

























Rather, I feel called to write about God’s perfection.



And that would be perfect?



















3 thoughts on “Perfection

  1. albert

    A clear and powerful explication, Mary. It stirred this old pot, which has been simmering lately over the LBGT+ debates and pronouncements.

    Here’s one thing that you helped me recognize in myself:

    often –especially in firsthand encounters, whether wth nature or with persons– I don’t see difference as beauty, I just see. And wonder. That us to say, I am unaware of regular or irregular proportions . When I dont reflect, I am free to experience. I think it is when I think about beauty, or about difference, that I get a bit distracted. Or when I realize, as you pointed out, that imposed or inherited “standards” of perfection and beauty might lead to their loss, their disappearance almost. It’s a danger that arises in the mind, not in the heart. Could it be that what we seem to value in humanity most of all (reason, knowledge –that ancient fruit) is also what leads often to our diminishment; i.e., judging others to be beautiful or ugly, acceptable or rejected, us or them.

  2. mary Post author

    Thank you both for your comments.

    You raise a valid point, Al, about reason/knowledge. Not that it cannot be a valuable gift. However, it can so readily throw us off the track of love if we are not careful.

    I suspect that many religious people who have strong negative reactions to other people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical difference, country of origin, etc have never truly met a person of the group they disparage. (An exception might be the person who has had exclusively negative experiences, such as having lived through war or some such – but that typically doesn’t qualify as a true “meeting” of the other.)

    When we meet/encounter a person, we see the God-likeness in them. If they have a distracting difference in appearance or mode of communication, we might need a bit of help getting past that, but generally it doesn’t take us long. However, when we encounter the IDEA of a person or people, from what we hear or read or see in the media, we often do not see this God-likeness. We analyze the IDEA of the person apart from his/her reality, a person designed and beloved of God.

    Is there anyone who is not designed and beloved of God? No matter how far from His path anyone has strayed (and only God can know who has and how much), all are His beloved. This is the truth we are called to live.

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