Read Online Between the Dark and the Daylight: Encountering and Embracing the Contradictions of Life by Osb Joan Chittister, Joan Sister Chittister - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Osb Joan Chittister, Joan Sister Chittister
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As Ashleigh Brilliant says, “Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.”
As the proverb teaches, “A good rest is half the work.” At least, that is, if you really want to be productive.
13
T HE T EMPTATION OF S INLESSNESS
One of the few things we can be sure to discover as life goes by is that perfection is perfectly impossible, if for no other reason than that nobody really knows what that means. What does it mean to be perfectly honest when we give false hope to a dying mother? What does it mean to be perfectly obedient when we kill one person to save another? What does it mean to be perfectly loving and care more for one child than the rest of them? What does it mean to wake up in the middle of the night saying to ourselves, Why do I always do it wrong?
In fact, St. Augustine, the expert on sin, confession and repentance, says of it: “This is our perfection: to find out our imperfections.” Imperfection we will have always with us, it seems. And our most important discovery of it is within ourselves.
But if that is true, what is sinlessness really all about?We live life coping with the challenge of becoming the best human being we can be. So what are we looking for? What can we possibly hope to attain? And, most of all, how sinful is sinlessness?
The temptation to perfection is a serious one. It gives the impression that such a thing is possible. And that is a dangerous spiritual condition in which to find ourselves. The problem is that perfection may not be able to be achieved but it is both easily faked and easily surrendered. And all in the name of holiness.
It is very easy to be considered perfect. All we need to do is learn to look good in public. Obey. Defer. Follow. Be quiet. It’s a child’s trick that too easily turns into an adult lifestyle. We do what the world expects us to do and the reward is instant holiness. We keep the rules of the institution. We defer to the opinions of the right people. We follow the crowd. We say nothing when the world is crying for something to be said.
And before you know it, we think we’re sinless, too. “You broods of vipers and whited sepulchers,” Jesus says to the officials in town who are only collecting the taxes they’ve been told to collect, who are only teaching what they’re supposed to teach—despite the effects of those rules on the hungry and the lepers, the crippled and the women, the foreigners and the poor.
But there is lurking in this kind of sanctity the very deepest pit of arrogance. Before you know it, we have separated ourselves from “those kinds of people.” We consider ourselves authorized to pass out large monogrammed A’s for the jackets of women who have had abortions, to houndthem in public, to cut off their right to insurance, to ignore their needs for day care and health care and full-salaried jobs. And call ourselves holy for doing so.
We set ourselves up as arbiters of the lives of those who go through life grappling with the very idea of God while we settle for law as a substitute for the God we say is Love. We want capital punishment despite the fact that our scriptures—which we read regularly—are clear: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says God. And at night, hot with anger at others, we struggle instead to suppress the memory of our own sins not yet painted on a billboard next to the sins of those we condemn. The state of our own personal lives we conceal while we present to the world around us the false smiles and false morality we reserve for those who bear their own confusion and pain for all the world to see.
The judgments we render to the world on others admit nothing about the violence of the condemnations we issue in the name of God. Anger and self-righteousness are the tools of the trade.
And so we concentrate on sin rather than on holiness. We turn God into a tyrant rather than a lover. We lose the very qualities we say we want. We spew acid on the soul
As the proverb teaches, “A good rest is half the work.” At least, that is, if you really want to be productive.
13
T HE T EMPTATION OF S INLESSNESS
One of the few things we can be sure to discover as life goes by is that perfection is perfectly impossible, if for no other reason than that nobody really knows what that means. What does it mean to be perfectly honest when we give false hope to a dying mother? What does it mean to be perfectly obedient when we kill one person to save another? What does it mean to be perfectly loving and care more for one child than the rest of them? What does it mean to wake up in the middle of the night saying to ourselves, Why do I always do it wrong?
In fact, St. Augustine, the expert on sin, confession and repentance, says of it: “This is our perfection: to find out our imperfections.” Imperfection we will have always with us, it seems. And our most important discovery of it is within ourselves.
But if that is true, what is sinlessness really all about?We live life coping with the challenge of becoming the best human being we can be. So what are we looking for? What can we possibly hope to attain? And, most of all, how sinful is sinlessness?
The temptation to perfection is a serious one. It gives the impression that such a thing is possible. And that is a dangerous spiritual condition in which to find ourselves. The problem is that perfection may not be able to be achieved but it is both easily faked and easily surrendered. And all in the name of holiness.
It is very easy to be considered perfect. All we need to do is learn to look good in public. Obey. Defer. Follow. Be quiet. It’s a child’s trick that too easily turns into an adult lifestyle. We do what the world expects us to do and the reward is instant holiness. We keep the rules of the institution. We defer to the opinions of the right people. We follow the crowd. We say nothing when the world is crying for something to be said.
And before you know it, we think we’re sinless, too. “You broods of vipers and whited sepulchers,” Jesus says to the officials in town who are only collecting the taxes they’ve been told to collect, who are only teaching what they’re supposed to teach—despite the effects of those rules on the hungry and the lepers, the crippled and the women, the foreigners and the poor.
But there is lurking in this kind of sanctity the very deepest pit of arrogance. Before you know it, we have separated ourselves from “those kinds of people.” We consider ourselves authorized to pass out large monogrammed A’s for the jackets of women who have had abortions, to houndthem in public, to cut off their right to insurance, to ignore their needs for day care and health care and full-salaried jobs. And call ourselves holy for doing so.
We set ourselves up as arbiters of the lives of those who go through life grappling with the very idea of God while we settle for law as a substitute for the God we say is Love. We want capital punishment despite the fact that our scriptures—which we read regularly—are clear: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says God. And at night, hot with anger at others, we struggle instead to suppress the memory of our own sins not yet painted on a billboard next to the sins of those we condemn. The state of our own personal lives we conceal while we present to the world around us the false smiles and false morality we reserve for those who bear their own confusion and pain for all the world to see.
The judgments we render to the world on others admit nothing about the violence of the condemnations we issue in the name of God. Anger and self-righteousness are the tools of the trade.
And so we concentrate on sin rather than on holiness. We turn God into a tyrant rather than a lover. We lose the very qualities we say we want. We spew acid on the soul
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