Past Perfect: Freedom from Perfection in Life and Faith

Past Perfect: Freedom from Perfection in Life and Faith

by Stephen Mitchell
Past Perfect: Freedom from Perfection in Life and Faith

Past Perfect: Freedom from Perfection in Life and Faith

by Stephen Mitchell

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Overview

We seem to be obsessed with perfection. It's everywhere, permeating our conversations, our language, our advertising, our films and our religion. It's not only widespread across our culture; it has roots deep in the beginning of our civilization. For the sake of our well-being and our faith we need to be liberated from this pre-occupation. Past Perfect unravels some of the confusion surrounding our use of the word in many different contexts, and shapes an understanding of God that is free of this notion.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781785357886
Publisher: Collective Ink
Publication date: 09/28/2018
Pages: 80
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Stephen Mitchell is a retired Church of England priest who has worked as a Cathedral Precentor, school chaplain, Rural Dean and priest to rural parishes. He is a founder member of the Sea of Faith Network and he chaired the organisation for many years. He lives in Sudbury, UK.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Past Perfect

We seem to be obsessed with perfection. It's everywhere, permeating our conversations, our language, our advertising, our films and our religion. It's not only widespread across our culture; it has roots deep in the beginnings of our civilization.

I hope to convince you that for the sake of our faith and wellbeing, we need to free ourselves from this pre-occupation. I admit to being as guilty as anyone of accepting a gift with the words "It's absolutely perfect!" but beyond such social niceties, we need to recognise that a search for perfection may inhibit our growth and sabotage any attempt to improve our lives. Equally, I certainly wouldn't want to imply that everything is imperfect since that too relies on ideas of perfection. There's no need to content ourselves with second-best, we can move beyond perfection, past perfect, embracing life, providing opportunities and creating a more just and secure world in which everyone can flourish.

From my standpoint as a retired Anglican priest, I concede that the church is similarly preoccupied with the perfect. I sing the hymn Holy, holy, holy with as much enthusiasm as the rest of the congregation but I know that the line "perfect in power, in love and purity" is little more than poetic alliteration.

I began this exploration after writing God in the Bath (O Books, 2006) in which I said that wherever we are, we are in God, for God is that in which we live and move and have our being.

When as Christians we say we believe in God, it's an almost literal use of the word in. We believe in God. God is our environment, our world, our life .... It shouldn't therefore be difficult to believe in God. We shouldn't have to struggle to get our heads around impossible questions. We are already in God. Belief isn't like taking an exam, it's like taking a bath. We need to learn to relax and let ourselves be revived in God's presence.

At the time I took it as understood that God embodied perfection, so was I saying that whatever it is we live and move and have our being in is perfect? When later my wife was dying of Motor Neurone Disease, it seemed an increasingly ridiculous claim to have made.

We use the words perfect and imperfect in a variety of ways to describe ourselves and the world and values such as beauty, goodness and love. However our present understanding of these is very different from that of the past, due to a huge shift in our thinking. It renders the term perfect redundant and demands a revision of our theology.

This isn't only a theological and philosophical concern, as an obsession with the perfect blights our lives in practical ways. "I am a perfectionist" people say at an interview when asked to confess their faults. It's usually a self-deprecating way of saying "I am totally committed to completing work to the highest possible standards". However, perfectionism that seeks something beyond this can inhibit creativity, leave us indecisive, and undermine our confidence. An even greater concern is that it may cost lives; research suggests that exposure to a relentless demand to be perfect, (a concept sometimes referred to as socially prescribed perfectionism), is linked consistently with feelings of hopelessness, eating disorders (particularly amongst young people), and in extreme circumstances attempted suicide.

My thanks to the team at John Hunt Publishing for their professional expertise and help. I am indebted to the late Tony Guinle, a friend, journalist and raconteur who read the first draft of these ideas with great insight and persuaded me to complete the project. My daughters, Frances and Jennifer, have been a huge encouragement, Frances challenging my thinking from her experience as a counsellor, writer and musician. Above all I want to thank Elaine who has spent many hours helping and encouraging me to produce a readable text.

CHAPTER 2

Perfect Day

Nothing's perfect, they say, but it seems we are repeatedly bombarded by promises to the contrary. According to adverts on the internet, a perfect pizza, plumber, pen or pet is only a phone call away. The perfect property is just down the road. It makes the estate agent's day to unlock the front door and hear the client's "Wow!" Everyone, it seems, is looking for the wow factor. Surprise and amazement, and the recognition of beauty, ability, courage and sheer determination are all expressed in a "Wow!" as extraordinary talent, outstanding achievement, virtue, self-sacrifice or saintliness overwhelm us.

"Wow! It's perfect!" we may add. It's the perfect house with a bathroom to die for and a kitchen at the heart of the family home. Wow! But what does the "perfect" add? Are we really saying that here is something not only good, not even very good, nor even something that has the elusive X factor but perfection itself? And what is that?

Our word "perfection" comes from the Latin word perficio meaning to complete. The Greeks used the word teleios from telos meaning end – end that is not only in the sense of bringing something to completion but also in the sense of being directed towards a particular end or goal. It is in this way that we say the house is perfect. It's just what we've been looking for, the goal of our search. It ticks all our boxes. It's the complete package. We won't find a better one and our search is at an end. Yet while this house, with its views across the countryside and acres of ground is just right for me and my family, it isn't perfect for the young bachelor. It's not what he's looking for. Is perfect always a relative idea – perfect for me or for him?

Our everyday use of perfect reveals some other interesting and puzzling aspects of the word. Take the idea of perfection in sport, for example. In 1984, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, added to their considerable ice- skating achievements by becoming Olympic Gold medallists. The nine judges awarded them a total of 12 perfect sixes for technical aspects of the dance; the highest ever score for a single performance. However not all Olympic athletes can achieve such perfection. There are no marks awarded to 100 metre sprinters. They may win a gold medal, achieve a personal best time and even break a world record but they know that sooner or later, their record time will be broken. If they are lucky it will stand for a season or two, but sooner or later a fraction of a second will be knocked off their world record time. Excited commentators will describe them as having run the perfect race and achieved a perfect result but at the back of the athlete's mind is the thought that while they now stand on the podium listening to their national anthem, next year or the year after someone else will be standing in their place. Their achievement will be surpassed.

In Sarajevo, Torvill and Dean were also awarded a perfect six for artistic impression yet in most other artistic endeavours this is an impossible goal. Anyone who has had an essay marked will know that thoughts of perfection are discouraged. Usually a letter is given – A, B or C, sometimes in Greek – Alpha, Beta or Gamma, sometimes a classification – First, Second or Third. Even when the essay receives a mark, it is translated into letter grades: 70% to 100% is an A, 50% - 70% a B. Again the message is clear. You may be good (A), or even very good (A+). You may be excellent (A++ or A *) but you are not perfect.

Usually, in the arts, it's taken for granted that the ideal is unachievable. There's no such thing as the perfect performance or painting just as there is no such thing as the perfect crime or society and anyone who seeks such perfection is an idealistic dreamer, the target of an advertiser's campaign or victim to a politician's propaganda. Advertisers may market perfect diets and cleaning products but that's all it is, media hype.

In science, the perfect ideal has real and practical uses. The hypothetically, perfectly rigid body, the perfectly smooth surface and the perfect fluid, provide a model of how in ideal situations things behave. While they are not to be found in nature or even possible to manufacture, they provide the basis for scientific theory. Mathematicians also have a specific use for the word perfect. A perfect number - six, for example or 28 - is one which equals the sum of its divisors. (Six is the first perfect number as 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. Twenty- eight is the second as 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14 = 28.) No one knows whether all the perfect numbers are even numbers or whether there are an infinite number of perfect numbers. In antiquity, Plato called 10 a perfect number. We have ten fingers! Pythagoras, claimed that six was a perfect number because our height is six times the length of our feet. Others called three and others seven perfect numbers. These are very specific, technical uses of the word perfect.

Our everyday use of the word perfect reveals another interesting characteristic.

Just a perfect day Drink Sangria in the park And then later When it gets dark, we go home
What extraordinary event made Lou Read's day perfect?

Just a perfect day Feed animals in the zoo Then later A movie, too, and then home Oh, it's such a perfect day I'm glad I spent it with you
There is nothing here to match the outstanding Olympic achievements of Torvill and Dean, and that often seems to be the case in our descriptions of the perfect. It can, we say, be experienced in ordinary, everyday activities.

What is even more extraordinary is that we talk of perfection being experienced in the imperfections of our lives. Sometimes, indeed it is the mishaps that make the day perfect. What a perfect wedding! The bride looked radiant, the service was reverent but not too formal and the reception brought both families together. Even though the groom fluffed his vows, the best man dropped the rings and it started raining as the photographs were being taken, we still say it was a perfect wedding. Indeed the unexpected mishaps made the day.

In our everyday use, perfect varies from being a simple exclamation of delight, to describing something that ticks all the boxes, suits our needs, and cannot be bettered. It describes something that is complete, the goal of our searching and, sometimes an unattainable ideal. It's used for scientific modelling and practical hypotheses. It is the name of a particular series of numbers and whereas the perfect can be seen as faultless, it can also, paradoxically, be made by accidental mishaps. This rich variation is often overlooked in our obsession with the perfect as is the joy and success that can be present in misfortune and mistakes.

There is no escape from the language of perfection in the church. God is described in the hymn Holy, holy, holy as "perfect in power, in love and purity". Other hymns address God as O Perfect Love, O Perfect Redemption, O Perfect Sacrifice, O Perfect Peace. Jesus is addressed as the perfect human being:

O perfect God, Thy love As perfect Man did share
His disciples are called to be perfect. "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" says Jesus in Matthew's Gospel (Matthew 5.48) and if that is unattainable in this life, there's the hope of the perfection of heaven. How does this theological language relate to the everyday uses of the perfect?

Nothing's perfect, they say but of course they don't usually include God. If they do, all perfection is said to reside with God in heaven and everything, everywhere else is imperfect. Here a very clear divide is made between the perfect realised in God and our flawed, imperfect world. It leads us to ask which ways of thinking about the perfect apply to God. Is God a hypothesis, an ideal, an end of our searching, something unsurpassable? All of these have been said of God. Yet such a clear separation of the two worlds doesn't quite match Christian ideas of incarnation. Christians talk about God with us, about being made in the image of God and God's spirit being within them. They are encouraged to see Christ in their neighbour and God's will in the events of their lives and the world. If God is perfect, then Christian incarnational belief implies that something of the perfection of God is present amidst the imperfections of life. While such a paradox may excite the imagination, it may be devoid of any real meaning.

In the following chapters, I want to look at these questions by examining our use of the concept of perfection in our attempts to create beauty, love and justice and in our efforts to become better people in a better world. I believe that in these context we simply don't need ideas of perfection and moreover, therefore, neither do we need ideas of perfection in our search for the God of beauty, truth and love.

CHAPTER 3

Beauty

"Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth," wrote the Psalmist (Psalm 50.2). Is there any perfection in beauty? Does beauty have anything to do with perfection? Is beauty a form of perfection?

There's an ancient story concerning two Greek rival artists. Zeuxis challenges Parrhasius to a paint-off to determine who possessed the greater skill. Each executes a wall painting and when it comes to the reveal, Zeuxis uncovers his first: a bunch of grapes so life-like that the birds fly down to peck at them. Confident of victory, he asks Parrhasius to remove the drape from his painting only to be told that the drape is in fact the painting. Zeuxis graciously concedes defeat.

If realistic representation is the sole aim of the painter, then artists can indeed aim for perfection in their work. Zeuxis's grapes and Parrhasius's drape would both be candidates for the perfection of beauty, but some imaginary or mythical subjects have no "original" to be copied.

There's another story about Zeuxis, in which he is commissioned to paint a portrait of Helen of Troy. He begins by looking for a model and failing to find anyone who matches Helen's mythical, spell-binding beauty, chooses five women with the intention of combining their most attractive features in his painting. Cicero, the Roman philosopher and writer, ends his account of the tale in De Inventione with these words.

He chose five women because he did not think all the qualities which he sought to combine in a portrayal of beauty could be found in one person, since in no single case has nature made anything perfect and finished in every part.

We'll leave, for the moment, Zeuxis and Cicero's agreement that nature fails to produce anything totally flawless and that, therefore, there are no perfectly beautiful women. For them a woman may have some perfect features, but other parts of her will let her down. Yet Zeuxis not only thinks that there can be perfect beauty, he believes that through his skill at mixing and matching the individual traits of his various models, he can actually bring it about in a real painting.

This may be an old story but it has uncomfortable resonances in contemporary life. Today we hear of women who are dissatisfied with their bodies. They undergo the cost and pain of cosmetic surgery in an attempt to eliminate their perceived imperfections. Nowadays the ideal for which they strive can be artificially engineered by creating computer generated pictures from a number of different components, in much the same way that Zeuxis composed his portrait of Helen. Film producers sometimes employ body doubles to compensate for nature's supposed shortfalls in parts of their leading superstars, particularly in scenes of an intimate nature. This obsession is not confined exclusively to women. Men, too, have concerns about their bodies but there is a sinister misogynist undercurrent to the old story of Zeuxis - the perfection women seek is one that is, or sometimes imagined to be, one demanded by men.

Cosmetic surgery does not always meet the high expectations of the client and can have tragic results. A more recent tale whose dénouement epitomises the very antithesis of beauty and perfection is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Its protagonist, like Zeuxis, attempts to produce a creature from various body parts and in his aspiration for the perfect form collects bones from charnel houses and scours dissecting rooms and slaughterhouses for limbs. The end result is horrific. Frankenstein's little son William utters a shrill scream on first seeing the hideous fiend. Only the blind Mr de Lacey is able to respond kindly to him. Frankenstein's later attempt to make a female companion in the hope that the loathsome creature will leave Europe for ever, disgusts him and he tears the thing to pieces.

These stories raise fundamental questions not only about our attempt to create perfect beauty but about our self-worth. If we are convinced that we and the world are in some way imperfect, we risk living in a continuing state of disappointment and dissatisfaction. If we persist in scrutinising and assessing individual physical characteristics, we adopt a festishistic, rather than holistic, approach to people.

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "Past Perfect"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Stephen Mitchell.
Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Past Perfect,
Perfect Day,
Beauty,
World,
Humanity,
Goodness,
Love,
Place,
End,

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