Arguments Against Atelophobia: The Fear of Imperfection

​

"If you can be aware of the self you are, you can also dream of the self

you want to be. The dream always judges the reality. The gulf between

the two is the source of our human discontent." 

​

—John Shelby Spong, This Hebrew Lord

​​

Why fret, my pets?

The faultess barely exists,

strangles the good, gives you gas.

Your charm resides in your faceblindness,

your forgetting to get a flu shot, your firm belief

that white wall-to-wall carpet won’t break your heart.

 

Calm down, my loves.

You finish eighty percent of anything, half of that

with a committee, a third if the government’s involved.

You send holiday cards in March but see, 

your friends still know you care. Readers 

never know if you blew the deadline.

Nearly half your thoughts are daydreams.

You worry about getting there by six,

but nothing starts on time.

 

On average, you make 218 mistakes 

in the workplace each year, 

that bonus-crushing reply-all,

that “feel free to ball me personally” 

when you meant “call.” That’s 15,478 

mistakes in a lifetime.

But, and, here’s what I love about you, 

you laugh a half a million times in your life, 

31 times for each mistake.

“People are the greatest remaining cause of failure by far,”

said the guy on the internet who counted the human errors, 

adding: “We are flesh and bone animals who tire, 

whose minds wonder and lose concentration,” 

but I bet he meant wander, 

 

and I love him more for it.

And yes, you could ask,

Why create us so imperfect,

holy lord? To which I answer,

all I want to do is love you.

It is easier this way.

​

​

​

​

What You Missed in Sunday School, the Week before Confirmation

​​

​​

Mrs. Basie gave us one peek into the future—

one of us could die, driven by our drunk sweetheart,

smack into a tree. Then she showed a video on how 

sometimes, what we hear in the saddest sleigh bells

of spring peepers sounds truer than testaments.

 

Next was a group discussion exploring

the Teenager Jesus and how good it feels

throwing tables around your father’s house.

 

Later she gave us a handout with mnemonic devices.

We learned to remember our city’s street names,

south to north, by Jesus Christ Made Seattle

Under Pressure. That proved quite useful. She also

suggested that writing memos to God can feel more

frank than prayer. As in, Subject: Push Me Higher.

 

Over Dixie cups of Hawaiian Punch she told us

of funeral mutes, who stood near the church door.

Their job was to say nothing, look sad, wear top hats

with ribbons trailing, and mouth silent empathy lessons

to the youth of America. Show up. Bring a casserole.

Sometimes nothing we say will help. So stand still.

​

​

​

​

To God

​​

​​

The publisher advised, beware of such phrases

as “recently,” “last spring,” and “next year,”  

they will quickly become inaccurate.

I forgive myself the nap. 

 

Thank you for this knowledge: the moon is moving 

away from the earth at the rate of an inch and a half a year.

There is a space in space, exactly my height, that a planet

used to roar through, noisily? violently? 

 

Thank you for the drawstring light of sunset.

Thank you for the tripartite, folded-double iris center. 

And for phosphenes, the glitter I see when I rub my eyes.

Also for the wave-edge trace dance of sandpiper.

 

May I remind you to keep being, ever.

Distant one Sunday morning, when hearts 

left with shoes, closer now, and then.

I forgive you the nap.

​

​

​

​

Letters to Mary, for Sale on E-Bay

​​

​​

The bag still floated, weighed down with dreams, 

with nightmares. Make him love me, make her quit crack, 

forgive me, heal them. Did hope keep them afloat? 

 

It bobbled in the surf. A seal’s head? No, plastic bag, 

magenta flowers, paper bags inside, in those, letters, 

unopened, washed up on Atlantic City sand, miles south 

 

of the gilded altar they were left on. Can I win the lottery…

twice. Can the witch who called the IRS on me calm down. 

Can You forgive me for aborting my child. Can the judge 

 

see I am innocent. This is just a hint of what really happens:

the private stains of a hundred strangers, the blots on tenement 

ceilings as trains run past. Tired gas station guy, home health aide,

 

hardware store clerk, waitress who didn’t quite care—sleep well.

May mercy, tears, salt water, and a fisherman attend you, 

with the care that gently sent your sharpest wishes to sea.