Perfection as Gift

It still amazes me, after four years, that I actually own horses. Though I had wanted a horse since I was a small child (and my mother thought I would outgrow it . . .), I could not have foreseen how much I would admire their simplicity and splendor until I had lived with them, cared for them, fed them, ridden them, provided for their every need. I could not have come to know the perfection they possess as gift.

For quite a lot of us perfection is an ideal to which we continually aspire knowing all the while that it is truly, finally unattainable. Yes, yes, we fully and easily acknowledge that we will never be perfect in our humanity, but gosh it would be great to be perfect in at least a few things, now and again? Lately, I have found it soothing when frustrated or disappointed, either in myself or with the imperfection of others, to simply say, "Self, I know how you wanted this to be, but it isn't going to be that way - it will be less than you had hoped, but it will be enough because it is enough. So let the dream go and be happy with what has been sufficiently given."

In my former life as a social worker I did a lot of driving and I spent a lot of time in not-so-nice neighborhoods. Over four years of doing this stressful work I developed (quite unintentionally at first) a habit of observing natural objects of beauty in the ugliness of the world I was so deeply submerged. Amidst the most profound expressions of poverty and human misery I would notice perfectly stunning specimens of flowering bushes, dramatically shaped trees, and other small pieces of the natural world. Over years this became an intentional, constant, almost compulsive seeking of perfection in God's creation which kept me grounded in the reality that whatever situation of abuse or addiction or violence I encountered, God was rooted in that place too. It seemed a soothing spiritual salve to ease the feeling of helplessness that crept into every day. There's always a limit, a cruel and terrible limit, to what one can do to relief suffering.

I had forgotten all about that time, that life, until recently, when I began to wonder exactly what it was about the horses that has been so comforting to my soul these last few years. I realized that the only other time I felt so soothed by just looking at something was during those years I spend doing social work. Now I have other animals but I don't see them in the same way - not that they are less mysterious in their beings, they just don't strike me as objects of perfection, or at least not in the same way. So clearly some personal preference and bias is in the mix. To me, horses completely capture the majesty and power of the divine. They do nothing to try to be beautiful and graceful and yet they are. These images of perfection are gifts from God. The perfection they represent is not the same as the perfection to which we aspire. It is the purest form of perfection - not polluted by the corrupted notions of what perfection is supposed to be. God simply puts perfection in front of us as if to say, "This is what it I do: I traffic in images of perfection so that you might have comfort."