Lanterns and Imperfection

LANTERNS AND IMPERFECTIONS

Every day is full of uncertainty, each of us moving through seemingly repetitive cycles that seem to never end. We all have experienced joy,
sorrow, success, disappointment, fulfillment, emptiness ... a roller coaster of experiences. It is not a perfect act,  this life we live. 

At 65, I have learned it is not the easy, perfect moments that have given me my greatest insight and gifts, it has been and continues to be the imperfections that have had the greatest value.

What we consider to be perfection often crumbles, like a cake that has been left out on the counter too long. There is tremendous grace in knowing this truth. We lock ourselves into a personal prison of our own making as we do everything in our power to avoid the unknown, to fix loss, avoid pain or stuff our suffering. None of us likes uncertainty or pain;  nor do we like a dark room with no idea where the light switch is located. But given a moment of stillness and the opportunity, there is an inner knowing that will guide us through. In that moment of clarity, we discover a vision for ourselves that is precise, true and dependable.

Our imperfections and the "hits" we take in our life punch holes in the lantern of our understanding. But what if, right here, right now, you learned to accept the holes in your personal "lantern" called your life and instead simply accept yourself and all the events that meet you with grace?  What if you decided that life was on your side? Every ending is a new beginning, every beginning leads to an end, and so the circle of life continues. To light a path, a lantern must have holes that free the light within. To be who we were born to be, to love our true nature and live a full life, the holes must exist. Not only must they exist, they do exist. Accepting them feels frightening and deeply vulnerable. But it is only through vulnerability that the light of our brilliance can shine through to guide us to the next moment of our life.

All those holes serve me now…well, at least if I allow them to serve me. There is no doubt that life is an oxymoron. One day it feels eager to bring me hard lessons but in the next moment, it is willing to take away my challenges. We are, each of us, a cocoon and then a butterfly, not once, but over and over again.

That is the beauty of life. There is a deep, mystical energy that, while it continually asks me who I am and what I want, it also asks me to trust that life itself is on my side, even when I am certain it is not ... until I am. The good news is that I always find my way out of the dark. Not because I'm brilliant but because the sun is dependable.

Let's face it. Living life is unpredictable. Better to see ourselves as perfectly imperfect lanterns full of holes than to live in the darkness of a false perception of a conditioned, unrealistic perfectionism. As each of us learns to unplug the holes in our illusory perfection, just imagine how light the world might be.

As Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream……”

Candace George Conradi
Author, Writer, Founder of Writers Inner Circle
www.writersinnercircle.com
www.candaceconradi.com