When was the last time you said: “Ooops?”

When was the last time you said: “Ooops?”

A grandmother, who shall remain nameless, lived by herself and was getting up in years.  So, she decided that for this Christmas – instead of buying presents for each of her grandkids – she would write them a check, send a card, and include the words “Buy your own present.” As she drove away from the post office, she felt good about getting those cards in the mail. That is, until she got home and found on her table the pile of checks she had forgotten to include. Each of her grandkids had opened a card from Grandma which said “Merry Christmas. Buy your own present” but which had no check inside. Ooops!

When she found out what she had done, do you know what this grandma did? She gave the best response one could ever give: she laughed and laughed and laughed at herself.

It might have been a little embarrassing to call each of them and explain what had happened, but this grandma had come to know that mistakes are a part of everyone’s life. They all loved grandma because she was comfortable with the phrase: Ooops! and had learned the wonderful skill of laughing at herself.  And if you haven’t already done something like that Grandma, you will. Ooops!

What an interesting gospel story today that illustrates that truth on this feast of the Holy Family.  “I thought you had the kid.” Ooops!  “I thought YOU had him.”  Ooops!  “Mom and Dad, I thought I had told you that I was staying behind and would catch up!”  Ooops!  We tend to paint the Holy Family in idyllic strokes – perfect in every way.  And yet, here is this story, replete with tensions, miscommunication, struggle, worry.  And then obedience.  Forgiveness. Holding the difficult parts we don’t understand not in judgment, but in the quiet of our hearts till we can grow in wisdom and love and understanding.

We’ve been trained to think that PERFECTION is the goal… There is something much more important than perfection; something much more healthy. Instead of seeking perfection which is so dangerous, we need to be about seeking the GOOD, not the perfect.

Seeking perfection is one of the most destructive forces at work in our lives. I’m not saying that we don’t work on being better human beings for the world. That is our ongoing – and forever – call as followers of Christ – to grow in age and grace and wisdom before one and all.  But to hold ourselves/each other to the standard of perfection…

• When we seek perfection within, we hold ourselves to an impossible standard.  And the only outcome of that is failure and shame.
  • when we fail to meet some goal … we give up… “Well that last Christmas cookie wasn’t on my diet.  But, since I’ve eaten one, I might as well eat a dozen each day the rest of my life…”
  • Or we shame ourselves. Because I am not perfect, I am not love-able.  I fought that battle for a lot of years.  (As a middle child, I thought that if I did everything perfectly, then I could be loved.  It is a battle that I still struggle with a bit more than I would like)
• When we hold others to the standard of perfection, they will always disappoint us, and we will miss the goodness that is already there.

I have found a healthy phrase in that struggle to be this:  “I hate it when I get caught being human.”  Which gives me absolute permission to be just that – human and prone to errors.  It give me permission to say OOOPS! and then to laugh at myself. And to laugh with others as we forgive them for being human as well….

On this feast of the Holy Family… at this eve of a New Year… perhaps part of our call is – even as we work at growing and becoming better human beings – we also become a bit more comfortable with being imperfect; that we let Ooops! become an okay part of our vocabulary.

And perhaps just as importantly, we don’t write off the goodness in another just because they are also imperfect.

Like that grandma, we all make mistakes.  What a gift it would be if we could offer both our families and the world (and even ourselves)– that word that could help to set us free.  Ooops!  And then just to laugh in freedom that we are NOT GOD, but our wonderfully, never perfect, but always on the road selves…