I have a tendency to think in absolutes, to see things in black and white, when the truth is that nothing is all one way or another. I long for certainty, and when I cannot have it, I plunge into catastrophic thinking. It is my natural inclination to want to organize my experience of the world into catagories of good and bad, of always and never, of "have to" and "can't." But none of that allows for the Eastern wisdom of Yin and Yang, a bit of each in each, the good in the bad and bad in the good and all the variables. In my faith there are wrinkles of doubt and in my fear there are lightbeams of hope. If faith could be absolute, it might rule fear out of me entirely and feel better on the inside; make me immune to struggle and pain. But pain is the motivator for change and the gateway to faith. I need them both: crazy paradox.
One thing I know for sure is that my wanting things to be a certain way creates tension in me. I have a desire to be righteous, to think that people should not behave in certain ways, that I know better than others what they need, what will soothe them, even that I know what is best for me. I don't. Often in life I have pushed and forced things to happen that I wanted to happen, against all odds... and gotten them, only to discover that self-propelled achievement is often hollow and does not fulfill me.
Perhaps perfection is not the absence of flaws and scars, or everything being the way I think it should be, but rather the graceful encompassing of uncertainty, the inclusion and assimilation of what's funky and unusual and unexpected: the darkness and the shadow mixed in with the light.
