{"id":1118,"date":"2012-10-29T07:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2012-10-07T01:00:37","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T05:00:37","slug":"the-blessing-of-not-being-perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/the-blessing-of-not-being-perfect.html","title":{"rendered":"The Blessing of Not Being Perfect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The blessing of not being perfect<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0by <a href=\"http:http:\/\/www.benetvision.org\/\/\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sister Joan Chittister<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><\/em>Humanity is a mixture of blunders. That\u2019s what makes it so charming, so interesting to be around. Because none of us is complete, we all need one another. It\u2019s only when we convince ourselves that we are the fullness of all that is, that we become spiritually poor.<\/p>\n<p>The nice thing about being human is that you get to fail a lot. Value that; it\u2019s priceless. It gives us such respect for everybody else. The reason clowns and slapstick comedians are so popular is that, if truth were known, we all see in them the parts of ourselves we try too hard to hide. When we take ourselves too seriously, we forget that the only thing we know for sure that\u2019s eternal is God.<\/p>\n<p>Making mistakes is part of the growth process. We must learn to be much gentler about this with other people. We must also learn to be gentler with ourselves. Otherwise what we expect of ourselves, we will expect of everybody else. And that can be tragic. For all of us.<\/p>\n<p>Never be afraid to admit that you \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d or \u201ccan\u2019t find\u201d or \u201ccouldn\u2019t do\u201d something. Our imperfections and inabilities are the only thing we have that give us the right to the support of the rest of the human race.<\/p>\n<p>The gift of knowing what we lack is the gift we have to give to the abilities of others. As the Irish proverb says, \u201cit is in the shelter of each other that the people live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>*****<\/p>\n<p>Donna Henes is the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com\"><em>The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em>.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donnahenes.net\/queen\/consult.shtml\">Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-admin\/thequeenofmyself@aol.com\">thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The blessing of not being perfect \u00a0by Sister Joan Chittister &nbsp; Humanity is a mixture of blunders. That\u2019s what makes it so charming, so interesting to be around. Because none of us is complete, we all need one another. It\u2019s only when we convince ourselves that we are the fullness of all that is,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6,11],"tags":[103,721,720,40,477,59,13,722,623,57,476],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-empowerment","category-spirituality","category-wisdom","tag-compassion","tag-disapointment","tag-effort","tag-empowerment-2","tag-failure","tag-healing","tag-holistic-living","tag-knowledge","tag-personal-growth","tag-self-approval","tag-success"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Blessing of Not Being Perfect - The Queen of My Self<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/the-blessing-of-not-being-perfect.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Blessing of Not Being Perfect - The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; The blessing of not being perfect \u00a0by Sister Joan Chittister &nbsp; Humanity is a mixture of blunders. That\u2019s what makes it so charming, so interesting to be around. Because none of us is complete, we all need one another. It\u2019s only when we convince ourselves that we are the fullness of all that is,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/the-blessing-of-not-being-perfect.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-29T11:00:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-10-07T05:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Henes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Blessing of Not Being Perfect - The Queen of My Self","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/the-blessing-of-not-being-perfect.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Blessing of Not Being Perfect - The Queen of My Self","og_description":"&nbsp; The blessing of not being perfect \u00a0by Sister Joan Chittister &nbsp; Humanity is a mixture of blunders. 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She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/author\/dhenes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1120,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions\/1120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}