By: Rev. Dr. Jessica Margrave Schirm – Senior Pastor (she/her)
Grinnell United Church of Christ – Congregational
I know you’ve heard the saying, “Perfection is the enemy of good.” Supposedly it is an old Italian proverb that was brought into the public sphere in the 1700s by French philosopher Voltaire. It was purportedly re-imagined by Winston Churchill as, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” Mark Twain put his own spin on the idea saying, “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” I am the embodiment of that timeless saying…as in…I would have been the target audience for that wise Italian, and Voltaire and Churchill and Twain and the bajillion other people who’ve offered some version of this saying over the years – including my spouse who said it to me just a few days ago.
I have mountains of beautiful journals waiting to be filled with recaps of my days, or thoughts, poems, stories or sermon ideas. Yet they sit in lovely stacks, blank as the day I bought them. Why? Because I’m afraid I might miss a day of journaling once I begin and my imperfection as a journaler will be made plain for anyone who might find my journals in the future. I spend hours researching gym memberships, looking for fitness classes that I know I would enjoy and want to take, that my body needs – yet never sign up because I’m convinced that if I cannot make it to every single class it isn’t worth the investment. (Hence my spouse saying, “Have you ever thought that maybe your desire for perfection is getting in the way of good enough?” To which I replied, “Yes, every moment of every day.”)
Now look, I realize that this isn’t ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ – it’s a deeper reflection of the anxiety and perfectionism I’ve lived with for most of my life and have spent years working with and through. But I also realize that this defeatist attitude regarding the small things in my personal life is a symptom of the conditioning many of us have about the bigger things in life. We can’t make a significant difference, so why even try? We can’t fix it all, so why bother making a dent?
Recently a mental health coach I follow on social media, Dr. Shante Holley, reiterated this idea saying that we often put so much emphasis on the major things in our life – for good or for ill – expecting those will be the things that will take us to the next level or that cause a significant set back (achieving the degree, losing a job). When in reality the small things are what have the more profound impact (having healthy daily boundaries, words left unsaid). Perfection (the biggest and the best) becomes the enemy of good enough (the little things).
One area where I have had some recent success is with embracing a holy “good enough” in my prayer life. Writing that sentence stirs up so much baggage from my evangelical childhood I might have to schedule an extra therapy appointment to unpack it all…but I digress. I am one of those people that “prays without ceasing”. I feel like my inner monologue is just one continuous prayer…but I struggle with creating an intentional daily prayer time for all the reasons I’ve named above – what if I miss a day? What if I can’t do it at the same time every day? You get the gist.
This summer I attended my second Women Touched by Grace Spiritual Retreat hosted by Our Lady of Grace Benedictine Monastery in Indiana. One of the rhythms of the retreat is communal prayer three times a day as a nod to the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours – Morning, Noon and Evening – as is the Benedictine tradition. We don’t sing/chant the Psalms as the sisters do, it’s a bit more clunky than that – we retreat attendees are all a bunch of Protestant women clergy afterall – but it nourishes my spirit regardless. I have come away from that retreat both times saying, “I want to be the kind of person who prays the Liturgy of the Hours EVERY SINGLE DAY.”
You can see where this is going, right? I’d immediately be setting myself up for failure. This year as the retreat came to a close I thought, “Jess, what if you just reached into your evangelical back pocket and reinstituted a morning devotion time based on the Liturgy of the Hours morning prayer time?” So I did a little research and found a lovely Catholic publishing company that creates a very user-friendly daily prayer book set up exactly like what I was looking for and ordered it. And then I cracked open one of those beautiful blank notebooks to use during prayer time and started listing all the things I was praying for. And get this – when I missed a day – or GASP a few days in a row – I just flipped to the correct date in the prayer book and a fresh page in my notebook and started again. And nothing bad happened. It was fine. I just…kept praying. Look at that. I started a ritual. Is it perfect? Definitely not. Is it good enough? Absolutely yes.
This time of year always feels like New Year 2.0 to me. The kids are back to school. We get to start new rhythms and routines. Our church program year kicks off anew. Maybe, like me, your heart is yearning for a new ritual or spiritual practice to ground yourself for the work of love and justice in the public square that is demanding so much of us these days. Here is my reminder to all of us – good enough is more than enough. A couple times a week is better than none. Perfection is one more enemy we don’t have time for right now. So let’s fill up those notebooks even if we miss writing some days, let’s pray our few measly prayers, let’s sign up for whatever classes delight our hearts even if we have to skip a few – these things change us and that is how we change the world. Thanks be to God.
With abiding love,
Pastor Jessica
Rev. Dr. Jessica Margrave Schirm is pastor of Grinnell Congregational Church UCC in Iowa. Besides pastoring, caring for her spouse and three sons and advocating for social justice, Jessica loves watching baseball, thrift store shopping and reading. Music, cake and mindless novels make her happy.