The Sacred Messiness of Life

I recently heard a Rabbi speaking of his book entitled Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life. I think I have only recently begun to truly learn that I have no control on how life will go. In my book The Skagway Connection, which is the story of my spiritual journey, I write of the messiness of my own childhood. This messiness includes almost all of the favorite topics of confessional writing: divorce, alcoholism, sexual abuse, clinical depression, poverty, several home environments, and other various and sundry subjects. My hope was that, once I became an adult and survived the above situations, my life would be perfect. I had to think again.

I have found that in recent years many of the old challenges from the past have re-entered my life. These have included, among others, divorce but also some new ones such as acknowledgement of sexual orientation, the possibility of gay marriage, a grandchild who has two mothers and two fathers, the threat of violence to a close family member, and grandchildren (and potential grandchildren) who are in counseling. Life is indeed somewhat messy.

What gives me comfort in confronting new challenges, however, is examining the sacred messiness of the Bible's most popular figures: Abraham, Jacob, David, and others. Abraham, the great patriarch of the Old Testament lied about Sarai being his wife in order to protect himself from harm. Jacob was a deceiver who literally stole the family birthright from under his brother Esau's nose and later dreaded meeting his brother again even after many year had passed. David was an adulterer who fathered a child with another man's wife and later had her husband killed by putting him on the front line for battle. All of these characters are fully human--as are we.

As I think about life today, I realize that I have spent far too much time in my life trying to have a perfect life while at the same time also judging others for their imperfect lives. I hope to embrace life and all of its potential messy challenges as the new year approaches.