Pragmatic Perfectionism, Oxymoronic or Zen

I would have said the former with the stubbornness of a toddler in the midst of a tantrum...that is, until yesterday. Not that I have totally embraced the importance of pragmatism or relinquished all of my skepticism regarding those who merely strive to get to point B without any thought as to the real purpose of the journey. Rather, I wonder if I could be accused of cloaking my own progress beneath the guise of perfectionism. One can construct the most ideal scenario in his/her mind, say a relationship with another human being, as a lover, but until he or she makes some demonstrable gesture to bring that relationship to fruition, the intensity of feeling, and, more importantly, the existence of the relationship, is nothing more that a figment in the mind...an untested concept that is ineffectual fantasy.

So the gesture is ridiculed as simple and hackneyed, but at least it rose to the surface, saw the light of day. As it is better to have loved and lost, perhaps it, too, is better to have lived and failed than never tried at all. Where is the perfect church or the perfect Christian? Who, after nearly 2000 years, has any hope of coming closer to the Master that those who have tried before only to crucify Him again by their failures, bringing reproach upon His name and sacrifice. A few perhaps, in the quietness of their heart, with actions seen only by a few, never to be recorded for posterity or praise. And yet they continued in their passionate pursuit of the prize not content to wait until the narrow way was codified and rationalized. They used Christ rather than reason or consistency as their guide, faltering and falling short along the way because they could only see as through a glass darkly but it was their willingness to live with ambiguity that allowed them to leap further than any other. St. Peter expresses this best when faced with absurdity of Christ's message, " Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life."

It is out of desperate realization that one acts, without the realization the act is meaningless, but without some step toward the unknown how desperate could the realization really been?