This Perfect Circle

How difficult are these days that are before us?  In these days that seem to have promise and yet so much heartache.  There is something inside me that believes in the ideal, this hope of perfection.  That it is possible to be what I see myself to be and maybe even more than I can imagine but also be able to love so amazingly well that people leave my presence with a firm belief that they are special and care about without there being a shadow of doubt.  I believe in this world and that one person's love can change it in some way even if it is for one moment, one day, one lifetime.   

But I have a small problem, just one issue that keeps me from actually doing this well let alone perfectly.  I can't put myself aside.  I am self serving at moments and self destructive at others.  I know in my heart what I want to do, how I want to respond to things but then something takes over. . . . my need for doing it right without fail . . . . the idea that I need to be life changing . . . . this shadow in my soul that says if it is not flawless that I need to fix it or try harder or figure it out. This lie that say if they don't overtly show care for me then I am not doing something right.  My greatest enemy becomes myself and my idea that I have the power to love people consummately by some unknown influence and I can make people love me by . . . . being perfect.   And somewhere in this strive for perfection to be a master of compassion and kindness, I somehow lose what makes me lovable and kind and compassionate.  I become an obsession of wanting what is right and good by my standards and all else flies out the window.  And the moment I believe I have the circle perfected is the moment that I find the break in the halo.  Yet as often as I see the mistake in my thinking and actions, still I find a way to make the mistake of becoming something, someone I am not.  

For the first 6 years of my life I was lived on the farm just outside of Pella.  For many of you that know me I am sure you could never imagine me as a farm kid but I was . . . at first.  On our farm was a pasture just beyond the yard by our house and this pasture led to a farm pond.  In the summer the grass would grow around the pond and as the summer got longer so did the grass until it was hard to even see the water from the house.  Now I loved to go fishing in the pond and dangle my feet in the water but the later in the summer it got the less likely my parent would let me go to the pond.   So my brothers would go and I would stay home and play with my dog Whitey, and yes he was white.  

Since I was a small child I have had dream that comes and goes still do this day about that pond.  Some nights when I fall asleep I find myself back in the old bedroom in the farm house and I wake up in the middle of a cool and restless summer night.  I walk outside I see my dog gleaming white in the field just beyond the fence and he is looking back to me with his big eyes.  And i can see him just like it was day light.  The grass feels dewy and cool on my feet as I look out in field where my doggy takes a few steps further into the field and then turns to look at me in way to beckon me to come with him . . . .  he is going to the pond.  I can't help but follow.  As I get closer to the fence I look back to house to make sure that my parents don't see me because I am not suppose to go through the tall grass.  It is as I look back at the house I notice all the stars in the sky.  They felt closer tonight, brighter in the sky than any night before.  And the further out into the field that follow Whitey the brighter they get.  The air feel warm but the breeze is cool on my face and as I walk I let the tall green grass slide between my fingers and under my palms.  And the sent of dew on grass . . . .it still makes me smile and take a deep breath.  Then all of the sudden Whitey runs into the tallest grass by the pond.  I can hear him dashing in the grass that now towers over my head.  I can't see him anymore and I begin to run after him, calling out for him.  I follow him through this perfect circle of grass that rings around the pond.  To me this might be as close as heaven gets. . . .matchless in its refinement.  I have found what I am looking for in this life.  

I run through the grass in pure joy and I am overcome by a feeling that can only compare to being in love . . . . and then in an instant it all changes.  The grass becomes thicker and harder to see and I can't hear my dog anymore.  Finally as the grass clears . . . it happens.  I fall into the pool of still water, unable to swim or breath. . . . . perfection is now my perdition.  

And then I wake up.

I am back in the real world breathing fast, heart racing, unsure of where I am.

Then life brings the obscure dream into a clear reality.  I now live in a moment that tests all that I believe against all that I have dreamt and been.  I have found something that give me confidence in the fact that perfect circle does exist despite all the broken one of the past.   There is a wall that keeps me from the living in this hopeful circlet I have alway had blind faith in . . . and it is the memories of the past broken ideas of what I tried to make it be.  They were not infinate like they were supposed to be.  I failed to be or do what was needed to make them happen.  I was unable to be myself as I tried to be what I thought all those people wanted me to be and lost much to trying to change into someone I am not; the perfect teacher, the ideal theologian, the best of friends, the strongest of survivors or a lover that catches his beloved when she jumps.   

But I have hope in the idea of the circle, one with no beginning and no end.  In my heart I know that it is not a founded on the idea of perfection of making a circle but rather in the grace that I can go around the ring as long as it takes, in grace, to learn how to be the things I believe in.  perhaps it is not the fact of how great I can be but rather having confidence in how caring and good I am.  What if the pressure was not on being anything other than compassionate and real and not right.   Cause being right mean someone else has to be wrong but with compassion we walk as one heart.   It is when we try to jump out of ourselves and this walk of faith and grace and who we are that we break through the grass circlet into the water and start to drown.  But if I would only slow down and look at those stars more or breath in the smell of the dew, just ok in the being there . . . then the circle is perfect and there is not need to make it better . . . and I am home and loved well and can love so much better.   If I can lose myself in the circle I will walk it forever