TEACHING YOU TO OBSERVE
One of my favorite moments in class this year was when I made a mistake in front of my students and, upon admitting it, one of my students asked, “Teachers don’t know everything Ms. López?” He’s a freshman so it was sincere. Part of me wanted to say, well of course we do, that’s why we have degrees and piles and piles of books in our classrooms; yet a deeper part of me knew it was good to say, “We are always learning, just like you.” That deeper part of me heard in his question, “Wait, you are not perfect?” And praise God that I am not! Striving for perfection, to be always right and never wrong, is e x h a u s t i n g. When I strive for perfection, I am too focused on myself and not focused enough on grace. Grace, I have learned, is more present in imperfection than in perfection because that is when we are still teachable.
In the first reading for today, Moses reminds the Israelites that their God is “teaching [them] to observe” God’s ways. The etymology of this word, observe, reveals that it means “to attend to” or “to watch closely.” When I think about it this way, it seems that when Jesus asks the disciples to observe God’s law instead of breaking it (to be called into the Kingdom), there is an invitation to tend to ourselves - not in the salt water bath or binge watching self care tending, but in the deeper awareness that reveals our motivations and our desires - where we are still clinging to perfection and where we are not. Accepting the invitation is how we stay teachable and how we stay with grace.
So, I told my smarty pants student with a smile, “Of course I don’t know everything, I am not God.” Because I constantly have to ask God to teach me how to let God be God in my life.
I invite you to meditate on the Patient Trust prayer by Teihard de Chardin. As you read it slowly, what word stirs within you? What words stay with you?
As you reflect on your own life, in which area are you too focused on perfecting? Which area do you try to control?
How can you let God be God more freely in your own life this Lenten season?
Ana Lopez