Chasing after Perfection

 Late 19th / early 20th century author, Christian Morgenstern wrote, "Everything beautiful creates a thirst for even more perfect beauty and perfection."

Here's the thing, Herr Morgenstern - no, it doesn't. At least, it doesn't in me. I think this attitude is one of the traps of our consumerist society - we are never content with what we have. We are always thirsting after "even more".

But it is possible to refuse the bait, to step off the roundabout, to be content with what we already have. Which is beauty in abundance, all around us. Even sitting here in my bedroom, confined with Covid, I can look out of the window and see the beautiful shape of the tree in our garden, silhouetted against a glorious blue sky.

And you know what? That is enough for me. It doesn't make me immediately long for different views, more beauty. I take it into my mind and heart and appreciate the beauty right in front of me.

I believe that perfectionism is an evil which never allows us to be content with the "enough" all around us. I'm a great believer in "good enoughism". I'll do my best (and I do have pretty high standards) BUT once I have done my best, I let it go and submit it, send it (whatever *it* might be) out into the world.

Appreciating what we have and not always striving after elusive perfection is a perfect (ha!) recipe for happiness and contentment. 

Being in Harmony

 The 19th century playwright Oscar Wilde wrote, "Being good means being in harmony with yourself."

My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines 'harmony' as "agreeable effect of apt arrangement of parts" or "sweet or melodious sound". And it defines the adjective 'harmonious as "forming a consistent or orderly or pleasing or agreeable whole; free from dissent or ill-feeling".

Human beings are complex creatures, being possessed of a body, a mind, a heart and a soul. And often these different parts of us are in conflict with one another - perhaps our mind is suggesting one course of action, while our heart is suggesting another. And it is only when we bring the diverse parts of ourselves to the table (so to speak) and listen to all of them in turn, that we will be able to discern what is the right course for us, what is the next right thing for us to do.

This takes practice, and also the understanding that we are made up of all these parts, each of whom has the right to be heard. I was a "walking head" for many years, almost wholly run by my mind. It is only gradually, over the last twenty years, that I have come to understand that my body and my heart also have valid inputs to make and that I should listen to them. And that I have a soul, that of God within me, whose "still, small voice" might be heard if I could clear my monkey mind out of the way, or at least, still it for long enough to hear that elusive voice.

It's about learning to understand what is right for us on the deepest level - what will nourish our hearts and souls, as opposed to making us feel fearful, worried or empty. Of course it is never possible to re-track, to undo the choices we have made in the past, but we can try to be more aware of the choice-making process, of the possibility of harmony. So that we don't compromise all the time, choosing the seemingly easy over the right. Because very often, if we don't listen with all of ourselves, and make a choice in haste, just to get it over with, this will actually lead to more worry and heartache, and a distinct lack of harmony in our lives.

So how can we cultivate this very sane approach to our lives? How can we follow the "breadcrumbs from God" as Wayne Muller so beautifully expresses it in his book, A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough? He tells us that "If our choices feel right and true, if we hold them, listen to them, and act upon them clearly and well each successive moment - regardless how seemingly small or insignificant - we are more likely to feel fruitful and sufficient, moment by moment, choice by choice... We walk moment by moment, leaning into a vigorous reliance upon our heart's knowing and an unshakable faith in our intuitive capacity to listen for and know, what must and what must not be done."

If we can manage to do this, so easy to describe, but sometimes so hard to implement, process, then we will find that our lives will be in harmony with our deepest selves, that we will experience that sweetness.

The Spirit of Liberty

 Each year, I buy a set of 53 postcards from Harenberg Kalender, which comprise a lovely image and an inspirational quote for each week of the year. And, although they couldn't have known it, this week's quotation, by the Renaissance author and philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli,  is most applicable: "The spirit of liberty no violence subdues, no time erases, no gift makes up for."

I am sure that you, like me, have been horrified by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, by the violence which is going on there. My Facebook feed has been filled by reactions to this unjustified invasion of a democratic country. 

It is, perhaps, difficult to imagine what we can do in the face of such armed aggression. We have made a donation to the Red Cross appeal and this weekend I will be going through my wardrobe to sort out some clothing to take to a local collection point.

And, although "no gift makes up for" the loss of liberty, it might help those Ukrainians who have been forced to flee from the violence. 

The point is, we can all make a difference, however small, where we are. I came across a beautiful poem by the American poet, John Roedel, which both embraced his feelings of despair about this terrible war, but also shared some hope. He wrote, "I can't force peace on the world, but I can become a force of peace in the world, because sometimes all it takes is a single lit candle in the darkness to start a movement."

He suggests that "the only thing [we] can do is love the next person [we] encounter without any conditions or strings, to love our neighbor so fearlessly that it starts a ripple that stretches from one horizon to the next."

We may not, as individuals, be able to do much about the situation in Ukraine (although we can of course write to our MPs to ask that Ukrainian refugees will be made welcome here, make donations, take part in vigils and pray for peace, to give just four examples). But I do believe that we can all make a difference to the world in which we live by following Roedel's advice and loving the next person we encounter "without conditions or strings."

Because the power of unconditional love is enormous. If each one of us genuinely tried to love our neighbour, which means each person we meet, and to treat each one with the utmost equity and respect, to see each and every one of them as "unique, precious, a child of God", I believe it will make a positive difference, where we are. And who know where the ripples might end?

A World Within

 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the 18th/19th century German poet, playwright and novelist, wrote, "I return to myself and find a world."

The part of that quotation which fascinates me is "I return to myself." It reminded me how often we are so lost in our minds that we reduce ourselves to walking heads. We walk around unaware of all else that is going on, in our hearts, in our guts, in our bodies and in our souls. And by gut, I mean that part of us that works on intuiton. The part of us that reacts to experiences with physical sensations. That part of us which we so often ignore, but which actually, we should spend a lot more time with, because it can always be trusted.

If we can genuinely "return to myself" (ourselves) and be fully present to the world from every part of us, I believe that we would interact with the rest of the world in a profoundly different way. Because it would surely be easier to see people and events truly and with integrity and compassion when we are present to ourselves as well.

Because everyone and everything is sacred and should be treated with the utmost respect. And I think we can only appreciate that if we are fully present ourselves.

Trust Uplifts the Soul

 The title of this blogpost is a quotation by Jean Jacques Rousseau, the 18th century Genevan philosopher and writer. "Trust uplifts the soul."

And yes, of course it does, but my goodness! It can be hard to trust at times. I have written before about trust and betrayal here. And I wrote, once we feel betrayed, "it can take a lot of time to build up sufficient faith to make the world seem trustable again."

I am naturally a fairly trusting person, but a couple of weeks ago, this trust was betrayed, which resulted in a good friend of mine being defrauded of a lot of money. The banks are now dealing with it and they are going to get their money back, but it has left a nasty taste in my mouth. Was I stupidly naive? Yes, probably. Has my faith in the essential goodness of humankind been shaken? Yes, a little.

But I know that if I am to live in faith, I need to try to trust again. Otherwise, my soul will shrivel in my body and I will turn into a suspicious, armoured-up person who trusts no-one.  I would not be "me" any more. 

And so I am going to take a deep breath and try to put this incident behind me. I have well and truly learned my lesson and will be far more cautious about anything involving money in future. But I will try not to let this unpleasant incident warp my life. 

Salvation in This Life

 This week's quotation is from Psalm 27 of the Hebrew Bible: "The LORD is my light and my salvation: whom shall I fear?"

I have come to interpret the words of Jesus, when he spoke of the Kingdom of God being now, here, literally. In other words, heaven is not something we go to when we die. It is something we do our best to live up to during our lives.

In his reflection Salvation, from Carnival of Lamps, Unitarian minister Cliff Reed reminds us that "to be saved is to live abundantly, following as best we can in the footsteps of the great souls, blessed with courage to take hard roads." I wonder whether salvation is, as he writes, living "free from hatred, vengefulness, and resentment, free from hypocrisy and self-righteousness, free from selfishness, jealousy and greed: To 'take no thought for the morrow', because God's Kingdom is here, now, and we are called to enter it today, as living souls in living bodies - not free from mortality, but free from its dread."

I believe that if we live the best lives we can, striving to do the best that we can, for ourselves and others, using the gifts we have been given, we are already on the road to salvation. This is not to say we can pull ourselves up by our own boot straps, as the saying goes, but that through the grace of the Divine, here, now, we can make a positive difference in the world. 

Unitarian Universalist, Jay Abernathy, wrote, "We are all blessings to this world. Our work of building bridges of connection by finding and naming and affirming those blessings we are is the work of nurturing our spirits and healing our world."

May it be so.

 

The Nature of Time

 The 17th century French dramatist, Pierre Corneille, once wrote, "Time is a great master, it orders many things."

Hm. I'm not sure about that. In one sense, time is a human construct - or at least the way we measure it is. It is human beings who have divided each day into 24 hours, each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds. I understand that this obsession with what the exact time is, is a relatively recent human thing - it came in with the Industrial Revolution. Before then, most people rose with the sun and retired to bed when it set. And measured time by the movement of the sun in the sky.

But in another sense, time is beyond all human control. It just is. We move through time at a constant rate and have no ability to pause it, or skip over it. We can only live through it, one day, one hour, one minute, one second at a time. And that can be easy, or it can be the hardest thing in the world. Sometimes, something happens which changes our lives forever, and we look back and realise that our world has been divided into Before and After. For Christians, this was the death and resurrection of Jesus. Another, more contemporary example, is the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. For an individual, it might be the birth of a child, or the death of a loved one, or any other "life-changing" event. Before it happened, we were different people to who we are now. 

In that sense, I guess, time is "a great master".  

The way in which season follows season is something else over which we have no control - Spring will follow Winter, then Summer, then Autumn. Although in this age of global warming, the start of each individual season may happen earlier or later than we expect.

Our perceptions of time passing can vary greatly. I'm sure many of us will be familiar of occasions when time has simply "flown by" and others in which it has "crawled". Another sign that we have no control over it. I have posted about this odd flexibility in our perceptions here,  But this at least, is something over which we do have some control - our own perceptions of how time is passing. If we can strive to be aware of each moment as it passes, or at least remember that time passes at a constant rate, we can change our perception of *how* it is passing for us, at that given time. Or so I believe.