Perfectly Imperfect



 I love where I live. I love that I can wear shorts all but a few days of the year. I love that my kids can collect cicada skeletons off the leaves. I love that I can grow citrus trees in my yard. And I love that most of the year the temperature in the Gulf is 85 degrees. It's nearly perfect.

But the trade-off for wearing shorts all year is that the insects never die. The trade for being able to take the kids down the street and see alligators in the bayou is that there are alligators in the bayou. Like I said; nearly perfect.

I could surf here the rest of my life and be fine. It's not California and it's not Hawaii. That's fine. The water is almost always warm and the crowds are light. Nobody here has delusions of being the next world champion surfer, so everybody just has fun. The local vibe is relaxed. Not a bad thing when you're relaxed, not a good thing when you want something done. It's not perfect. Nowhere is; and that's the point.

Nowhere in all of Creation is perfect and it has nothing to do with the location. The lack of perfection is us. If we run from place to place always searching a better place, we're doomed to fail. As the "prophet" Buffett said, "Wherever you go, you take the weather with you." (I quote Jimmy Buffett a lot). It may be silly, but there is truth there. As long as we are imperfect no place will ever alter that. 

In reality, all of Creation is perfect. It has to be. If God created everything and declared it "good" and the things created have no free-will (like rocks and oceans and geckos) then they are exactly as they were created to be. In fact, they are more perfect than we are because their very existence is the fulfillment of the Divine Will.

The problem isn't with them. It's with us. Our perceived imperfection in Creation is a reflection of our own imperfection. Unlike the trees and waves and monkeys we are destined for greater things. Unlike the created order, we do not fulfill our created purpose because unlike the created order, we don't have to. We get hit twice here: in our hearts we know we are meant for something greater and our restless searching for a perfect spot on the map is how that longing is lived out. We are looking for heaven. We're not looking for the wrong thing, we're looking in the wrong place. The second hit is that no matter where we go, well, there we are. St. Augustine says "Our hearts are restless until they rest in You". Anything else is "striving after wind", as the Philosopher warns. Searching for contentment in worldly things is like taking the wrong medicine for your illness: not only is not curing you, but you just get sicker wondering why it isn't working.

For all the lack of contentment and longing we face that leads into sorrow and distress, there is a great cosmic joke being played. The moment we begin to recognize the futility of pursuing worldly contentment and turn inward; the moment we cease to look at God and look to God, everything changes. The imperfect world that could never satiate our hunger for the really good, true, and beautiful pulls back its veil to reveal what was there all along. When we change the world changes. The place we couldn't wait to leave becomes the place we love and it doesn't matter where that is because we understand that St. Palm-Tree and St. Dolphin are united in the will of God and therefore perfect. We understand that it is the love that makes for perfection, not the place. Besides, we're just passing through.  

**If you like the photo above, check out G-Town Surf (link below) for awesome local photography and art. Updated daily.  

Banana Tree Mystic

Before we begin, the title is meant to be catchy. I am not in any way implying that I am a mystic or that banana trees bear any innate mystical qualities (unless, I suppose you could smoke them).*

There is something about laying in a hammock sipping margaritas from a mason jar while a breeze comes through banana leaves. This was yesterday and a fairly common position to find yourself in (for those of us living around here). Laying there enjoying the afternoon got me thinking; thinking about our cultures, travel posters, and faith.

Why do we love pictures of hammocks strung between two trees? Why do we relish the notion that we could be in that hammock? Is it fantasy? Or escapism? Jimmy Buffet once commented in an interview that "everyone wants to live the Jimmy Buffet Life (is that copyrighted?), but even Jimmy Buffet doesn't live the Jimmy Buffet Life." Well, I'm going to posit to you that it is something else. My assertion is that it is the beginning of the contemplative life.

"Whoa!" you say, "back the heresy truck up a little!"

We have all been duped. We have been taught throughout our lives the philosophy of the "Protestant Work Ethic". If you are not producing you are wrong. Everything you do must be in reference to some tangible yet-to-be-realized goal in the near future. To not do this is to commit the grievous sin of sloth. The worst thing a person can possibly be is "lazy". Here's the problem: sloth isn't just laziness. Sloth is the Latin Acedia and it is a spiritual laziness that "goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God" (CCC 2094). In fact, what may be misunderstood as the virtuous life of hard work, perseverance, etc. may actually be sloth. How can we claim to know God, to have a relationship with His Son if we never take time to acknowledge Him except for an hour on Sunday (if that)? How many marriages fail because "he's never home" or "all he worries about is his job"? What kid grows up and says to his parents, "I really appreciate you going to the beach with me and attending my games and having family dinners, but I sure wish you had spent more time at work because my life is incomplete seeing that you never bought be that video game." Same thing with God.

Soren Kierkegaard said "If I could prescribe only one medicine for all the world's ills it would be silence". That is why we look longingly at the picture of a deserted beach or a mountain top, deep down it represents what we know is the antidote to the disease of mammon that we have contracted by way of our spiritual adultery. This is the very same reason we immediately justify our behavior with "sure that's nice, but who has time for that" or "nobody really lives like that". We are scared. We are frightened of what (or Who) we might find in the silence. The world is full of distractions and we eat it up, anything to keep out mind occupied on things of false importance and off of God. It's hard to listen if we're always talking. What we should be doing is running to the silence. 

What in the world does this have to do with some idiot drinking margaritas in a hammock? It's a beginning. It's a start. St. Bonaventure begins his The Mind's Road to God with the idea that God can be seen through His creation. The beginning of the contemplative life is knowing God even in His lowliest works. God tells Job to ponder His work of creation. Christ asks us to contemplate the lilies and the sparrows. St. Francis calls to sing the Canticle of the Sun. It's also about how the world has convinced us to turn everything upside down; to trade the Truth for a lie. 

So go. Be silent. You might like it.**

*This is a joke. I am not condoning smoking banana leaves to achieve mystical states (besides, everybody knows you smoke the peels, not the leaves).

**If you want some help getting started I have a link to a booklist. I would also suggest going to Dr. Peter Kreeft's site (link below) and listening to the free MP3 downloads, particularly the ones on Prayer for Beginners and The Sea and Spirituality.

What We're Doing Here...

We are all called to be contemplatives. We are all invited to contemplation, seriously, we are: look it up (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2558). How that takes shape is different for each of us, but always oriented to that same Place, the same Person because it is initiated by only One Person: The Person.

The Father, in His infinite wisdom and humor, much to my wife's annoyance*, made me a surfer. I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. Surfing is not a sport, is not a pastime, it is a sub-vocation, a calling, a prayer that combines the totality of our being. It is "deep calling on deep". He made me a surfer because that's how He could get me. He could reveal Himself to me in a way that I won't run from or fight, that I will embrace. There are few moments more wrapped in meditation than surfing alone on an empty beach (warm water and empty breaks make up for lesser-surf; Gulf Coast: High-five!). I decided to use this meditation as the first post in History of Jason in the hopes that it sets a tone (and yes, I know that all analogies eventually break down; it's a meditation not a philosophical treatise):
God is like the waves. He comes to me constantly, whether I'm ready to surf or not. Each wave is an invitation to surf. The wave is clean and perfect and all of Creation is contained in this moment. It will pass harmlessly by if I let it. I don't have to catch it. The wave is beautiful, inviting, playful, and caressing. It is also deadly and unyielding. I can't close my eyes and make it go away. I can't claim it doesn't exist and not suffer the consequences. The wave, like God, is coming and I can't stop it. I can only react. I can run from it. I can let it pass. Or, I can catch it. If I run, it will catch me and it will crush me. If I let it pass I may miss out on the ride of my life either because of fear or laziness. But if I catch it, I am in another world...
To catch the wave I have to commit, totally and without reservation. If I balk or hold back I'll be worse off than if I had just let it pass (because now I know). In reality, very little of what I do is catching the wave. I really just set up and it catches me. All I can do is be ready and willing. If I approach the wave on my terms I get a short, sloppy ride at best or a bone-crushing wipe out at worst. But if if I do it right, if I take the wave's offer, it pulls me in and holds me. If I go with the wave instead of fighting it, it just continues to open up, giving more and more of itself. Eventually, the last section begins to flatten out and just time because my legs can't handle any more.
I talk about the wave changing and opening up; in truth, it never changed. The wave is, and was, always open, always exactly what is. It never changed, I changed. I changed the moment it picked me up and I moved into eternity. In the wave there is no time, all time is now, all reality is here, everything is present; and it's good. Just like the fleeting moments of contemplation, I can't stay in the wave forever, not yet, I couldn't handle it. Just like with God, after that period intense closeness, He lets me go and I can never go back to way I was was before the I took that first stroke into the wave.
Surfing is not an individual event. It's a relationship. I have to know the wave. I have to touch the wave and be willing to become completely immersed. I have to give myself over totally to the wave, anything I hold back will only make the relationship weaker. The Wave gives everything, all the time. What kind of surfer would I be if I hold back?


*I'm joking (mostly). My wife has never been anything but supportive of every half-baked scheme I've ever dreamt up. She has NEVER in our 5 years of marriage told me I couldn't go surfing.