If I Can’t Be Perfect, I’ll Settle for Envied

It’s a privilege being surrounded by intelligent, spiritual people who use their abilities and energies to become even more well-read, well-rounded, and whole. I think it’s a great thing when people who live in such advanced and comfortable circumstances use the stuff of their blessing for personal and social increase. I’m reminded of Jesus’ parable of the talents, and how the fellow who buried his talents ended up with less than nothing. I’m most afraid of playing the harlot with my abilities, talents, energies, and time rather than investing my Self where she can bear much fruit.

This morning, one of the intelligent, spiritual people I’m privileged to know and love said something that made me laugh out loud because it was so honest and human. We were discussing greatness and mastery, subjects that have been on our respective minds lately. She said that now she hopes merely to be a good Self: whole, accountable, a good wife, a good mother. But in the past, she recounted, when she was less developed and more unaware,

“I thought it would be good if I died famous, or great, . . . or at least envied.”

I guffawed when she said “. . . at least envied,” because she had captured the vanity and wrong-headedness of humanity when she said these words. Why is it, I’ve wondered, that we refuse over and over and over again to go deep into that inner city, the City of God, the only place where we can find home, hearth, temple, and palace and live authentic lives? Why do we waste ourselves on what doesn’t profit, on what’s useless, on what’s not helpful? Why do we externalize everything of intrinsic value–selling our birthrights for a mess of pottage?

It seems that everyone has a hankering to be famous, and if we can’t be famous, we’ll settle for notoriety; or we long to be great in some way, to transcend the boundaries of our limitations and capabilities and soar above the crowd. But, if we can’t have all that, we’ll settle for being envied. Judging from the consumerism of Americans, it appears to me that the majority will settle for simply being envied.

 

 Envied by others! Never mind what we think of ourselves, because how often do people really consider themselves realistically? How often does one meet a person capable of being so realistic? I think: not often. There’s evidence for this everywhere, in nearly every human encounter. I think that in the old book of Proverbs, it says, “The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom” and “get instruction,” because few people want instruction. It would be difficult to find a religious person who said he didn’t want to be wise, even more difficult to find a religious person who admitted he was unteachable and deluded, because it’s more human and comfortable to hide behind delusions than to see ourselves naked before a full-length mirror. But, still, “all men are liars.” We like to kid ourselves.

Delusions. I’ve been watching Big Brother this season because several of my adult and adolescent children watch it, and it’s been a fun field trip into TV land. I normally don’t watch television much, but if a series can grab our collective attention, I’ll watch it with the family because even television can be a tie that binds. One of the most interesting aspects of the show is people’s outspoken delusions. One player, who obviously didn’t play the game with intelligence or craftiness, stated when voted out of the house that she knew it was because she was a threat; another time, she bragged on her bubbly personality and how likable she was, when it seemed clear to the viewers that she was neither. We pitied her because she was so blind to her own flaws. Her blindness did make her more lovable, though, because we too are sometimes blind.

On last night’s episode, one of the most clever players stated that she had played the game without deception, at which we all burst out laughing: she’s been one of the biggest liars and tricksters this season! Afterward, we talked about our delusions, and how it’s human to deceive oneself and others; and how valuable real community and accountability are when one is trying to become better, holy, and whole. I love it that I live among people who tell me the truth about me. I’m desperate for that, because without their help I might live a life of delusion. These companions call me to be true to myself and to the gifts and callings of God. I thank God for them.

This brings me to the goal of the Christian life as I see it (because today I’m thinking about my faith): perfection. Matthew 5:43-48 has Jesus saying yet one more amazing, incomprehensible, impossible thing to human beings:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (New American Standard Bible).

Be Ye Perfect. This word, “perfect” is the Greek word teleios [τέλειος], meaning ”complete.” Its root can be found in telos [τέλος], which means to set out for a definite point or goal, meaning the point aimed at as a limit; by implication, it is the conclusion of an act or state (a terminal result or purpose); and also signifying a paid levy or custom paid to the uttermost.

Passages like this thrill me to the core and drive me into the arms of God, specifically because of my education, training, and reading in psychology. In depth psychology, we talk of the pursuit and development of the real self; that’s what depth psychology is all about. So when I read Jesus’ teachings and I see him telling people to intentionally become complete, whole selves, just as God is complete and whole, well… I get EXCITED.

Look here at what it means, drawing from these Greek words, to become complete: It means that we’re to set out toward a definite goal (this is a journey); we will walk along some path or another, and we’ll arrive at a goal (there is one); we will encounter limitations, the greatest limitation being where we end and others begin; and when we become whole, complete, and perfect, we will have arrived at the “happily ever after” (there is one)–we will have achieved our purpose, paid the levy, custom, or dues owed (taxes or fees imposed by one in authority), to the utmost. We’ll be whole, complete, and perfect in the same way that God is whole, complete, and perfect.

In a nutshell–in one little Greek word, in fact–we have the entire goal of the person: to become complete and thus to become like God. This is what we owe to God: all of ourselves, our whole, complete and entire selves; the selves we can be to the utmost, nothing more and nothing less. This teaching assumes that we’re not whole, and it indicates how we can easily see where we’re not by the ways in which we’re common and predictable, and do not love. This teaching also assumes that each person is able to become complete, and that we can make efforts in that direction.

The Christian life, as described by Jesus in this brief passage from the Gospel of Matthew, is the whole Quest metaphor in a few sentences. Certainly, I believe that every human being receives the call to adventure and has the choice of accepting the call, and setting out on the great archetypal quest in search of the whole self, or of denying the call and trading his birthright.

The questions I’ve been asking myself lately are:

•  How am I doing on this quest?
• Have I pursued the goal wholeheartedly, or taken too many detours along the way?
• Do I behave as if my completion as a human being is the only end, or do I behave as if other goals are more important?

The third Eve is me; it’s you, it’s us. We’re the bride, we’re the completion of the everlasting God. Without us, He makes Himself incomplete; and because He has loved us with an everlasting love, and because we are His body, He actively participates in our wholeness, seeking to “present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 4:27, New International Version).

I don’t know about you, but I hear wedding bells!

 | The Hero’s Journey | The Archetypal Quest | The Monomyth |