When the holidays roll around, we can have some of the highest highs and the lowest lows and it is important to realize that not everything needs to be perfect.
I wanted to send a double-sided holiday card to every person in our address book, which is about 110 families. But then I saw how much it would cost to do that. I trimmed it down to 39 holiday cards. Is it exactly what I wanted? No. Is it good enough? Yes. Maybe not sending a card to certain friends will motivate us to actually reach out and call or text.
I wanted to book twice as many holiday performances for our Christmas caroling group this season, but I looked at the books from last year and we are on the exact same pace for the number of bookings. Is it ideal? No. It is good enough? Yes.
I found out that I can take 8 weeks of 60% paid paternity leave when our son is born. But I can’t afford to take the whole, so I am only taking four weeks. Is it what I wanted? Nope. But can I live with it? Yes.
These kinds of compromises with the realities of life are part and parcel of forgiveness, the cornerstone of Jesus’s teaching, and of my favorite spirtual book, A Course in Miracles. When we accept and forgive this temporal world for not completing us or satisfying us, we can find a much deeper joy that comes from the eternal unknown beyond. We have to realize that for our universe to exist temporarily as we believe it does, it has to be nested inside of an eternity. We don’t know and may never know mentally what that consists of, but surely it must be there, for there is really no other option.
I recently watched an incredible animation of the entire formation and dissolution of the universe as predicted by current science. I have embedded the link here so that you might enjoy the video as well. It can look pretty bleak as we see how short-lived humanity might be compared to the long timeframes of the universe. But that disappointment is just another in a string of disappointments we encounter in a temporary existence. That is why we wake from the dream.
Waking from the dream means believing you are not simply a body, but a messenger from eternity. You have been put here to remind yourself and those around you, that there is more to God than just the pearly gates at the end of your human life. There is a whole other Kingdom that exists that is timeless, that is perfect, that is invincible. And that is your truer nature. Sure I don’t have scientific proof, I’m not a scientist. But I do have my inner experience and my barometer of truth. And deductively, scientists share the theory and accept that energy cannot be created or destroyed, just changed in form. So maybe you want to take on a more spiritual form and live from that perspective.
And maybe when you live in the Spirit, you know perfection lives within, and the imperfection of the temporary stops bothering you anymore.