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Course Correcting

Recently I came across a line I liked.  Actually, I had heard someone refer to it and they had cited someone who has said it.  I checked that person and found no evidence she had used the phrase.  And then with a little more investigation, I find that it has been used rather widely by a range of people.  So who said it originally, I have no clue.  And here it does not matter.  The phrase talks about “course correcting.”  And it basically affirms that “it is about course correction, not perfection.”

Inherently, that phrase has some appeal to me.  It is as if I am attracted emotionally to it and, then, have to figure out intellectually what it means.  As I have thought a bit more about it, I have decided that I want to apply it to life.  But life is lived day by day, so it means it actually applies in particular situations and probably at multiple times in our lives.  Let pursue some of the details.

I am sure it is attractive to me, in the first place, because I grew up in a perfectionist mode.  I say this without blaming anyone.  I am sure I willingly bought into that mode of life.  After all, who would not want to be perfect!  I am sure my parents would have voted for it.  And as a parent, I also would have been happy if my two girls would have been perfect.  But they weren’t and neither was I.  No one is.  It can fairly be said that to be human is to be less than perfect.

Having read something about perfectionism and also having some exposure to the world of innovation and entrepreneurs make me aware that perfectionism actually comes with a cost.  If we are trying to pull off being perfect, then we likely will short-circuit life.  We will become too conservative.  We will be afraid to try anything.  In the spiritual life, it would mean we would not really want to obey God.  Obedience might make us look like anything but perfect.  We might even be called to be and do somethings that society and our culture consider radical.  No perfectionist is going to be radical.

What we are really talking about is a willingness to risk.  I am sure as a younger guy, I was risk averse.  To risk is to be willing to fail.  And failure does not go well with being a perfectionist.  Failure and perfection cannot be on the same page nor in the same life---it is a double bind.  You have to give up one of the two.  I suggest we are much better off to give up the idea of perfection. 

Life is a story of change.  We cannot control everything.  We cannot manipulate all situations so that being perfect is not really possible.  So we should give up trying.  Life is really about course correction.  One of the things I have learned in reading is that course correction comes out of the nautical world, as one example.  If you are sailing, you cannot go in a straight line.  Sailing is a matter of continual course correction.  You use the wind, but you cannot go straight into the wind.  I wonder if the wind in this analogy is not like the Spirit.  Interestingly, in Greek they are the same word. 

In this analogy, living a spiritual life is a bit like sailing.  We cannot sail directly into the Spirit.  We have to tack our way through life.  As sailors will tell us, this is not a perfect art.  It is an art grounded in continuous course correction.  We go so far in one direction and, then, head back into the other direction.  All the while, we are making progress toward our goal.  Spiritually speaking, our goal should be something like continually living in the presence of the Spirit. 

But again, we cannot do this in a direct way.  It is like not being able to look directly at God.  It is as if we were staring in the sun.  The Divine Light is too bright.  If we were to look directly at it, we would be blinded.  We have to catch a sideways glance.  It is like sailing slightly across the Spirit so it can move us forward, but not to our peril.

Course correction means a willingness to risk.  It is an eagerness to say yes to the call of the Spirit and start living life heading into the winds of the Spirit.  Course correction takes seriously the spiritual life is a journey---it is a process.  It likely entails failure, mistakes and the like.  It is not about perfection, but about obedience.  I know in the Sermon on the Mount, the English translations have Jesus saying, “Be ye perfect…”  But I also know the Greek word there means something like “be ye fulfilled or complete.” 

I don’t think Jesus meant for us to be perfectionists.  Consider all his disciples at the end of the story.  Except for possibly the women, they all came up short.  But it does not mean they could not be disciples.  It meant they need to course correct.  All of us who are disciples will have to do it, too.

Sail on, my friends, and continue your journey into the wind of the Spirit. 

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