"The Blessings of Imperfection"

“And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you shall not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”(knowing the world is imperfect). So when the woman saw the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband and he ate. Then both of their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked (and imperfect) and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons…… “Then the Lord God said, behold the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever – therefore God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden. He drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he place the cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”(Genesis, Chapter 3)

The interesting thing here is that if you read the creation account in the Book of Genesis, there is no indication that God created a perfect world. The word functioned and “it was good” but it was not perfect. By making the decision to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and carrying this out, Adam and Eve discovered that world was not perfect and, for the first time, they realized that they were naked. It is interesting to note that God says that because of this, “man has become like one of us.” (He, God, apparently knows what imperfection is.)

Built into the fabric of creation is imperfection. Following the instant of creation some 13.5 billion years ago the universe was comprised of both matter and antimatter which were highly charged particles both positive and negative. When matter and antimatter touch each other, they annihilate each other giving off vast amounts of energy. Had the amount of matter and antimatter been uniform, the early universe would have completely destroyed itself. But it was not uniform – it was not perfect. There were more positively charged particles then negative so the universe was able to survive the early moments of creation and eventually create the matter that would become stars, and planets, and human beings.

The very fact that evolution is an evitable force in the unfolding development of the universe and life itself is clear evidence that imperfection is embedded into the forces of the universe. In turn, the universe strives for perfection and continually changes and adapts in attempts to become perfect. It is an ongoing and never-ending process.

Human beings know that the world is not a perfect place yet we always seem to endeavor to make it so and we often feel disempowered when we are subject to the world’s imperfection. Imperfection causes us to question the world around us and to try to fathom why evil and sadness and despair exist at all. The fact that we have emotions is a result of the imperfection of the universe. If it were perfect, we would be happy all the time or maybe we would have no feelings at all because we would have no understanding of sadness and pain. In a perfect world, bad things would not happen to good people. Sickness and disease and death would not exist. Evil would not exist and nothing but goodness would pervade all of reality. It is the imperfections in the universe that enable all these things to occur.

Knowing that imperfection is an ever present and pervading reality in the universe, many religions of the world, and certainly those in the west, have created an eventual paradise – heaven – where good humans will go when they die. Free from the shackles of an imperfect world, humans will live forever in a blissful paradise which will be perfect – a place of total goodness where evil and the forces of the imperfect will not exist.

If we look at eastern religions, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism, the philosophy of an eventual perfect existence (or non existence more specifically) is similar, in some sense, to the western heaven. Both religions recognize that the world is not a perfect place and both believe that it is really we humans that create imperfection through our actions and our inactions. Both believe in the four noble truths:

• Life is filled with suffering (which is a result of imperfection)

• Suffering is a result of desire – (in a sense, the desire for perfection which will produce happiness.)

• Suffering can be eliminated by ceasing to desire.

• Ceasing to desire can be realized by following the eightfold path (right views, intention, speech, actions, effort, livelihood, mindfulness, and concentration.)

The ultimate goal of both the Hindu and the Buddhist is to achieve nirvana which is defined as a “snuffing out” – a total separation from the imperfect world; a realization that the universe is but an illusion; a realization that all is one – in Hinduism, the realization that everything (including us) is nothing but different manifestations of God – Brahma.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure to know the associate UU minister at the Brewster UU church, Rev. G. Peter Fleck - who wrote a book on the Blessings of Imperfection. (His life). The room downstairs is named after him. Peter Fleck and his wife were extraordinary people. They were Dutch Jews and escaped the Nazi peril in the 1930s and came to America. They settled in New Jersey and Peter became a successful banker. They retired to the Cape many years later and along the way, Peter completed seminary.

One of the marvelous realities of imperfection, Reverend Peter often said was that imperfection produces creativity and messiness – all at the same time. And the messiness to which Reverend Fleck was referring is the inability of many humans to accept how the world works – to acknowledge that evil and sadness coexist along with goodness and joy. Sometimes it is hard for us to acknowledge this, he said. Reverend Fleck told the story of his four-year-old grandson Benjamin. It seems that at age four, Benjamin told his mother about an imaginary farm where he was owner. One day he was describing his farm to his mother and he explained how the vet came by and cut a little piece off the hoof of a cow and now she had a calf.

Benjamin’s mother decided that this was a good opportunity to explain the realities of life and she proceeded to explain how reproduction really happened. So she embarked on the long story of how a sperm and egg are joined in the womb and create an embryo and how a calf is eventually born between the cow’s legs. “You see Benjamin, this is how it really happens” – whereupon Benjamin looked her straight in the eye and said, “not on my farm it doesn’t.” As Reverend Fleck noted, at his age his grandson, like many people at any age are just not able to accept that the world is imperfect that “creativity is joined with messiness” – that “life is ambiguous.”

Reverend Fleck gave another example – “it is said,” he explained, “that when the souls of the dead enter heaven, the angels play the music of Bach but among themselves, they play Mozart.” “However, the young Mozart, as we saw in the movie Amadeus, was a vulgar little man who loved to use four letter words and to behave accordingly.” So again – we are confronted with imperfection, a combination of incredible creativity combined with vulgarity and impropriety.

Western religions and societies have always struggled to understand the imperfections that are inherent in our world. Why do bad things happen to good people? How could a loving God enable such sadness and misery to pervade the world? Why do people suffer so much as what we see today taking place in Gaza and a host of other places?

Many forms of fundamentalist Christianity offer an explanation. By choosing to disobey God and eat of the tree of knowledge and life – as described in the Book of Genesis, some conservative Christians faiths suggest that Adam and Eve enabled evil and imperfection to enter into the world thus making the world an evil place controlled by the devil. In this view, the world is but “the workshop of the devil” and the devil spends his time influencing and controlling human beings. “In Adam’s fall, we sin all.” (This is the notion of “original sin” and the reason that Baptism was established in early Christianity.)

This idea that the world is an evil and imperfect place – best to be avoided - was reinforced in conservative Christianity in the early 20th century. Throughout the later part of the 19th century, liberal Christianity – including the Unitarians and the Universalists – promoted the idea that through proactive means humanity with science and technology could make the world a better place. It was through this thinking that the “social gospel” movement was created. The social gospel movement called for the creation of institutions and organizations designed to combat pain and suffering, disease and despair. Religious conservatives were aghast. The world was imperfect because Adam and Eve had made it so. The purpose of life was to save your soul, pay homage to God and await redemption in a perfect heavenly paradise.

World War I was such a destructive war which killed millions of people that fundamentalists (the term was coined in 1917) were affirmed in their belief. To the liberals they said, “All your science and technology and social gospel actions have only resulted in massive destruction and millions of human beings killed.” And so – fundamentalist retrenched in their beliefs and many of the most liberal Christians – including the Unitarians and the Universalists shunned the idea of God for, in their view, no loving God, it was thought, would enable such destruction and sadness and despair to happen. From this, the Unitarians and the Universalists focused on humanism and, in my words, they threw God out of the pulpit. It wasn’t that either denomination was atheistic but merely that they chose to remove God from the mainstay of consideration and thought.

Yet other Christians took an entirely different approach. While acknowledging the imperfection in the world and the existence of evil and the fact that bad things did indeed happen to good people, liberal Christians considered that maybe God has limited power over creation by design. The world was imperfect because God had made it so and God itself was continuing to evolve just as the universe was.

This philosophy – called “Process Philosophy” was championed by Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). Whitehead was a British mathematician and philosopher. In Whitehead’s view, the universe is an imperfect place that is in constant evolution and change. God, as the source of the universe, is similarly growing and changing too. God experiences the universe as we do. When a human being is happy, so too is God. When human suffering and tragedy occur – God weeps along with those who suffer. The nature of creation is such that God cannot interfere or freedom of thought and action could not occur. Godly intervention in creation would destroy the orderly flow of scientific law that molds and governs the cosmos.

And so, we are left in a bit of a quandary. We must acknowledge that the universe is, indeed an imperfect place. Along with all the beauty and goodness that permeate the world, we also know and see evil and destruction, pain and suffering and we are forced to come to terms with why this is so. For those who see the workings of a God or gods in the universe, they must come to terms with why such a God or gods could allow the world to be imperfect. For those who see no God or gods as influencing the world, it is, perhaps easier, to understand why the world is imperfect.

In either case, the reality of imperfection is apparent and yet, it is imperfection that is also the engine of growth and change and the enabler of love and joy. By our nature, we human beings want perfection and we constantly strive for it. The athlete who conditions their body and who spends endless hours of practice strives for athletic perfection. The scientist who spends a lifetime exploring the workings of the universe is seeking perfect knowledge of why things work the way they do. The lover in search of a mate seeks the perfect match.

And, of course, imperfection is all around us. We cannot be perfect and we cannot find perfection for these are not found in the universe we live in. There is nothing inherently wrong with seeking the perfect but if we do not acknowledge the reality of imperfection, we can never be happy. It would be like a drowning man who cannot swim. There is no chance of saving himself.

Accepting imperfection – in some cases even celebrating it is an essential act of pursuing happiness. Let’s start with our body – just as an example. What defines a perfect body? Well – it just depends upon the culture you are born and raised in. Being fat is a sign of beauty and success in some cultures but not in others. Big noses are attractive in some cultures but not in others. The size of a person, the color of their eyes and the shape of their features. What is considered perfect varies considerably from culture to culture, so too does what is considered imperfect.

Frankly, it is imperfection in the human animal that causes us all to look differently, to have different skills and abilities and for each of us to be totally unique in all the world. It is imperfection that enables variety to exist. Wouldn’t a perfect race of human beings be rather boring – it would almost be like a race of robots; all identical in appearance and none striving to be better than they are because they are already perfect.

Sadly, we are bombarded every day by images of what is considered perfect – even though these are always culturally driven. Not knowing the reality of imperfection, some people; often young people are driven to despair because they see themselves as not perfect or not perfect like others their age. We see this in images of young skinny teenage girls. Some girls think that if they do not conform to the marketing image of a teenage girl, they are somehow lesser people. At this stage in life, young people often do not understand the blessings of imperfection.

The very act of loving another person involves the acceptance of imperfection, if not a wholesale embracement of another’s imperfection. Stop and think about it. How could anyone love a perfect person? It is through understanding another’s failures and shortcomings that we can exercise love. The wife watches her husband’s great disappointment at failing at some professional task. The husband sees the frustration of his wife when she cannot get her teenage daughter to understand her point of view. The parents who see their child fail in school. All of these things elicit love for it is in acknowledging the imperfection in others that we are joined to them as co-voyagers in journey of life. Alfred North Whitehead would have said that God does exactly the same thing and God participates in the imperfection of the universe.

From a personal standpoint, it is imperfection that enables us to grow and change as people. Were we perfect, there would be no reason, no cause to grow and to change. It is through our own failures and our own imperfection that we can make choices that can enable us to grow in mind and spirit. It is through pain and suffering and catastrophe that we can embrace love and truly make a difference in the world – changing it for the better. Today we see countless stories of this taking place in so many suffering places in the world.

In reviewing Reverend Fleck’s material on the imperfection of the world – I was struck by the story of Pearl Buck, the Pulitzer prize winning American author who became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her work in describing China in the 1930’s. Ms. Buck had a daughter in 1920. Sadly this daughter had a rare brain disease which resulted in severely decreased mental capability. Unable to accept this, Ms. Buck spent years trying in vain to find a cure for her daughter. Finally, she did accept that there was nothing she could do for her daughter but there was a lot she could do for children in China born from a mixed-race background.

Over time she adopted 9 mixed race children and in 1949 she established “Welcome House” - the first international, interracial adoption agency. Since its inception, Welcome House has found loving homes for more than 7000 children. From the depths of sadness and despair over the affliction of her daughter, Pearl Buck went on to profoundly infuse love and compassion into the lives of thousands of people and her legacy carries on today.

The imperfection of the universe is everywhere apparent – particularly in human beings. While we can be proud of our inherent abilities at innovation, we must also acknowledge our capability to create misery, suffering and death. The 20th century was filled with scientific achievement. We learned to conquer a large number of human diseases. We learned to eradicate a lot of hunger and human suffering around the world. Yet, at the same time, we developed technologies that killed 100 million people in the decade around World War II and in the 20th century we witnessed unspeakable acts of human depravity – characterized by the holocaust in Germany, in Cambodia, in Africa, and in the Balkans.

It is all too easy to become cynical in studying human history and it takes effort to retain a positive view of humanity in light of such misery and suffering caused by human beings. It’s easy to dismiss a sacred presence in the universe, a divine spark, a force that underlies all of creation – for how and why would such a force enable such tragic suffering to be the part of any universe?

The answer is that perfection would not allow growth and change. It would not allow creativity and genius. It would not allow love and hope to overcome hatred and despair. Yes – hatred and tragedy and despair are realities – but so too are the forces of love and compassion that can overcome them at times that are seemingly impossible.

In his work “Man’s Search for Meaning,” the noted physician and psychiatrist and holocaust survivor – Dr. Victor Frankl – wrote of one of his moments in a concentration camp:

We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory...."

The universe and our world are imperfect places – but in their imperfection there is holiness and salvation. The blessings of imperfection are all around us – we need only open our hearts and our minds to unlock the secrets that lie within – secrets that can enable our spirits to follow the bridge across forever.

C.J. McMahon

UUMH – September 2024