Spirituality, Imperfection, and Serenity
by Anne Starnes Kingsbury • Huntington, NY

Life is complex. We prepare as best we can and launch into the future.  Our era, as yet to be labeled, might be called the Cyberspace Age, the Internet Era, or the Cloud Collective. Our conscious world is expanding. Such great change has us question how to proceed as individuals.  How do we maintain, or regain serenity? 

Blessed as we are to have access to the information and communication provided by computers, we can become overwhelmed, and lost. We seek to find a way to navigate in a world that becomes more impersonal, and demands perfection. Human invention has brought us to a paradox: the speed, accuracy, and power of the automated systems that we’ve created and wield are in contrast to the reality of the nature of humanity, which is imperfection.

Rather than imagine that we can attain the control over our lives that current society suggests and often demands, we can embrace the paradox by acknowledging another, that of existing as spiritual beings while living a corporeal life.

My attraction to spiritual ideas began with the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi. I came across these words in the children’s room at the library on a book of that name. Though considered difficult to define, wabi sabi suggests that real beauty is found in unexpected places such as in simplicity, the ordinary, and most importantly, in the imperfect. 

Human life is impermanent, and incomplete. Beauty is fleeting. Yet it can be found in humble, aged, weathered objects, and in ourselves. This beauty of the imperfect comes from the process of living, in taking the care to make things last, and in the realness of nature. 

This concept helps me in so many ways. It helps me accept aging. I can tolerate disappointments that sometimes result from interactions with other people. Flaws in myself are not the end of the world.
  
Last year I lost a garnet from a ring that I wear every day. I replaced it with a crystal of the same color. It is asymmetrical. I like it better now. It is a daily reminder of how it’s all right to be imperfect. 

I notice the spirituality of imperfection constantly. It’s in thrift stores. It’s in the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, the best loved toy. It’s in the celebration of Ash Wednesday. It’s in irony. It’s in the mirror. It‘s in the cracks that let God in. If a pursuit of spirituality is serenity, then the acknowledgement and acceptance of the imperfection of life brings us closer.

Anne Starnes Kingsbury, MA, MS is a Stress Management Coach. Look on facebook for “Effective Stress Management,” contact her on effectivestressmanagement@yahoo.com, and read her blog, http:/successoverstress.blogspot.com for practical ways to control stress and anxiety. Call 631-805-4529.