Dust, Love & Earth: An Ashy Valentine's Reflection

Dust. Love. Earth. Exposed.

During a therapy appointment last week, my counselor and I discussed the importance of vulnerability in “overcoming” perfectionism. After she initially asked me to share more about this idea, I rattled off some examples of authors, theologians, and mentors whom I have seen model this kind of behavior--folks who demonstrate their authenticity through their honesty and consequently give others permission to do the same. Talking about vulnerability is very in among my friends, in books I read and people I listen to, and within some of the church-y, progressive circles I run in.

“Oh, I'm a pro at this. I can talk vulnerability,” I said to myself, almost smugly.

After a brief pause, she responded to my reflections.

Her words were something like, “I hear you describing this quality or way of being from an intellectual perspective. But what does it look like for you? Why is it important? I want you to begin giving yourself permission to actually live into that part of you that you have said feels more true to who you are… the Eva that can be honest and express a nuanced perspective; goofy; soft-spoken; and many other things together, as I've heard you describe."

Whoa. “Damn. She got me,” I thought. Even in all of my proclivity towards research, planning, and thinking about change and self-growth, I still struggle to just do it sometimes.

If I want to be about loving myself and others more, sometimes I just have to do it and not think so much about it. And yet as I write this last sentence, I notice its cheesiness--its painful obviousness, almost. But if I’m honest with myself, the work of “don’t think so much” can be very difficult for me. It often means speaking up, taking up space as a young woman in predominantly male space (for example), letting go of fixations on to-do lists or of what people might think of me if I express what I perceive to be an unpopular opinion.

My therapist went on: “Perfectionism is often a form of protecting an image.”

I interpreted her continuing statements: Even with all of its interest in making things better, perfectionism can actually distance us from ever understanding ourselves and others as enough… The “just a little bit better” bar never stops.

Dust. Love. Earth. Exposed.

I share this story because on this Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day, I find myself once again encountering this perfectionism theme, and I can't help but feel one part amused and another deeply moved at the connectedness of life’s themes--at the ways in which I notice them continue to surface in unanticipated places.

A couple of days ago, I began thinking about some intentions for Lent, the season of preparation before Easter in the Christian tradition.

I quickly thought of my usual list of self-improvement-oriented goals-- eat more mindfully, exercise more regularly, meditate more often--lots of goals that are often attached to “shoulds” for me.

But something hit me this morning--on this rare occasion when Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday converge--as I touched foreheads of children and parents at the church where I work with the reminder that “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The lesson, truth, work, whatever name is most fitting for the self-reflection that occurs during these 40 days of Lent…it showed itself to me.

My spiritual and soul work, or at least a big part of it, is the work of fully showing up and committing to the embodied belief that I am worth the holy dust, the holy earth of God/Love most whole and present; this dust that is paradoxically so fleeting and fragile and yet also unimaginably majestic.

My 2018 Lenten work (and let’s be real, this is lifelong work) is to commit fully, in word and deed, to the truth of this dust: that the worth of my being is not measured by the goals I accomplish or the “enoughs” I feel, however well-intentioned and important they may be.

Rather (and this rather is critical)...

The worth of my being is fundamentally understood as part of this at once cosmic and intricate web of love, truth, justice, and hope. In my words, this web is God, and this God loves so fully that God was willing to risk creating and being in relationship with humans who mess up. A lot.

Many others understand this with different language. In any case, I understand it/her/he/they to be that which transcends and somehow holds us all in the messiness and complexity of life.

I’ve heard this preached, sung, written in poetry and dripped from the lips of loved ones for decades, but was reminded today of just how often I need to listen to it.

From my Judeo-Christian perspective, it is from the understanding of my/our dustiness--our connection to all that is of God or Life-- combined with a deep understanding that I/we are loved with such grace-- that must guide our actions and that compels and even demands us to love others and this earth fiercely.

And when I/we forget that our identity as dust is not one of shame or guilt, one that slaps “shoulds” on us, but a beautiful and challenging one, I think we tend place our identity on ideals or stories that will ultimately do little more than self-preserve or even exploit us and the people around us.

The urgency of the work we are called to do to transform injustice and oppression, therefore, comes not from a list of “shoulds” or “ought tos” or because they make me a “good person,” but out of my very identity as a loved, dusty creature of earth.

I know I’m getting “meta” here. But I am grateful for this epiphany… this holy reminder that the very things I think I need to be doing to “be good,” are the things I need to put in perspective.

I will forget this... Likely later today, next week, certainly before Lent is over.

If any of you reading are like me and also wrestle with perfectionism and the work of self-love, you will also forget this.

Let’s remind each other. Let’s celebrate the idea that we are made up of beautiful, complex, earthy, painful, joyous stories and materials… that we are not to be ashamed of ourselves, but to live more fully into the earth creatures we were made to be.