The Perfection of Imperfection

Conception and growth to maturity, whether in the plant or animal world, is the mark of ongoing life.  Mixed in with the irrepressible frailties of procreative partners to inadvertently bring about their own undoing remains the ubiquitous drive for life.

In this comedy of errors, the urge for perfection is constantly brought into check by the lack of reaching it, despite our best attempts. And in that realization of one’s utter inadequacy to reach the pinnacle is the first step toward freedom.

As I write this, my four-year-old daughter sits at the opposite end of our dining room table, working out a puzzle. I love the symmetry of the moment as we both labor towards a finished piece, hers perhaps a bit more defined as such. And isn’t that what we who struggle with perfectionism work towards? A sense of resolve, of completion, a definitive conclusion.

Since beginning the uncharted course to get to the depths of what drives perfectionism to a place of personal and professional detriment, I have been delighted and somewhat astonished to observe a principle at work in the world that I call the perfection of imperfection. Imagery often delivers more than words themselves, so I will only present the concept as I am coming to understand it in a few brief sketches.

Even just musing on this principle of the perfectly ‘imperfect’ seems to be bringing degrees of freedom I’ve only in recently begun to experience.

Observations have included the following:

The random beauty of falling leaves in autumn; the whimsical twirl in the earth of that which is dead, finished, complete, and soon to decompose. And yet, arrayed in brilliant pigments, scattered loosely on the ground, no artist, engineer, scientist or poet could possibly lay them out with any more loveliness than the fingers of the wind.

I have noticed when my house is overly neat, I do not have items at my fingertips that in more creative bursts would be helpful, even needful. While a wildly disorganized environment is not the answer, there is a certain brilliance that seems to be resident when there is a level of creative chaos is present.

Several years ago, the creative arts church I was part of was doing its run-through before the service, which included elements of music, drama and dance. One of the performers was wearing a beaded necklace which broke unexpectedly in rehearsal. Without missing a beat, when the speaker ascended the stage and began his talk, he walked slowly towards the strewn pieces, and bending down, picked them up bead by bead, pausing at intervals to study one before hiding it in his hand, remarking how tenderly God picks up our scattered messes, holds and makes sense of them, in the way only He can.

Without question, the delivery of the message was made visually eloquent by the unplanned object lesson. The perfection of the broken necklace was a beautiful picture of this principle of the perfectly imperfect. Being tossed a curve ball, and catching it with ease, rather than attempting to ignore it or force the moment into the something it actually was never meant to be is the lesser choice. But perhaps even an imperfect choice can lead to a perfect solution.