Why I Am Not Perfect - Because I Am Human.

I don't mean to shatter your illusions about me. By the same token, the reason I am perfect is the same - because I am human. One of those Zen things. I have had so much in this life. I am beautiful, smart, well fed, and loved. I have had every chance imaginable to perfect myself. I have had education, great teachers, amazing gurus, lessons in everything I have wanted. (except flying but that is my fault) This week alone I have worshiped with the lovely Father Lawrence in Larkspur, CA, USA. I have meditated with and heard wisdom from Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock. I have l have heard a podcast of Lama Marut. I have been in a beautiful support group. This is just the tip of the ice burg. All my life I have been blessed with magic encounters and opportunities.

I have met the Dalai Lama, heard live Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and many great saints of my lifetime. I have studied Anthroposophy under some wonderful teachers, John Gardner, Francis Edmunds, Richard Walton. I have had time to meditate. I have had time to go to Mass and retreats and visit Monte Alban, Chartres Cathedral, the Camino, Jerusalem, the Vatican, Palenque, Copan, Tikal, Angkor Wat, Wats to numerous to name in Thailand and I am not anywhere approaching levitated yet. I am an ordinary bumbling fallible mortal warts and all.

I still have a temper. I still can really lack compassion. I still get so frazzled that I panic. I think these fabulous opportunities that I have been given were the Good Gods recognizing that I was, in spite of all signs to the contrary, a little behind and in need of more help than most. Yup. I got the 'special' treatment because I have 'special' needs.

But then in Buddhism and in 12 Step literature and in the Catholic tradition we are taught to make love to our faults and challenges and short comings and weaknesses. They are our greatest teachers. If you never meet a horrible shitty person who shakes you to the core, then you never had a chance to test your mettle or develop compassion. If you never loose your shit, if you never sin, if you are perfect and tranquil and radiantly happy, then why are you here in this incarnation at all? So, my challenge is to accept myself and my opportunities to improve my happiness and that of others. One day I do this, the next day I try. The next I cry "wee wee wee all the way home."

I am trying to be a little less self-critical when I am just human, but also I am trying not to make excuses for things I can change and don't. Alice, my daughter, reminded me that after all my big talk in a blog over a year ago about ringing out the sponge after I do dishes, about letting go of my lazy habits, I am worse than ever in that department. I am grateful that she has a good memory and can nail me when I am full of it.