Embracing Spirituality and Exploring the Search for Meaning
By Susannah Richardson
Photo by Alyssa SaidiZand
I want the focus of this post to be an excerpt from The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search For Meaning, a book by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham.
In the spirit..no pun intended ;)... of full transparency, I’ll tell you that I have never read this book. In research to write this article, though, I came across this excerpt that sort of took my breath away and put perfectly what I wanted to highlight in today’s post:
“We are not ‘everything,’ but neither are we ‘nothing.’
Spirituality is discovered in that space between paradox’s extremes, for there we confront our helplessness and powerlessness, our woundedness. In seeking to understand our limitations, we seek not only an easing of our pain but an understanding of what it means to hurt and what it means to be healed. Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is: There is no one to ‘blame’ for our errors — neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else. Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing. Spirituality accepts that ‘If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.’”
Read that a few times and think about how it fits into your lifestyle and routines. Does it make you feel frustrated that the idea of perfection is denied? Or does it give you a sense of serenity to validate imperfections? Let your mind wander.
I think the best thing about embracing the massiveness of spirituality is that there is no “right” way to do it. Your search for meaning can look however you’d like it to look so that you benefit greatly from it. It’s literally all about whatever floats your boat.
This post is intentionally short to allow for just a moment to reflect on what makes you human. So I’ll leave you with this:
For me, thinking about how I fit into this world is overwhelming. My existence is minuscule when put up against the Earth, turning on its axis in our solar system in the galaxy. I love to ask myself questions of “why,” and I encourage you to do the same. By getting personal with yourself and recognizing “flaws” in the human condition (i.e., putting worth into perfection), you will feel more connected with the “fractured being,” and just by taking that step, feelings of contentment and the joy of being human will fill you up.
