Often we feel ashamed at the fact that we are imperfect, especially in a culture where we are constantly told that we can "have it all," "do it all" and "be it all." However, it is only in those places of the psyche where life seems to "eat away at us" that we are broken enough for the divine light to get through. Our imperfection is actually our perfection! As Rumi says: "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." Just think of it! We could never have an epiphany, an "aha!" moment, an experience of enlightenment, if we didn't go through a challenging time, a preceding suffering, or have to endure the difficulties created by our own flaws. Besides, it is our own lack, our own inadequacies, our own imperfections that bind us together with others in the great web of life. As Thomas Merton reminds us: "We all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and these limitations of ours play a most important role in our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself or herself for the lack in another." For in truth, the "self" we cling to so tenaciously is actually a WEB of presences. Is it any wonder then that we naturally feel incomplete and flawed when we identify ourselves only with the individual self? We are so much BIGGER!
Photo: The sun illuminates a Sword Fern eaten away by insects, with Redwoods in the background; Humboldt Redwoods State Park, CA; August 1, 2014
