Thought for the Week: Kate McNally makes perfect sense
‘Why are we so reluctant to admire someone who has faults?’
We are told that master carpet weavers purposely introduce an error in their pattern because only God is perfect, and to weave a perfect carpet would be an affront to God.
So much to unpack here. The first thing is the problematic reasoning that says that only God is perfect, and so I have to be sure to be imperfect. This totally ignores the fact that if the first is true the second is not necessary. If only God is perfect, why do I need to be sure to make something imperfect? Could I make something perfectly if I am not God? Presumably not.
So why do we have to go out of our way to make something imperfect? Is there not a kind of hubris, a sort of spiritual showing off that requires us to wear our piety as a shining garment of forced imperfection?
Then there is the question of why God would need for us to be sure to not be perfect. Is God that jealous? It seems to me to be a form of pettiness that is not Godlike at all. We continue to imagine God in human form, with our own imperfections. This means that the God we imagine cannot be perfect after all.
And there is a deeper question. Given that we are created imperfect, what if God sometimes needs for us to be perfect? What if we have the amazing gift of a perfect day, or manage to do one thing perfectly? In the context of our imperfection, one shining example of perfection would be a gift. Why would we intentionally foul it? Why would we want to not accept it? What does
this mean for our relationship with God, with the world?
What happens to perfect people? Do we really know any? Perhaps a better question is what happens to the ones who are most like Jesus, who try to bring the love of God to the world? Several names come to mind, yet none of these were perfect. We hear stories about them that make that clear. Often the response to this is to withdraw respect for them. But why are we so reluctant to admire someone who has faults? What if we could understand that they did amazing work in spite of their imperfections? That even with feet of clay they could practice the commandment that we love one another?
If they could do their work without being perfect, perhaps we can too. I believe that it is our imperfections that force us into relationship with others, which completes us. When my weakness is supplemented by another’s strength, we become complete. To make this happen, we need to accept (even appreciate) our own weaknesses as well as the strengths and weaknesses of others. When we can see how these complement each other we can do things that neither of us could do alone. It’s only when our imperfections are completed by the gifts of others that we become complete. Not I, but we.
It’s time to give up the cult/illusion of perfection, which keeps us from achieving our spiritual potential.
Kate is from Belgium & Luxembourg Meeting.
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