A spirituality of imperfection...

Here is a distilled summary of what I sense next week's message will address: falling upward.  One of the paradoxical truths that all mystics affirm is that we cannot be filled until we are made empty - and NOBODY chooses to be emptied all by themselves. We are too stubborn, too arrogant and too busy for this to happen all by itself.  Fr. Richard Rohr puts it like this:

Some have called this principle of going down to go up a “spirituality of imperfection” or “the way of the wound.” It has been affirmed in Christianity by St. Thérèse of Lisieux as her Little Way, by St. Francis as the way of poverty and by Alcoholics Anonymous as the necessary First Step. St. Paul taught this unwelcome message with his enigmatic “It is when I am weak that I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Of course, in saying that, he was merely building on what he called the “folly” of the crucifixion of Jesus—a tragic and absurd dying that became resurrection itself.

You will not know for sure that this message is true until you are on the “up” side. You will never imagine it to be true until you have gone through the “down” yourself and come out on the other side in larger form. You must be pressured from on high, by fate, circumstance, love or God, because nothing in you wants to believe it or wants to go through it.

Falling upward is a secret of the soul, known not by thinking about it or proving it but only by risking it—at least once. And by allowing yourself to be led—at least once. Those who have allowed it know it is true, but only after the fact.

This is the humbling truth that we can almost never know just by ourselves. We want to believe we are the exception to the rule.  We actually sense that all wounds can be healed. We truly affirm that we are in control.  Until, of course, we aren't - and THEN we start to get it.  The poet, Scott Carins, puts it like this in an early poem:

The thing to remember is how

tentative all of this really is.

You could wake up dead.

Or the woman you love

could decide you're ugly.

Maybe she'll finally give up

trying to ignore the way

you floss your teeth as you

watch television.  All I'm saying

is that there are no sure things here.

I mean, you'll probably wake up alive,

and she'll probably keep putting off 

any actual decision about your looks.

Could be she'll be glad y our teeth

are so clean. The morning might be

full of all the love and kindness

you need. Just don't go thinking

you deserve any of it.

Such is the wisdom of the second half of life's journey, yes?  Another poet, Shelia Banani, put it like this in "Life's Rainbow."

Beginnings are lacquer red

   fired hard in the kiln

   of hot hope;

Middles, copper yellow

   in the sunshine,

   sometimes oxidize green

   with tears; but

Endings are always indigo

   before we step

   on the other shore.

Only in my weakness can I be strong - only in my emptiness can I be filled - only in tender mercies can grace be nourished.