I write a lot about being satisfied with imperfection, which is not to say that I am content with mediocrity. It’s just that trying hard doesn’t always yield satisfactory results . Many years ago, I read a children’s book by Tomi dePaolo entitled, The Clown of God. I don’t remember the text, but I’ve always taken the title personally. I may painstakingly plan, but there is no guarantee I will not look like a buffoon in the end. Last week, I did vaudeville.
I used to volunteer for second grade art classes at a nearby school. The teacher hoped I would prove useful in settling down a table of energetic boys and allow her to actually teach. I recall an extra challenging day when the teacher had to work one- on- one with each child while the rest had “free” drawing time. They had sketch books; they had supplies; they only needed to use their imaginations. And therein lay the problem for 1/4 of the class.
While the children at table 2 couldn’t wait to begin drawing whatever they wanted, there was trouble brewing at table 1. It was the end of the day, and the boys there were imagining running and wrestling. They talked too loudly; they poked each other; they relentlessly sharpened already sharp pencils. When I was occupied answering one child’s question, the rest were goofing off. Had I the freedom to do it, I’d have taken them all to the gym. But this was art class, so I tried to help them focus by finding action images on my phone: orcas, sharks, ray guns, and football players. Four boys embraced those ideas and began drawing, but the remaining four were not impressed. They scribbled on the paper and resumed their covert tomfoolery. I had just turned around to check the time (please God, let the bell ring soon!) when a kid dropped a whole box of colored pencils on the floor. Immediately, four or five other kids scrambled down to help him pick them up, toppling their light-weight Ikea stools in the process. It sounded like one of those dreadful contemporary compositions my piano- playing daughter learned when she was in her teens. A clanging of a thousand stools, a clattering of a thousand pencils, and the chattering of a thousand sopranos. Of course I am exaggerating- it only sounded like half that number. Finally, the stools were righted and the pencils rounded up. All the little helpers returned to their places and I retired to my little blue stool. Unfortunately by this time, my nerves were slightly frayed and I miscalculated; gravity had its way with me, and down I went.
In Ikea’s defense, their stool was designed for small, dinner plate sized bottoms, not turkey platters. NASA would say that a successful stool landing for a rocket of my proportions depended on hitting the target dead on. I did not. I fell in ridiculous slow motion, desperately grabbing for the table top. In the end, I landed on the floor, in a most undignified position. The class laughed. The beleaguered teacher anxiously asked if I was o.k., and the bell rang.
That day, I’d missed both my metaphorical and material marks. Fortunately, I could laugh at failings, which in my youth, would have depressed me. When I was thirty, I naively thought I could produce almost perfect kids by being diligent. Now I see that as a massive overestimation of my personal power. We humans do not have the capacity to “form” other humans; we can only “inform” the best we can. And we can wield the most weighty of God’s gifts– love. Love lets us leave perfectionism behind. In contrast to short term, outcome-focused perfectionism, Jesus’ command to “be perfect” is an attitude- based, ongoing endeavor which takes a lifetime.
Falling short can feel like a story with a bad ending, which is exactly what the enemy wants us to think:
” It can never be fixed or forgotten.” “You failed again; you’ll never get it right;” “Nobody really wants you;”
This a pitch-black place.
But it doesn’t have to stay that way because the Light can propel us forward onto a new, maybe different path.
Lately, I re-read The Clown of God , and like all good children’s books, it ended well. The unhappy old clown who had spent his life entertaining people finally juggled for God and died smiling. As his audience changed, so had his attitude. Apparently, being a clown for God is not such a bad occupation. . .
