Candace

Talmadge

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October 22, 2007

Why Does Ann Coulter Think Anyone Would Want to be Perfected?

Ann Coulter – a pundit with a penchant for provocation – recently suggested that Jews should be perfected, citing Christians as the example of perfected.

Anyone who claims eternal life cannot possibly also want to be perfected.

What comes after perfection? Absolutely nothing. Think about this carefully. Perfection cannot be the goal of everlasting life because perfection implies completion, stasis, ending – not eternity.

Even the most cursory glance at the world around us informs us that God’s creation is by no means complete or static. Change, ironically, is the one of the few constants. Day darkens into night that fades back into day. Rivers and streams flow continually to the seas and oceans where currents migrate about the globe. The seasons arrive, go, and return. The earth revolves on its axis and around the sun, which in turn migrates through the Milky Way galaxy, which journeys through the vastness of space.

Anything or anyone that does not change, in fact, pays a price. The stagnant pool of water becomes unfit to drink, a fetid breeding ground for disease and vermin. Those whose beliefs are set in stone find it difficult if not impossible to solve problems because they have closed off the new ways of thinking that contain answers.

And who gets to define perfect? The pundit provocateur claimed that Jesus was the only perfect person ever to walk the earth, but Jesus lost his temper with the moneychangers in the Temple and questioned God during the hours of his torment.

So who delineates perfection? How do we describe it? Those who strive to be perfect are forever slaves to someone else’s definition of the concept. Such servitude is the opposite of the freedom that God granted us with the priceless gift of free will.

Most of us are ashamed of our so-called imperfections. We try to hide them, and we too often lash out at others whom we perceive have the same flaws, hating in them what we secretly cannot abide in ourselves.

Our imperfections, in fact, are what draw others to us, uniting us in loving interdependence. One of the greatest needs we have as souls is to make a contribution, to give to others so that we can feel as though our lives have meaning and significance.

And our so-called imperfections are the very sources of how others can give to us and how we can reciprocate. One practical example: I cannot balance a checkbook to save my life. But my partner has bookkeeping experience, so I happily hand off this task to her as well as all my bookkeeping duties. The result is a properly balanced checkbook, stress relief for me and an important contribution from my partner to my business success. I reciprocate in other areas, like emptying the dishwasher and making coffee.

Teamwork is another way to describe this mutuality. Instead of faulting each other for presumed lack of perfection, team members step in where others are not as strong or skilled and use their strengths for the good of the whole. They are interdependent, in other words. 

After all, what could we ever give or contribute to someone who is perfect? Absolutely nothing, of course. Someone who is perfect is that proverbial island, totally self-sufficient, unapproachable, not needing anything from anyone else – not even God.

Perfection, then, is merely another term for isolation and desolation. Do we really want to strive for that?

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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