saw an article headlined in a beauty magazine conveying that being slender was no longer enough, that looking good “in the buff” was the new ideal.  The teeth whitening craze suggests that straight teeth aren’t sufficient.  A nice smile is not enough.  Shiny white is the new benchmark. 

Why do we fall for this malarkey? I am as guilty as anyone of succumbing to this.  My right eye is set back farther in my head than my left one.  My right ear is lower on my skull than left ear.  My bottom teeth are crooked as the result of refusing to continue to wear my retainer after I had completed wearing braces.  I have a scar in my left eyebrow from an accident when I participated in that “verboten” activity of running in church when I was 10.  I have lost track of how many scars I have from multiple surgeries. I am capable of giving enormous focus to my weight, my hair, my loss of height due to osteoporosis.  Not all these things bother me.  None of them keep me up at night.  But I am aware of them. 

What gives me pause is the realization that this kind of focus totally skews one’s priorities.  If I wanted to pay attention to physical imperfections, the one that should concern me most is my heart murmur. In itself it is not a terrible thing.  People live with much worse. But over the years it impacted  my self-image,  creating feelings of incompetence, inadequacy, a sense of being defective. I didn’t know for a long time that there was a cause for my tiring easily, for other kids being able to remain active long after I had to quit.   Once a young woman came in for therapy and as soon as she walked in, I thought “This woman has a heart murmur.”  Sure enough, as I gathered some personal history from her, she reported she had a heart murmur.  How did I know that? Because I recognized something that she conveyed in her presence that I have experienced within myself. 

Even so, I am aware that my time and energies are better spent on cultivating those inner qualities I hope to continue to develop all my life, characteristics that have nothing to do with my body:  kindness, generosity, a loving and forgiving spirit, courage, persistence, integrity. 

Eugene Kennedy shared this powerful sentiment that puts this in perspective: “There would be no need for love if perfection were possible.  Love arises from imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement…”

Welcome to the human race, folks!

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  Early in my pursuit of ministry, I was given the book The Spirituality of Imperfection.  The author, Ernest Kurtz, had worked with alcoholics, folks who suffer from a range of feelings that lend themselves to feeling inadequate, defeated, imperfect. “Once we accept the common denominator of our own imperfection,” he wrote, “once we begin to put into practice the belief that imperfection is the reality we have most in common with all other people, then the defenses that deceive us begin to fall away, and we can begin to see ourselves and others as we all really are.”