7th Day Ramadan: what is perfection right now?

canoe gallery - open source

Yesterday I never knew I was going to get through that day! I was sustained by my fasting, prayer yet most of all from the morning inspiration reflection on two who've made such a difference for the helpless. Yet, same time, there were a few rough and tumbling waters here at home. Since my dear adult son and I rarely work together - and had to tackle some really hard work, it's a near miracle we got through it and in flying colors. (He would agree)

Nothing we had planned to get done seemed to get very far - yet the experience was beyond achieving those goals. Perhaps in it's own rough and wild way - we made together a kind of perfection of learning from each other each step of our work's journey. We found out that the other knew a little more than us about some things or had better ideas and this kept cris-crossing back and forth over the churning waves.. We learned better how to row the boat "in synch" rather than to pull the oars against one another's movements.

Can we not say this is a kind of perfection - maybe one of the most needed?

A river can be strong and beautiful and sometimes on natural course - yet all this can be lost in the tempestuous rush to reach the sea. We and rivers can be waylaid and even made dangerous by sudden forces beyond our capacities to contain or heal them. There's often just not enough time to figure out in every case all the whys and wherefores. Sometimes to survive we have to just GO and wing-it.

Yet as rivers and people deal with such unbelievable frustrations each day - some more than others - maybe there are some lessons here? How might we see our own perfection in the now - the daily - the deluges facing us? How is our perfection not only in meeting goals and having expected outcomes yet also in doing best we can with others' and God's help and yet ultimately in our own choices as well as surrender?

Of course the number SEVEN brings up strong connections for many. For some, perfection or completion.

Today I'm considering living more and more by a kind of perfection which is not another's ideal nor even my own long-range goal but is for right now in context of the larger.

I'm not good at things unresolved...the waiting is hard for me. This relates to watching children grow up and mature as well as to my demands for myself and my work of every sort.

So, just today, I want to pray for and be glad for this kind of perfection which seeks to understand and follow the Divine injunction just for right now. What I am to do in the context of so many unfinished situations...

To take one foot in front of the other, to complete one task, to love one person especially well (for me today, one child returning to college).

So at the end of my day, I felt a bit like this boatman in his canoe might have felt - peace at sunset. Surely I have to wake up to more than we can ever get done. Yet what are the tasks held for me in this particular day? I think I'll call it, Perfection in Context and seek that little bit of the whole - JUST that for right now...The world is a big world. The people out there loving and caring are an immense community. God is a limitless God.

And as I see so much suffering and lack of reconciliation and sometimes seems like we're going backwards and nowhere near our goals. Yet, I pray to also see that which is working beautifully as well - the love within the challenges, barriers tossed aside, bridges being belt little by little...



Here are two articles which speak of this (we just don't often hear of them) :
Be sure to see original site here and NOTE the very interesting Comments

An earlier item with the same spirit here Muslims, Christians break Ramadan fast together in Bethlehem

Even in the context of the unspeakable challenges of the floods in Pakistan, how can we each all over the world find our own part and follow that to perfection? All our little bits of perfection, just might heal a few villages, may save a few lives and might lead to unexpected working together - like many learning to row "in synch" across a worldwide river in ONE canoe - one wide beautiful beating Heart.

Plx excuse this drafty, rapid-like post :)