"The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Journey to wholeness," written by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, is a nondenominational book that draws on the stories of wisdom told and retold through the ages. Providing an extraordinary wellspring of hope and inspiration to anyone thirsting for spiritual growth and guidance in troubled times, this book is filled with more than a hundred stories, which "hold up a mirror so that we can see ourselves. A central theme in all traditions of spirituality," the authors stress, "is the insistence that honesty - honesty with self and about self - is essential to any spiritual quest. And the greatest, most treacherous dishonesty is the denial or refusal of our mixed human nature."
The authors suggest that the collected stories convey nuances of ideas better at times than explanations. Though they themselves admit that not all readers will understand all stories (or will find the answers to them), they believe that many concepts can be best told and understood through the story medium. To make this point, they tell this story: "A disciple once complained, `You tell us stories, but you never reveal their meaning to us.' Said the master, `How would you like it if someone offered you fruit and chewed it up before giving it to you?' "No one can find your meaning for you.
Not even the master.
The name of the book, "The Spirituality of Imperfection," conveys a recurring spiritual theme over a thousand years old that "is concerned with what in the human being is irrevocable and immutable: the essential imperfection, the basic and inherent flaws of being humans."
Say the authors: "Errors, of course, are part of the game. They are part of our truth as human beings. To deny our errors is to deny ourself, for to be human is to be imperfect, someone error-prone. To be human is to ask unanswerable questions, but to persist in asking them, to be broken and ache for wholeness, to hurt and to try to find a way to healing through the hurt."
"Listening to stories and telling them helped our ancestors to live humanly - to be human . . . . For spirituality itself is conveyed by stories, which use words in ways that go beyond words to speak the language of the heart. Especially in a spirituality of imperfection, a spirituality of not having the answers, stories convey the mystery and the miracle - the adventure - of being alive." So here are a sampling of the stories of Kurtz and Ketcham:
The first story suggests hope and love: "Time before time, when the world was young, two brothers shared a field and a mill. Each night they divided evenly the grain they had ground together during the day. Now as it happened, one of the brothers lived alone; the other had a wife and a large family. One day, the single brother thought to himself: `It isn't really fair that we divide the grain evenly. I have only myself to care for, but my brother has children to feed. So each night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother's granary to see that he was never without.
"But the married brother said to himself one day, `It isn't really fair that we divide the grain evenly, because I have children to provide for me in my old age, but my brother has no one. What will he do when he is old?' So every night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother's granary. As a result, both of them always found their supply of grain mysteriously replenished each morning.
"Then one night, the brothers met each other halfway between their two houses, suddenly realized what had been happening and embraced each other in love. The story is that God witnessed their meeting and proclaimed, `This is a holy place - a place of love - and here it is that my temple shall be built.' And so it was. The holy place, where God is made known is the place where human beings discover each other in love."
The theme of the next story suggests a lesson that one has to search for - there is more than meets the eye: "Socrates believed that the wise person would instinctively lead a frugal life, and he even went so far as to refuse to wear shoes. Yet he constantly fell under the spell of the marketplace and would go there often to look at the great variety and magnificence of the wares on display.
"A friend once asked him why he was so intrigued with the allures of the market. `I love to go there,' Socrates replied, `To discover how many things I am perfectly happy without.' "
The theme of the third story conveys the sense that material realities tend to stunt our spirituality because as we possess them, they possess us. Possessions can lead to obsessions; consumers become consumed with getting things, keeping them, safeguarding them, adding to their hoard. Obsession with possessions crowds out the spiritual:
"The philosopher Diogenes was sitting on a curbstone, eating bread and lentils for his supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
"Said Aristippus, `If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils.'
"Said Diogenes, `Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to cultivate the king.' "
The theme of the final story conveys the importance of a person's attitude of carelessness, of not facing up to what he is doing, of not being truthful with himself.:
"Three youths hid themselves on a Sabbath in a barn in order to smoke. Hasidim discovered them and wished to flog the offenders. One youth exclaimed: `I deserve no punishment, for I forgot today is the Sabbath.' The second youth said: `And I forgot that smoking on the Sabbath is forbidden.' The third youth raised his voice and cried out: `I, too, forgot.' `What did you forget?' he was asked. The lad replied, `I forgot to lock the door of the barn.' "