It used to bother me that my statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary—which is quite lovely for being made of plastic—has part of the mantle chipped off on one side of her head.
It never bothered me as a child when my mom first gave me the statue to grace my little altar on my nightstand. At least I have no recollection of it bothering me then. It was only in more recent years that I found that imperfection annoying and considered finding a better statue. Perhaps if money had been in greater abundance I would have done so; or perhaps it was more for sentimental reasons that I never sought another. Either way, I kept the statue.
Then I ended up with a crucifix with Christ's left hand broken off. I think the idea was that I might find a way to fix the fingers.
I never did.
Instead, the conjunction of the two broken religious items turned my mind reflecting upon my own brokenness. Facing my imperfections has also left me frustrated. Somehow I have an expectation that I must be perfect.
Scripture doesn't exactly help in that regard: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
Yet there lies the problem with translation. If we read the text in Greek we would understand from the word τέλειος (teleios) the sort of perfection that means essentially achieving its proper end. Therefore we are called not to lack brokenness (as we wish we could; at least I do and something tells me you shan't mind my including you in that statement), but rather through it to achieve the end for which we have been created: to know, love, and serve God in this life and be happy with Him in the next to use the words of the Baltimore Catechism.
So the two broken items remain as a constant reminder to me of that fact. Both still serve their purpose of reminding me of Christ's death and of our Lady present there at the foot of the Cross.
Were their imperfections gone they could not do more to achieve that purpose. Yet because of their brokenness they have given me a deeper reflection on the nature of reality and through this profound insight drawn me deeper into the mystery of God's love and providence in the most ordinary of circumstances.
"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."
This quote resurfaced and I have no recollection of who spoke it or where I heard it. That matters little enough, though. It is the thought contained in the quotation and not the speaker to which I wish to draw your attention.
I will digress for a moment first, however. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on a spontaneous adventure with a couple of friends. Having decided upon hiking in the forested park in the middle of the city, we had no expectations of unusual adventure; considering our limited time, it seemed reasonable to enjoy a tamer sort of adventure. After a brief stop at another friend's house and a dishtowel prophecy—"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson—we continued on to the trailhead.
As we started hiking up the hill, we soon found ourselves scrambling up a ravine with a few pools and trickles of water left within it. The trail lost its façade of officiality and turned into no more than a deer path.
We might have turned back to find the actual trailhead, but instead we continued on, scrambling over fallen trees and crawling through brush and ferns, following the rocky bed of the ravine in what seemed like a tropical adventure. The faint trail grew fainter, twisting back and forth across the ravine, sometimes disappearing entirely.
In retrospect, it would have made much more sense to find the trail proper and likely we would not choose that path again knowing what it held. Yet that makes us all the more grateful for the experience.
You can extrapolate from this story to the adventure of life. So often we choose to follow the well-beaten trail. We give in to the pressure of society or the expectations of our friends—or what we imagine them to be—and find ourselves trudging on doggedly, clamping our jaws in the face of the monotony that drags us down.
Let us return now to the quotation with which I began:
"Imagine if you were in love with goodness itself—what wacky things you would do."
It speaks to the heart of what it means to be a fool for Christ. When you fall so deeply in love with Him—when you learn to trust Him so entirely—you no longer care so much for the security the world offers. You learn to leap out in faith, knowing that He will catch you. You embrace every cross and every trial because you know that behind it lies the Providence of the One who loves you more than you love yourself.
Go my friends and be fools for Christ!
