The Myth of Perfection

If it were possible to become a CPE supervisor in three months or less, I would be working really hard to do it. In fact, my biggest weakness at the moment is one of my greatest allies much of the time: I work hard at processing, learning, growing and just generally trying to "figure it out." The problem right now is that I am working way too hard to have it all figured out. Not only that, but to have it all figured out NOW. I'm having trouble just embracing where I am and loving myself in it at the moment. Kind of goes back to the basic shame issue I wrote in a previous blog about my encounter with Brene Brown's work.

So, I continue to work through "Recalling Our Own Stories" and am impacted by this "Myth of Perfection" Wimberly talks about. I definitely get caught in this myth and this myth is preventing me from really blessing and embracing my gifts and embracing my weakness as a resource. I work so hard to hide my weaknesses from others and myself. I mean I work really hard. I do this because I want to show myself as "good," which to me means perfect. All I'm being asked to do at the moment is to demonstrate I am "ready" for this journey, and yet I am trying to prove I have met all the competencies and all of the theories and all of the self-awareness... and so on... The truth is, I am quasimodo and just where I need to be. I am not fully formed and not expected to be, especially at this stage in my journey. I'm just beginning.

In recalling my story, I need to remember how I have been gifted and how I have recieved grace in those areas of my life I am in a liminal state. I am in a liminal state and I need to be o.k. there or the stress of this process will hurt me, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Especially with my Chrohn's Disease. My family deserve to have me care for myself in this journey and I need to learn how to do that and still move forward. I can't stop "working" that is my nature and who I choose to be. But I also can choose not to work so hard emotionally in this process it hurts me in all other areas of my life. Instead, this is an opportunity for me to really embrace this as a spiritual journey. One that is in itself an immense gift, if I allow it to serve me and not hurt me. So, I hope to move from striving for perfection in this process and instead move toward living into realism in this process: grace. Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of vulnerability as Christ exhibited it. Living into the tension between being called to be disciples of Christ and recognizing and accepting that our way of living into that is flawed and imperfect. The fact is that I am wounded, and called. I am gifted and graced. I am living into my discipleship and yet flawed in my execution of my call. I am empathic and yet unable to be fully attentive to the needs of another. Accepting myself and loving myself in this process does not mean that I simply accept that I am powerless to moving toward growth or healing. But it does mean that while I am as I am, that I love myself in that process.

I will choose to live into my story in a new way, I hope. Not perfectly, but with grace and acknowledging my own woundedness just as I thank God for my being gifted with grace and healing movment.

My Call

One of the things I think will be helpful to me in this journey is to reflect on my story theologically. I picked up a book by Edward Wimberly on Spiritual Renewal for Religious Caregivers called: Recalling Our Own Stories. In his tradition, retelling the story of our "call" to ministry is an important place to start. He calls it the story of our "project of existence." It is the meta-story of our life. It is a re-membering of the fact not only "that we are" but of "who we are called to be."

The first time I walked into King of Glory Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas I knew that I was in a special place. I knew because Pastor Ramona Bouzard was looking at us as we walked up the sidewalk through the small square window in the door with a huge smile on her face. Upon opening the door for us as we walked up, she knealt down, met me face to face and extended her hand to me. She embraced me and walked me around to meet other young people in the church. I never felt so loved and welcomed in my life as I did in that moment.

I continued in that Church despite the fact that my father was none too pleased with a female pastor. I learned about baptism and decided to pursue that for myself the following Easter. As my baptism approached, I understood that the sacrament was a sign of God's work toward me, my atonement and salvation. But, I also understood, even as a young man, that the sacrament was a sign of my commitment and love toward God and this Christian community I was choosing to join. I understood I was choosing a life of discipleship.

That Christmas, as we prepared for our choral extravaganza for the year, I was sitting in the pews watching as Pastor Ramona walked to and fro in the church, talking with folks as she did, seeming doing all that she did with such joy. At that moment, a warm sensation came over me and my hair stood up on my neck. I felt a movement inside of me and I heard a message distinctly within me. "Be for others as she is for you." I began to cry with such joy at this message felt so deep within me. I told everyone who would listen that I was wanting to be a pastor. I wanted to study religion and the scriptures. I wanted to be for others as Pastor Ramona was for me.

Twenty-five years later, that call has not died. Occasionally, I even get that feeling that I am doing as God has called me. Whatever my ministry is, that message is at the heart. I love, because Christ first loved me. I discovered that love, that grace, fully in community and continue to. Relationship and community is the Body of Christ and where we both experience our at-onement with God and we come to understand our justification. It is the community of Christ that holds us accountable and responsible for our on-going process toward sanctification and holds us accountable when we miss the mark of God's call for us in and through Christ. Rauschenbausch stated that sin is the "private kingdom of self-service." Love is living life as a servant in and through Christ in the Kingdom of God. Not perfectly, but with intention. If my story has taught me anything, it is the power of that saving community to move me toward grace and understanding my at-onement with God, experienced in the Body of Christ.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

Well, I thought it would take me a little longer than my first presentation at SES Day to cry. But cry I did. I was invited to confront my own vulnerability with the committee I was presenting to and I wasn't going into that easily. However, I was extremely proud of my ability to move toward that during the hour. I was also amazed at the fact that this is what they wanted from me. In what other profession is the invitation to vulnerability and the willingness to accept it a mark of professionalism. It is a very strange concept indeed.

As I reflect on my own struggles with vulnerability, I realize that my struggle seems related to intimacy. I fear intimacy with God and others as this dependence seems like weakness. Bonhoeffer states that all relationship in Christian community occurs "in and through Jesus Christ." If this is so, the only way to fully become a part of community, to be intimate with others, is through the embrace of vulnerability just as Christ embraced his vulnerability in order to fully be in relationship with us. Interestingly, this can't be if Christ "had to" be vulnerable. This only works if God "chooses to." Rahner calls God the "context of being." God is wholly other. This is different than Process Theology that says that God is interdependent upon creation. Rahner seems to think that God's Love is only understood fully if one realizes that God doesn't "need" to be in relationship with us, but chooses to be with us and does so in the most vulnerable way possible. This requires a level of intimacy that is salvific and one God chooses for us. And if this is true, it is the basis of Chrisitian community, not in an ideal way, but in a way that is always open to Christ.

For me, this helps understand the need for vulnerability. It is not just for the sake of vulnerability, but for the sake of Christ. It is the power of Christian community and Christian community, as Bonhoeffer states, is the Body of Christ and keeps the incarnation a very real presence in the world. It remains the "context" in which all things remain.

So, I cried. I grew. I moved. I am closer to understanding the power and grace of intimacy in Christian community. And, in so doing, a bit closer to really embracing this vulnerability I see as so valuable theologically.

My First Presentation to SES Peer Group

Just came back from my first opportunity to present to my SES peers. I'm exhausted. I had a lot of different emotions going through me when I was done and by the time I got home a few hours later, the primary one was joy. I feel really happy about my ability to just be in that moment and be engaged with my peers and supervisors during that time. I was anxious, but not overwhelmed and I felt very engaged and ready.

Ironically enough, much of what I addressed today was my theology around the self-emptying, vulnerable God. While my writing may not always reflect my vulnerability, I felt like I was being vulnerable in my willingness to be present in that way within that space. I felt a big change in me today. One that I am particularly happy with.

And, I did get some nice feedback on content, but the thing I will take from that consultation today is that I was able to do some work I have found particularly challenging in the past. I don't like presenting half-baked ideas and I certainly did that today. I'm not sure those in the room know how vulnerable I was today. I also got one more thing out of today that I will take with me. I like that I am a complex thinker. I enjoy that part of myself. And, while I would like to be able to communicate my passion more simply at times, I also like that I dig deeper into things. I really like that about myself.

Rocks and Water

I think I am beginning to understand this peer consultation thing. It has been really valuable to me in my learning. I go in anxious, and come out feeling energized by the process. I think one of the things that happens to us professionally and personally is that we view getting feedback and consultation from our peers as a focus on our weakness. While the process takes a certain amount of vulnerability to seek out, the result often leads to growth, at least for me.

Sure, there is an invitation to address things that might be difficult to see or things I may not want to see or understand and I become resistant. I get that. But, for the most part, the process itself is one that seems to almost inevitably lead to growth, even if very difficult. Probably BECAUSE it can be difficult. It is hard to change the appearance of a rock, yet water does it in nature all the time. Flowing water can change the shape and appearance of rock.

I like the image of the growing edge. It is the place in nature, in a cell, in biology, where new growth happens. Growth does not take place on the smooth areas, the areas fully formed, but the areas not yet fully formed or broken. I am invited to grow in the areas that I am not yet fully formed, or broken. This takes a certain amount of embrace of our own vulnerability not to resist this growth too often. If we allow ourselves to touch the growing edge and allow others to take us there, we are far more ready and able to grow.

Last week I got a rock in a service of healing that touches me. It is very smooth, a rock worn by water, probably a river rock. It is beautiful and at first glance seems to be smooth all over. Yet, after picking it up and flipping it over, I noticed a broken, sharp jagged edge on the other side. The rock reminded me of this concept of the growing edge. I have a lot of well formed areas of who I am, but I also have areas in which I am not yet fully formed, even broken. Yet the rock, has it's beauty, it is not defective. It just is as it has come to be. Given enough time, the water that once flowed over it would smooth out the broken space too. God's love, to me, is that living water. Given enough time, and enough embrace of my own vulnerability to allow that water to flow over me, my own rough spaces will be made smooth, or at least move in that direction. The thing is though, I feel pretty well formed just as I am. Sure I am not perfect unless I embrace the notion I am perfect in my imperfection. With God's self-emptying love, I feel that really. I am formed in that love and by that love and that is enough in this moment.

Quasimodo

I watched the Disney version of Victor Hugo's masterpiece, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I had not put together before tonight that his name means "partially formed" or "not completely formed." Quasimodo experiences a great deal of vulnerability in his state as he struggles with finding community, love, acceptance and his strength as a human-being. He struggles to understand his value and his call. He lives confined to a world that is both his "sanctuary" and his prison. Held there by a man, a man with seemingly a lot of power, authority and strength but is himself imprisoned by his own fears of vulnerability and "sin" within himself. So much so he focuses all his attention on ridding the great city of Paris of all sinful elements, particularly ones he is attracted to, such as Esmirelda.

The vulnerable act of God's self-emptying love into us calls us to radically accept the "other" as long as we are able and willing to find strength, love and community in the midst of our own vulnerability. To radically accept and embrace our vulnerability, to choose it on behalf of the other. This is not to be done in a way that allows ourselves to be abused, used, or injured in any way. No this is a claim of strength. To not be able to embrace our vulnerability is likely to lead us to actions that will destroy relationships and misuse power. It is our inability to accept and embrace our vulnerability that leads us to pursue power over the other and toward hurting others.

I saw this in my father particularly. He was a man that experienced a great amount of vulnerability in his life but, partly because of his life situation and his own choices, fought against it acted out against his family in hurtful and abusive ways. He was a man that, when later in life began to experience the ability to embrace his own vulnerability with some shame resilience because of his relationship with the story of God's vulnerability, began to move toward healing.

I too struggle to embrace my own vulnerabililty as many are, but I am beginning to develop a deeper undestanding of this self-emptying love of God that invites me to embrace my areas of vulnerability as a resource rather than a problem. God utilizes vulnerability as a saving and healing act and invites us to do that as well, for ourselves, but also radically for the other. To have compassion for all who are vulnerable, which in many ways is all of us. There is a call to help ease to suffering of all, by getting closer to our own. This is the saving act of God, that God emptied that love, which is Godself, so perfectly into us that we are able to embrace our own vulnerability and truly claim the gifts that God has given us.

In the end, Quasimodo was not "partially formed" at all, but more fully a "child of God" because he was able to really embrace who he was and form community. His nemesis, however, could never embrace his vulnerability, could never embrace his shadow and lost himself in the process. This is what shame does to us, it makes us feel "half formed" and prevents us from being fully who we are, living in the perfect Love that is God. It causes some to retreat behind the walls of life and others to abuse power, but either way, shame of our vulnerability is the culprit. There have been times in my life I have felt half-formed, and I don't particularly like feeling half-baked, half-formed or not completely put together, but it is only when I accept and embrace that I am not, and never will be that I can move toward wholeness and healing in the Love of God.

Vulnerability

I just began to put something together for myself this evening regarding some anger I have been feeling, that has really been bubbling over for me. I have become very aware of the feeling I have been having, but not real aware of the why it has been happening. Suddenly, in reflecting, the word vulnerability kept surfacing. I have experienced a great deal of vulnerability lately and I am responding out of anger about this.

I feel particularly vulnerable with regards to my illness, as on any given day I may not always know how I will feel.
I feel particularly vulnerable with those that I love. Relationships move, they change and they evolve. This is normal yet I seem to be very resistant to that out of fear. I fear that I am not all I need to be to sustain relationship with those around me. It is a stupid fear, yet a fear I feel never the less.
I feel particularly vulnerable in this supervisory education process. I worry more than I need to about my ability to do it and not enough time just spending the energy toward learning about myself and allowing the process to lead me where it needs. I'm just in the first inning of a very long game.

Even the theology I'm attracted to at the moment is a reflection of the "self-emptying" "vulnerable" God. My vulnerability is even coming out in my theology. I even see it in my potential educational theory, personality theory, etc...

In other words, vulnerability, my own vulnerability, is taking center stage in this drama I am beginning. Understanding my vulnerability may help me understand this anger that is bubbling up for me consistently. Rather than running from my vulnerability, maybe I need to figure how I can run toward it and embrace it.

Next week, I am having lunch with Dr. David Jensen, a theologian at Austin Seminary who wrote "Graced Vulnerability: A Theology of Childhood." I am looking forward to that lunch as a way to articulate on a different level this feeling of vulnerability and how to utilize it as a minister and as an educator.

My vulnerability, ironically enough, may indeed serve as my greatest strength if I can learn to embrace it and myself in the process. It is perhaps the shame of my own vulnerability I am angry about. This is something to be explored much, much more.