Allowing
Imperfection
“The
beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only
the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Thomas
Merton
I
have written before on this quote by Thomas Merton. I return to it
because I think it contains the simplest, clearest description of
true relationship that I have ever come across. It is also the most
difficult hurdle for human beings, especially this human being, to
do. Any time we are in community with others, we want them to behave
as we would have them behave, even when to do so would be to totally
abandon themselves.
I
remember a gathering in up-country Virginia in the early nineties,
when I was snowed in with about thirty other women for a retreat
weekend. We were in a lodge that had several large rooms, so we had
to share sleeping space. I am a person who wants to take what I have
absorbed over the course of the day in such a retreat and find a
quiet space to write and ponder. I require silence to do this. No
such space existed, and since there were two feet of snow outside,
there was no option of escape. At night, some of the women wanted to
party and dance and gab late into the night---I just wanted to sleep.
They were loud, they were highly extroverted, and by the end of that
l-o-n-g weekend, I just wanted to smother all of them into silence. I
wanted them to be like me, and not like themselves. How human is
that?
This
week with my friends in the North Carolina mountains had some aspects of that
intolerance, but I am in a different place, and this was a smaller
group, and outside was inviting and beautiful. Options for exercising
my own idiosyncrasies existed. Yet, I was profoundly aware of how
truly difficult it is to be in relationship with ANY other, to allow
them to be perfectly themselves, and be okay with the yawning gap
between expectation and reality. It seems super-human to me. I have
deep admiration for those of you who accomplish it with ease and good
humor every day of your lives.
I
hope today finds you enjoying your relationships, whatever they may
be. My dogs are glad to have me home and I am glad to be here. I will
carry the beauty of the week in my heart for a long time.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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