Embracing Imperfection

In this heartfelt and inspiring talk, Josh Reeves explores the power of self-acceptance as the foundation of spiritual growth. Through personal reflection, poetry, and wisdom from great thinkers, he reveals how acknowledging our imperfections leads to authenticity, balance, and deeper connection. Join us in discovering how our so-called weaknesses can become the very source of our healing and transformation.

Transcript

So I'm getting ready on a Saturday for church the next day,

A few weeks ago,

And part of that process is pulling out the suit and ironing it.

And I notice it has a couple tears and a couple frays on it.

So I say to myself,

Josh,

You can't go on stage looking like that.

And I'm going to be embarrassed if I'm the only one,

But do you ever have that experience where you see something flawed around you,

Stain on your shirt,

A mess in the kitchen,

A problem at work,

And it triggers in you this desire to cover up and hide all of your inner floss.

Anyone ever get that?

I've got to push down this mess within me,

Man.

And so that's what that experience triggers for me.

I've got to hide my flaws or people will see the real me.

And I pause and think to myself,

Josh,

You know,

There could be another way of going about this.

What if instead of trying to hide my flaws,

I embraced my flaws and admitted my flaws?

I've got a little friend here and admitted my flaws.

And perhaps by doing so,

I might allow you to see the real me and perhaps inspire you to see the real you and accept your flaws as well.

So I sat down and I wrote a little bit about it.

And I know that's what you were hoping for when you got here this morning.

I hope Reverend Josh reads to us a personal poem.

Here's what I wrote.

I have these little flaws I don't want you to see.

A stain on my shirt,

A tear in my suit,

A moment where I became more frustrated than I needed to be,

Where my thoughts veered from nice to critical to fraudulence,

Not authenticity.

And yet if I try to hide these flaws from you,

I won't just fail to be me.

I refuse to let you see just who is really me.

For perhaps if you peered into all my little flaws,

You might see something about me that in this moment,

Because of those flaws,

I cannot see.

And this seeing could lead to being seen as a whole and actually help me accept myself and maybe even help you do the same.

God bless all these little flaws.

God bless all these little flaws.

They're flaws in me,

But they're spirit's beauty in me as well.

One of the most important understandings any of us can have for courageous,

Authentic,

Spiritual living is a not-talked-enough concept enough,

And it's self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is the foundation for all feeling,

For all feeling.

Maybe you get like me sometimes and I wonder,

Is my problem that I'm angry or is my problem that I am so resistant to my anger?

Is my problem my fear or that I react to it with incredible panic and procrastination?

Is my problem my grief or my avoidance of my grief?

Self-acceptance is the foundation for spiritual practice and connection.

Each and every one of us,

As far as I'm concerned,

Only has one sacrament for their entire life,

And it's you.

Yourself.

You're the only being in which you can experience God,

Which you can experience life,

Which you can experience the beauty of who you are.

You're it.

You're all you have.

So it interests me sometimes,

Beginning a class,

And we're all going to go into meditation and I do this too,

We all assume what we think should be the holy position.

Mudras out,

Spine straight,

Feet flat on ground,

God forbid you cross your legs and you won't be connected to the earth.

And there's nothing wrong with having a great spiritual posture.

But sometimes it says,

If I think I have to be someone I'm not to somehow become who I think I'm supposed to be.

Forget that.

What is the holy position?

The one that's most comfortable for you.

The one in which you accept yourself as you are.

That is the only way to allow the spirit to find you and reveal itself to you.

Self-acceptance is the very foundation for experiencing the love of God.

For allowing the beloved to be born and birthed and cultivated in your heart.

Without self-acceptance,

You can't feel it.

Doesn't mean it's not there,

But you won't experience it.

Henry Nouwen,

The great Catholic teacher,

Said that the greatest temptation in life isn't money,

Isn't sex,

Isn't greed,

It's self-rejection.

Self-rejection.

He shares,

Could it be that beneath all the lures of greed,

Lust,

And success rests a greater fear of never being enough or not being lovable?

And he goes on,

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts that sacred voice that calls us God's beloved.

Being the beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.

I invite you to put your hand over your heart and to say with me,

Even if you don't mean it,

I accept myself as I am.

I accept myself as I am.

I accept myself as I am.

I accept myself as I am.

I accept myself as I am.

If you do that consistently,

The following two things will happen.

One,

Balance.

Balance.

Balance.

Balance is not the state of harmonic equilibrium.

It's the ability to ascertain and accept yourself as you are in this moment.

I'm happy.

I'm aching.

I'm afraid.

I'm hurting.

I'm excited.

I'm inspired.

I'm apathetic.

I'm open.

It doesn't matter how you are,

But accept yourself as you are.

Even when you don't know where you're going in your life,

How the heck are you ever going to get there if you can't locate where you are right here and right now?

Accept yourself and you will come into balance.

There's a great Canadian singer-songwriter by the name of Ron Sexsmith.

If you're needing some good tunes,

Look him up.

He wrote a great song over 20 years ago now called Never Been Done.

It's about a little boy who grows up the gleam of his father's eye.

His father says things to him like,

When you grow up,

You're going to do what's never been done.

He does grow up and he begins to follow a path that was different than the one his father wanted for him.

He begins to share that he feels that in his father's eyes that he's always been disappointed.

The song comes to a close when he says that I met a girl with auburn hair and a heart as big as the sun.

I said,

If you accept me as I am,

You will do what's never been done.

If you accept me as I am,

You will do what's never been done.

Do what's never been done.

Accept yourself wholly and completely as you are and the highest and best will reveal itself to,

Through,

And as you.

Self-acceptance will lead to balance and it will lead to what the great Carl Rogers said.

He said,

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am,

Then I can change.

It's not until I accept myself as I am that I can change.

In talking about self-acceptance today,

I want you to know that I'm not talking about participation trophy spirituality.

Honey,

I realize that I leave the kitchen a mess but I want you to know that I accept myself the way I am.

Staff,

I know I refuse and reject any idea that you come up with for our business and I want you to know that I realize I do that and have accepted myself as I am.

When we notice the flaw,

Then we can begin to change it.

Honey,

I know I leave those dirty dishes in the sink and I realize that it comes from this part of me unconsciously that knows and wants to be taken care of and loved and knows that you'll do it for me and now as I'm aware of that,

I'm going to be more honest and open and articulating my need of love and caring for you and start washing my dishes.

Staff,

I realize I reject your ideas because I associate my own success with the success of this business and I'm going to move to a point of realizing that this business will only be successful if it's reflective of all of our best efforts.

When I accept myself as I am,

Then I can change.

If I hide my flaws,

They will reveal themselves.

If I admit my flaws,

They become a vehicle for my wholeness and my healing.

One more time.

If I try to hide my flaws,

I will reveal them.

If I admit and become aware of my flaws,

They will become the vehicle for my wholeness and my healing.

Question.

What do you consider your greatest strength in life?

Your greatest skill?

Your greatest attribute?

And what do you consider your greatest weakness?

For me,

My greatest strength,

Especially in ministry,

Has always been my listening.

I pride myself on being a good listener.

One-on-one to the collective wisdom of this congregation and creating a sermon,

To listening to the voice of my own vocation,

My own intuition.

I pride myself on being a good listener.

My greatest weakness?

Being totally afraid of slightly disappointing or upsetting anyone.

Oh,

I'm the only one,

Huh?

Every once in a while,

They go,

Josh,

Josh,

You know you can't please everybody,

And immediately Ami goes,

Watch me.

And this is a flaw for me because it can cause me sometimes to resist courageous conversations,

To confront issues in my life,

To speak up my own voice of something that's affecting me.

It can become a real challenge.

How about for you?

What's your strength?

Anybody?

Resilience.

Bam.

Nice.

Adaptability.

Compassion.

Eloquence.

Suave.

Nice.

Kindness.

Integrity.

Communication.

Curiosity.

What about your greatest weakness?

Judgmental.

Good awareness.

Doubt.

Perfectionism.

Fear.

Question two.

Does your strength ever manifest itself as weakness?

And does your weakness ever manifest itself as strength?

Sometimes,

I think I'm such a good listener that I don't listen.

I take for granted the skill set and think I've heard what you've really told me or wanted me to know and missed it completely.

Even though I am a people pleaser,

Deep down,

I love you incredibly.

And it is such an honor of my life to create an environment of encouragement,

Witnessing,

And upliftment that has become the key to my joy in the ministry and to becoming and accepting myself.

Isn't it interesting how our strength can hold us back and how our wound can become the vessel of our wholeness and our healing?

Here's my conclusion.

That thing that you are best at is also the area in which you need most to grow.

That strength,

Keep strengthening it.

Keep practicing it.

Keep growing it.

That is your path to meaningful service and experience in this world.

Your weakness is not something you need to fix.

It's not something you need to hide.

It's something that you are called to increase your awareness of and when you do and admit it and share it with others,

It will become the vehicle for your wholeness and your healing.

Something else Carl Rogers said,

He said,

That part of you in which you are most afraid to share with others is that very thing that if you shared it would resonate the most.

When we increase that awareness of our flaws,

Our issues,

Our problems,

We begin to possess them instead of allowing them to possess us.

I was listening to a radio program.

It was an old one.

It was recorded just after the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung had passed away.

It was with the great beatnik philosopher Alan Watts.

Watts shared that what made Carl Jung so great is that he was conscious of what his evil was.

He didn't mean the devil,

Freddy Krueger,

Michael Myers' evil.

He meant that he was aware of his own issues.

He was aware of his own neuroses.

He was so aware of his own challenges that it made him a wonderful teacher and writer and psychologist.

It helped me to conclude that there are two types of people in this world.

There are those of us who are aware of our issues and there are those of us who are not.

Those of us and those people who are aware of their issues,

Those are the healthy people.

Those who are not aware of their issues,

Watch out.

I am not here to be your learning experience.

When we increase that awareness,

Our so-called flaws become our strength and they help us to grow and to deepen.

The great film director John Waters uses the term,

I am a healthy neurotic.

I love that.

I'm going to quote him just because I know he would get a kick of being quoted in church.

He said,

Psychiatry taught me that you have to come up with your own version of neurotic happiness.

I'm never going to be a normal person.

If you know John Waters,

That makes you smile.

No one changes.

No one gets better.

Once you make friends with your neuroses,

You can plan a life.

I would argue against that to say,

Once you befriend your flaws,

Once you befriend your own wound,

Don't have to be thankful for what put it there,

But now it's yours.

When you accept your own flaws,

They become that vehicle not only for your healing,

But for your uniqueness.

The very wound becomes the very thing that lets the healing in.

The wound becomes the light that gives your awareness what you need to live as a fully integrated and inspired being.

When we try to stuff the flaws,

Hide from them,

Avoid them,

We live inauthentically and we find ourselves living in superficial life filled with distraction,

Stress,

Anxiety,

And unhappiness.

Another great director,

The great David Lynch,

God bless his soul,

He called it the suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity.

We don't care for ourselves,

We don't listen,

We start blaming the outside for what's going on when it's really going on in here,

And we walk around like we're wearing a suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity.

Lynch shares,

Speaking of spiritual practice,

He says,

When I started meditating,

I was filled with anxieties and fears.

I felt a sense of depression and anger.

I call that depression and anger the suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity.

It's suffocating and the rubber stinks,

But once you start meditating and diving within,

The clown suit starts to dissolve.

You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go.

Then,

When it dissolves,

You have freedom.

There may be parts of yourself you don't like.

There may be parts of yourself that you don't find very beautiful.

But when you accept yourself,

Wholly,

Completely,

And entirely,

The beauty that is truly you begins to shine through.

Accept yourself wholly and completely,

And allow yourself to be renewed.

Get the rubber clown suit off.

The truth is,

That rubber clown suit of negativity,

Sometimes we put it on ourselves,

And sometimes other people try to put it on us.

One of the things in our teaching that we must resist the most is any consciousness in our families,

In our relationships,

In our communities,

In our country,

That would tell you that there is something flawed about who you are,

When the truth is,

Is that is the very vessel of your beauty and of your uniqueness.

We have to get out of rejecting people and seeing their flaws.

Oh,

This person over there,

They're too woke.

This person over there,

A little too Maggie-y for me.

This person over here,

There's something wrong with their gender identification.

Whatever it is,

Oneness teaches us that who each of us are is beautiful and unique.

At the level of ideas,

We can enjoy trying to change each other's minds and talk about this and that,

But ultimately,

Fundamentally,

We hold the beauty and the dignity of all people.

It's so hard for so many people when all of this noise is going on to tell them that they don't have the right to exist or be good or be human.

I was so touched a few weeks ago by one of our students in practitioner studies,

A wonderful member here named Brennan Flood,

Who wrote a wonderful poem that at least I've entitled,

Love Louder.

I'm so grateful for Brennan for waking up early this morning because I wouldn't be able to get through the poem,

And I would like them to share it with you today.

Let's hear it for Brennan Flood.

When injustice from the house on the hill is loud,

Is your home a place that loves louder?

When the world is cluttered with ignorance,

A cacophony of dissonance,

They know not what they do.

Forgiveness.

For our faith in the highest truth is stronger.

Can the hurting bring their woundedness,

Made sick by a collective resonance based in limitedness?

Will they feel God in your presence and experience spirit in your actions as you live your love louder?

I believe in your right to hate us and the freedom of your consciousness,

And it's not too late to join us as we lay down our defensiveness and defuse the illusion of separateness.

I hear the fear in your anger,

For you are not my enemy.

The circle of my heart is wider.

Come meet me in the middle,

My friend,

For there is no end to a world where love wins.

There is no end,

For there is only oneness,

Only one us.

When pain in the world is loud,

Is your heart a place that loves louder?

Thank you,

Brennan,

A true spiritual practitioner.

Where in your life are you being called to love louder?

Not to hide away,

Not to turn your head,

Not to sink and slip out of the back door of your own consciousness,

But to love louder with that truth of who you are.

So in conclusion today,

You don't have to love all of your little flaws,

But become so aware of them that they help you to embrace your authenticity and uniqueness.

Identify that which you are best at and get even better at it,

And allow others in to realize that your flaws are not something to hide,

But a vehicle for your own blessing and for the blessing of others as well.

As we move into prayer,

A reading from Ernest Holmes to share.

I invite any of our practitioner prayer partners to stand and hold consciousness.

These folks are available for prayer after service.

Holmes shares,

We are surrounded by an infinite possibility.

It is goodness,

Life,

Law,

And reason.

In expressing itself through us,

It becomes more fully conscious of its own being.

Therefore,

It wishes to express through us as it passes into expression through us only as we consciously allow it to do so.

Therefore,

We should have faith in it and its desire and its ability to do for us all that we shall ever need to have done.

Since it must pass through our consciousness to operate for us,

We must be conscious that it is doing so.

And so we know and affirm,

And I affirm for anyone who chooses to align their voice with my prayerful voice right now,

There is nothing in me that is not for me.

I bring back into my wholeness any part of myself that I may have rejected or allowed someone to cause me to disown within myself.

I bring all of my strengths and all of my flaws together to become the best who I am right here and right now,

And I am transparent to the divine good within me.

There is a divine power,

A divine truth,

Seated in the heart of each and every one of us,

And through this power of self-acceptance,

I embody and allow to be demonstrated my wholeness,

My healing,

My well-being.

I embrace the richness of my life and the beauty of my ongoing becoming at one with the divine within me,

Embracing all of the parts of my psyche,

My body,

My relationships,

And I allow it to sing of that mosaic of divine peace,

Of divine harmony,

And of the one soul that I know finds itself with great pleasure in you and in me right here and right now.

And so it is.