The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
— Leonard Cohen, Anthem
For all the madness and imperfection in the world, this is our time in it. We may still let the light in and find our way again. This theme has snuck into my awareness a few times in the last few days, in social media posts, in video clips from commencement speeches, and engraved on a bench overlooking Rockland harbor in Maine. It seems everyone is reaching for something, and whispering to those who follow how to find their way. When we open ourselves to the universe, it will tell us all we need to hear.
We know the world is imperfect just as we know that we too are imperfect. We ought to stop counting our flaws and focus on the things we’re doing right. Work on the good things, let the rest fall away like bad relationships. And aren’t the imperfections we focus on nothing but a bad relationship that we can’t break away from? Let it go already. Start again with the clean slate of a fresh outlook.
Imperfections are beliefs about the things we don’t have in our lives. None of us are born whole, we each have something within us that is imperfect. My own list is uncomfortably long—but so what? Focusing on what we don’t have in our lives is the surest path to misery. Discomfort is good when we apply it to changes we can influence, but undermines us when applied to focusing on who we’ll never be. That person doesn’t exist and probably shouldn’t—they’re just a character in the story we tell ourselves about our place in this world.
“When you cut water, the water doesn’t get hurt; when you cut something solid, it breaks. You’ve got solid attitudes inside you; you’ve got solid illusions inside you; that’s what bumps against nature, that’s where you get hurt, that’s where the pain comes from.” — Anthony de Mello, Awareness
The trick, it seems, is to be more fluid in our perception of ourselves. Joyfulness is found in awareness and acceptance. Being aware of our imperfections and the gaps between who we are and who we wish to be is healthy and may lead to positive change. So is accepting that sometimes the gap is just there to show us who we aren’t meant to be. Ring the bells that still can ring.
