The Theory of Almost Right

Back in the early 90s, I was still working on my undergrad degree in mathematics. I studied phycics at TAMU and got married. I really enjoyed Richard Feinman's Lectures on Physics. Three red books that began to help me to think more clearly. Or were there four books? Bob would know. He never forgets anything. Unless of course, he forgets.
While at UNT, I began my upper level math classes with "Real Analysis." It is a study of getting close to things, in particular here, numbers. Most of the theorems deal with getting infinitely close to zero or one...and the truth is, once you understand how zero and one work, everything else falls into place. (Probably only mathematicians really understand that concept, sorry) But the truth is, once we have the idea of zero and one, or the idea of nothing and then something; well, it is much easier then to get to two and from there....to infinity and beyond! But real analysis concerns itself mostly with the stuff between zero and one. And there in another infinity existing between them.
To come up with axioms and proofs, you have to have some idea of where the proof is taking you. Are you heading to zero? Are you heading to one? What happens when you get really really close to one of the other? What you learn is that, while you can get really really close, you can never really get "there." You can only get really really close. And in this kind of mathematics, close is good enough.

As it always happens in my life, because I am a contemplative, I see the threads that move me from morning to evening in a particular way. I enjoy trying to write about those threads and happily, some people enjoy reading about them. Now the truth is that these threads I weave are only one path. It would be exhausting to try and write about all of the threads, and confusing. (As it is, so few people can understand this 'interesting' life I have lived, but I am blessed, they love me anyway.)But what I have said often, but never enough:

If it's worth doing, its worth doing poorly.

The secret of life it to live it. Don't spend too much time trying to figure out if you are doing it right, just live it. You can read all the books in the world, you can surround yourself with the wisest people on the planet, you can be blessed with a perfect body and perfect mind and generous soul...but you will never be able to completely get it right.

Perfection lies only in God. The rest of us have to settle for "close." The reality of real analysis: we can't ever get there...without God. Even if we behave as the holiest person ever who ever lived. Even if we build a cathedral or convert a million souls all on our own eloquence...we cannot get to heaven (that is, perfection) without God. And He can do it for the slob who just cut us off in traffic as easily and willingly as He can for me who talks with Him and prays with Him everyday.

Doesn't that create a wrinkle in the mathematical mind?

I drove from Kyle to San Antonio yesterday to go find Fr. Rihn. I drove past the Snake Farm in San Marcos/New Braunfels where I had been told that if you ask for change for a twenty dollar bill a guy could get laid in one of the trailers out back. I drove past the Reukle Road, where, if you head west, you will find the tree that, when I die, I will be sitting under and waiting for Jesus. I drove past Zeigler Glass. I went to school with Laurie Zeigler. I drove past the hospital where my mother died in my arms. And then I went under Loop 410, where Fred A, when he was too stoned to care, wrecked his Ford Falcon station wagon, and then past my junior high school, which was changed to a middle school shortly after I left. Then past the public library, where George the librarian, had really LONG fingernails, but was always helpful. And then on my right, was St. Pius X.

There trees where we played "Star Trek" were still there, but the honeysuckle bushes were gone. The tree I had to walk past to go to the confession was still there, but most if its branches were gone. Funny, how they chose to leave that old trunk there...I guess it means a lot to many of us. Kind of the last thing you look at before you go in and tell God you screwed up. The door has not been replaced. I used to walk in to choir practice that way, too. I look in the window and the girls and boys are laughing and playing basketball. You see, they turned my church into a gym. I look at the floor and remember the fall fairs and how my mom would bake bread in coffee cans to sell to raise money for the parish.

The memories flood in and almost drown me. There against the back wall, where the sisters used to live (that building has been torn down), I look at the bricks. There, right there, is where the water fountains used to be. The scars are still there. The pipes are cememnted over, but it is still there. I look to my right and I remember everything like it was yesterday. That was the day my parents decided to pull me out of Catholic School.

Suddenly I am exhausted.

I go to the Rectory to find Fr. Rihn. Turns out he lives right next to St Elizabeth Ann Seton in San Antonio. Go figure. I have his phone number in front of me at this very moment.

Should I call him? Will he remember me at all? Does he have any clue how important he was to me? Would it be a good thing for him to know he mattered in my life? After all, he baptized me.

But he didn't baptize me. And that's the point of writing today. I stared at the church records, beautifully hand-written. Fr. Bily baptized me. Who is Fr. Bily? I never met him...but I must have. But Fr. Rihn was in my life, all the time. Only I remembered it wrong. I was not the first baby baptized, I was not even the fourth. I was the fifteenth and I was baptized almost a year after I was born.

I stared at the page in disbelief. What I thought I remembered was wrong. All the religious dates of my life were recorded there. The book says I received my First Communion on December 2, 1964. But I know for certain that is wrong. It was December 20th. It was after my birthday and before Christmas. Someone just forgot the zero. The zero.

And I am exhausted again. I want to know the truth. I want to understand who I am and perhaps more importantly why I am.

And I realize I will never ever know. I will never be sure. I will never have the right answer. I can only get very, very close. And even then, I am still very far away.

If its worth doing, its worth doing poorly.

I'm thinking we have got to let go of needing to do it right and just do it. St Paul is correct. The Law is there to guide us toward the truth, but if we live by the Law, then we will most certainly die by it. There is no way on earth or in hell to get it right. We can only, at best, get very close.

And when we wake up and realize we have wandered very far away from Him, we need to remember that time and distance are human constructs designed to help us humans function in this world with each other in some kind of orderly fashion; but God needs none of our tools and toys to enter into our creation. He becomes incarnate in us and through us by His own means, which we have almost no understanding of at all. We could be wandering toward zero or toward one and never know the difference.

Heaven or hell are as close to each other as zero and one. And though we may live exemplary lives or lives of quiet desperation, it is only through God's grace that we find our true rest in His Perfect Love.

Go ahead and try to get it right. Try to line up the ducks, or herd the kittens or alphabetize your life and write that five year plan. If it makes you feel safe, do it. But remember, by God's grace alone do we find peace...and heaven.

We are important. What we do matters. How we love each other matters. But only grace brings us what we most desire. Only grace brings perfect love.

It's simply not linear. I can't write you an equation for it, or a law, or give you some kind of multiple choice test so that you can see how close you are to getting it right.

You just gotta trust. You gotta have faith. And then love anyway. Even if you think its poorly. I promise you that He doesn't see it that way. He cherishes all of it...He just wants us to give all we have, all we are, to Him.

That's how I think it works.

But I could be wrong.

Love,
Cindy