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I recently joined a bowling league. I haven’t bowled in years, but a couple of friends and I decided to lace up the bowling shoes and hit the lanes. Here are a couple of lessons I have learned after our first week of competition. One: There is a whole subculture out there that bowls. Two: I love the subculture that bowls. And three: every Monday night at 8 pm I am reminded that I am not perfect. In fact bowling is one of those few activities that regularly reminds me of just how imperfect I am. And that’s not just because I’m not very good. It’s that the opportunity for perfection is always there. There is no perfect game in football, basketball or wrestling, but the perfect game in bowling is always before you every time you bowl. It’s a score that everyone knows. Each and every game, 300 is dangled before you as something that you can attain if you’re good enough. I, however, am acutley aware that I am not good enough. In fact, I’m having a hard time breaking 100. It’s jarring to the psyche to do something that so regularly reminds me of my imperfection.
In Genesis 2 Adam and Eve were put in the Garden of Eden. It was at that point that the possibility of perfection was dangled in front of them. They were told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil- ever. They, of course, could not maintain perfect obedience, so they took of the fruit and they ate. And the result? The fall of humanity and for the rest of time, a life full of constant reminders that we are all imperfect beings. We live in a world that seems to demand perfection from us. And yet we are constantly reminded that we are anything but perfect; at work, at school, at home. It’s jarring to the psyche to have such daily reminders that we are all imperfect beings.
However, in one of the great texts of the Bible we’re told that following the fall from perfection, God did something powerful in response to that failure. Chapter 3 verse 21 states “Then the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them.” Rather than ridiculing them for their failings God clothed them, offering them forgiveness, compassion and the opportunity for redemption. What an awesome act that serves as a reminder, in a world that so regularly requires perfection, that we are loved just exactly as we are, imperfections and all.
And so, tonight I will head back out to the bowling lanes to be reminded yet again of just how imperfect I am. And this week we will all continue with our lives that time and again remind us that we too are imperfect beings. May we know, however, whatever our faults and failings that we are all perfectly imperfect; loved and clothed for being just exactly who we are.
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