Friday, March 07, 2008

Perfection?

As one who struggles with needing to have everything be perfect, I ran across something in the recent Ministry of Money newsletter (issue 154), on perfection.

Jan Sullivan (co-director) quotes an email from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation about how Navajo rugs have imperfection woven into the rug, for that's how the Spirit goes in and out of the rug. I already knew that as any reader of Tony Hillerman would know.

However, what I didn't know was that the Eastern mind (Jesus would have been closer to that than our Western mindset), understands perfection not as eliminating imperfection, but as a way to include imperfection. Perfection includes, involves imperfection, and does not strive to eliminate it. Chaos and control (oblique reference to the upcoming Get Smart movie this summer), yin and yang, etc.

Dad Autograph


Dad Autograph
Originally uploaded by Kurwin.

Moving on to a family autograph connection: this book was written by my dad and published 10 years ago.

He wrote a chronological history of Southern Baptists in New England, using original interviews, documents, and even a paper I wrote in my church history class while in seminary. It was published the year I went back to school, and is as comprehensive as a historical dissertation.

This book is a bit nostalgic for me, since I was raised there, and once was Southern Baptist, before the leadership drug the denomination in a more autocratic direction.

James Still Autograph


James Still Autograph
Originally uploaded by Kurwin.

This is the last of the KY author autographs I have for the moment. James Still (1906-2001) was from Knott County, KY. River of Earth is his best known book, which I must confess I have not read.

It was published in 1940 and involves a KY family trying to survive on the land or by working in the coal mines.