(The Nationalist, 15 July 2005)
Perfectionism is a disease peculiar to our time. It loses the good for the sake of the best. It is never content with what it has but feels compelled to be restless, always in search of something better. This is often driven by advertising and commercial pressure. It’s not enough to have good clothes; they must have the ‘right’ labels, worn on the outside to be seen. Parents spend fortunes buying the latest Man U outfit for their son, ‘to give him street cred’ as one father put it.
But perfectionism goes beyond the commercial into the personal, whether it is the best husband or wife, the perfect marriage and family, the ideal job, the most upmarket place to live in, the best holiday, the best of everything. As a result, people may never know contentment, always living in an imagined better world in the future, unable to enjoy the less-than-perfect present world.
The Christian faith challenges us to say no to the negativity which, on looking at a situation can see only what’s wrong with it; which sees a glass as half-empty, never half-full; the person who looks at a doughnut and sees only the hole in the middle.
It challenges us also to say no to discouragement and despair because of our failings and chronic sinfulness. Our life is a mixture, a mess even, of good and bad, success and failure, hope and disappointment. Often there is a nagging inner voice which denies us peace. It says, ‘That is not good enough; you must do better’. Yet the paradox is that when we accept the failures in ourselves, when we are able to accept that we are far from perfect, that is when we are able to move forward calmly and in peace and grow to become something better.
The gospel urges us to say yes to ourselves as we are, with our limitations. A compassion which does not include ourselves is lop-sided and inadequate. Christian charity is an active hope for what the other can become… with the help of my committed support. It looks at the people not just as they are now, but at what they could be if I gave a helping-hand. Sometimes it is to ourselves that we need to extend that charity, that understanding cordiality which nourishes hope. There are people who live below their best because they belittle themselves, they are angry with themselves, there are civil wars going on inside them.
The best help for such people is a growing awareness in them of God’s unconditional love for them. God is not saying, ‘I will love you if you change; I will love you if you become a better person’. Rather God is saying, ‘I love you as you are, although you are a sinner, a floundering, helpless messer’.
For those in a hurry: ‘The best kind of prayer is that in which there is most love’. (John Chapman OSB)