Sunday
Most mainline Christians pay sincere lip service to grace and mercy, but in the practical order believe life is almost entirely about performance and moral achievement.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially in ourselves. What a clever place for God to hide holiness.
—Richard Rohr
Tuesday
When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness—the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging.
—Brené Brown
Wednesday
Rules alone had left me hollow inside, but the sense that the Spirit was freeing me to be in relationship was so life-giving that all I could call it was joy.
—Juanita Campbell Rasmus
Thursday
Perfection is not the elimination of imperfection, as we think. Divine perfection is, in fact, the ability to recognize, forgive, and include imperfection!—just as God does with all of us.
—Richard Rohr
Friday
Paul asked God over and over again to remove this thorn, but God said no. God said that grace and mercy had to be enough, that nothing awful or fantastic that Paul did would alter the hugeness of divine love. This love would and will have the last say.
—Anne Lamott
Week Thirty-One Practice
Embracing the Whole of Life
In the epilogue to her book I Am Maria, excerpted here with permission from Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, Shriver invites readers to discern how we can engage with our imperfect world:
Everywhere I seem to look these days, I see people suffering from pain and heartbreak. Struggle and loneliness. I sense a yearning for something different, something more spiritual. What is often feels fragile and uncertain, and everything we thought we knew about ourselves and the world seems to change by the day. We are told these are unprecedented times, but I think this is simply life.
In this time of constant change and constant noise, each of us has an opportunity for introspection, an awakening, and a more fulfilling life. All of the old rules are gone, which means it’s a good time for each and every one of us to dig deep and ask ourselves why am I here, what is my purpose, who do I want to become, how do I want to leave a mark on this world, and do I have the courage to examine and possibly alter old beliefs that may be keeping me stuck in a life I’m not meant to be in?
Life offers a full range of experiences and emotions to each of us. No one escapes the forces and events we are sure will break us. But understanding that those same events are as much a part of one’s life as achieving our dreams—getting that perfect job, falling in love, having a baby—is a valuable life lesson. Having a full, meaningful life means embracing the whole of life—the perceived bad as well as the perceived good. [1]
Shriver began to write poetry as a way of expressing her desire “to embrace the whole of life.” Here is her poem “Picture Perfect.”
I thought I had it all
Or so it seemed to me
The picture I painted in my head looked beyond perfect to me
I’ve come to understand that there is no such thing
Perfect is what we tell ourselves
What we long to project
Perfect is just an illusion that covers up the cracks
So afraid are we of what we cannot see
That we attach to picture perfect
And just let it be
Perfect is what we tell others
So they look and wonder why
Why they don’t have perfect in their eyes
The truth is no one ever lives a perfect little life
We all have cracks and fissures
Life is just like that
But I must say for me
I thought I had it all
Or at least enough to suffice
That is
Until my perfect ran out of time [2]
References:
[1] Maria Shriver, “Be Lit with Maria Shriver: An Exclusive Excerpt from ‘I Am Maria,’” Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, March 24, 2025. Used with permission.
[2] Maria Shriver, “Picture Perfect,” in I Am Maria (The Open Field, 2025), 128. Used with permission.
Image credit and inspiration: Martin Baron, untitled (detail), 2025, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. We are gentle with ourselves, broken bits and all, trusting that all of ourselves is worthy.
