Spirituality Means Seeing Yourself As You Are

I am currently rereading, The Spirituality of Imperfection (Amazon Link) by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham.  First, because it’s a pretty good book.  But also because I might have skimmed it the first time, and I’m trying to learn what they are saying.  So where better to start than at the beginning.

No One Is Perfect

Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is: There is no one to “blame” for our errors–neither ourselves nor anyone or anything else. Spirituality Helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually accept the imperfection that lies at the core of our human be-ing.

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I have never wanted to see myself as I am.  I had pictures of who I thought I was.  A failure.  A Fat kid.  Lazy.   I also never believed I should make a mistake.  When I did I knew I was a failure and cursed myself for it.  

All those terrible self-thoughts shoved God out of my life.  I lived to be the victim.  I always thought I was in control but I’m not.  I wanted to play God because I thought I could do a better job.  Controlling everyone around me manipulating friends and coworkers.  Inserting myself into situations so I could look like I was the savior for the day.  

I’m Not Who I Thought I Was

The core paradox that underlies spirituality is the haunting sense of incompleteness, of being somehow unfinished, that comes from the reality of living on this earth as part and also as non-part of it.  For to be human is to be incomplete, yet yearn for completion; it is to be uncertain, yet long for certainty; to be imperfect, yet long for perfection; to be broken yet crave wholeness.  All of these yearnings remain necessarily unsatisfied, for perfection, completion, certainty, and wholeness are impossible precisely because we are imperfectly human–or better, because we are perfectly human, which is to say humanly imperfect.

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Through the Grace of God and a new understanding of who I am, I know that is all a lie.  But I spent years blaming my mother, my circumstances, my job, the list goes on; for my screwups.  I hated myself and God helped me finally see that everyone makes mistakes, everyone fails and a failure isn’t the end of the world.  Until I was willing to take advice and let God change me none of that could happen.

I’m not a whole person and that’s okay.  Where I end, God begins today.  I am a good person who has made mistakes.  Today my yearnings are not for wealth or power but for more of God and I never understood that before.  I do understand that I’m not perfect and neither are you, but with God, we can be whole.  God loves us no matter what and all He has ever wanted is a relationship with all of us.