Sunday, May 4, 2008

An Imperfect Offering

In church today, our minister referenced James Orbinski, head of Doctors Without Borders and winner, with that organization, of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. Orbinski also wrote a book called Imperfect Offering; the title comes from a line in the song "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen:

"Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything."

Orbinski took it to mean that, while he couldn't fix everything, the offering in itself was enough. If you do the most you can, it's all right if that "most" doesn't encompass everything. A friend's post reminded me of that and I want to offer this to her and to myself and to all of you. Remember that none of us are perfect and it's the cracks that make us who we are. This doesn't mean, "Oh, I made a halfhearted effort, so it's ok." It means for those of us who hold ourselves to impossible or unfair standards to let ourselves off the hook every once in a while, that what we offer to others and ourselves doesn't have to be perfect.

I just wanted to pass that along as each of you go through your week.

3 comments:

feather nester said...

You're awesome. Thank you.

Sarah Berry said...

Amen... we all need to hear that over and over and over again.

Colin Jenkins said...

Great to see that the word is out in the USA as well! We're all very proud of James and the work we do with him through Dignitas International.