Progress, Not Perfection

Today is my birthday, not my bellybutton birthday, as they refer to it in AA, but my sobriety birthday. It’s a day I truly appreciate and embrace, unlike my other one, and it always invites me to sit back and reflect.

AA is known for many sayings, like One day at a time and Easy Does It, but the one I love most is Progress, not Perfection. It reminds me, not just on my sobriety date but every day, that the journey I’m on is not about doing it perfectly, but doing it, one day at a time, to the best of my ability. The journey is the point, putting one foot in front of the other is what really matters.

Such wisdom extends far beyond recovery. It applies to our work and our relationships. It speaks to parents and children, alike, and also echoes across every pew of every faith community in the land, or at least it should.

My fear is that we’re surrounded by an endless call for perfection. Sports announcers always ask whether an athlete is the “best of all time,” as if to imply anything less is a failure. Such a perspective is found elsewhere. It seems as if everyone measures the people, places and things of his or her life in much the same way. Perfection has become a drug, one that clouds our vision and pollutes our hearts. It rises above like an insurmountable wall, leaving those of us standing below with no other choice but to quit and walk away.

What a gift to be told that life is about progress, not perfection. Suddenly, there’s hope. Suddenly, there’s breathing room for those who are doing the best we can. Suddenly, we can be the best good-enough parents we can, best good-enough co-workers or friends, and best good-enough people of faith. The wall becomes a gate, welcoming us to enter and walk beside one another as fellow sojourners. 

It’s such a special gift, a life-giving gift, one might be tempted to call it perfect. I’ll just call it divine.

Walking the Trail

(With apologies to, and appreciation for, Clive Staples Lewis)

 There it was, the actual Appalachian Trail. The sign beside the road said so. With great excitement, I pulled over and went to walk on this famous trail that leads from Georgia to Maine. I have read countless books about the AT and dreamt of hiking it from one end to the other. 

With reverence, I approached the small, unassuming entrance into the woods. Without the sign I would have missed it. I knew in my mind it was just like any other trail I’d hiked, but because it was the AT something caused me to feel as if I was processing down the aisle of a cathedral. It was a memorable moment, and I reflected on it long after returning to my car.

Until that afternoon, I had only read about the AT and studied maps. Now I had actually experienced it, if only for a mile or too. Part of me wanted to choose which was better, first-hand experience or the cumulative experiences of the great cloud of hikers who’d written books and drawn maps.

I think I live in that tension, spiritually. Surrounded by books, rituals and creeds, my heart longs for first-hand experience, and I feel I’ve had a few but they were brief and always left me longing for more. Without someone coming before putting out a sign, I might have missed such experiences, or passed them off as coincidences. Without the books, rituals, and creeds, I’d never know the magnitude of the trail, nor learn about the nature of the entire adventure. 

Fortunately, countless others have taken the time to map out what they’ve seen, who they’ve come to know, as well as the successes they’ve had and mistakes they’ve made. Somehow, their work helps me make sense of the mile or two I will experience in my life. 

Like so many things, it’s not an either/or proposition, but a both/and. So I’ll continue to go for walks and open my heart for God’s whispers, but I’ll also read my many books and go to church so my heart knows what, or who, it’s looking for. 

Sheet Music

The great conductor called his musicians together and handed out their sheet music. 

‘I can’t play this!” one of the younger members of the orchestra complained. “There’re so many notes. This is beyond me.”

“It is now, but it won’t be. Start playing. You’ll get it.”

So, she did, but it was the most challenging piece of music she’d ever played. There were pages of music, and notes and rhythms she’d never played before. Like a baby taking her initial steps, she fell more than she walked, but each day she played one note she hadn’t before. Some days she threw up her hands wanting to quit, but then she’d hear something or make it through a part that once confounded her and carried on. At a moment of acute frustration, she went to the conductor to complain.

“Can’t you give this music to someone else,” she pleaded. “and give me something else to play.”

The conductor smiled but refused. “No, this is your music. I wrote it specifically for you. Someone else might be able to play it, but it wouldn’t sound the same.”

“But it’s too hard. I hit too many wrong notes.”

“That’s how you find the right ones.”

“It’ll take me my entire lifetime to learn how to play this music.”

“Exactly,” the conductor said as if savoring a vintage wine. “Exactly.”