- 001. Life Is to Be Whole
- Once a circle missed a wedge. The circle wanted to be whole, so it went around looking for its missing piece.
- But because it was incomplete and therefore could roll only very slowly, it admired the flowers along the way.
- It chatted with worms. It enjoyed the sunshine. It found lots of different pieces, but none of them fit.
- So it left them all by the side of the road and kept on searching. Then one day the circle found a piece that fit perfectly.
- It was so happy. Now it could be whole, with nothing missing. It incorporated the missing piece into itself and began to roll.
- Now that it was a perfect circle, it could roll very fast, too fast to notice the flowers or to talk to the worms.
- When it realized how different the world seemed when it rolled so quickly,
- it stopped, left its found piece by the side of the road and rolled slowly away.
- The lesson of the story, I suggested, was that in some strange sense we are more whole when we are missing something.
- The man who has everything is in some ways a poor man.
- He will never know what it feels like to yearn, to hope, to nourish his soul with the dream of something better.
- He will never know the experience of having someone who loves him give him something he has always wanted or never had.
- There is a wholeness about the person who has come to terms with his limitations,
- who has been brave enough to let go of his unrealistic dreams and not feel like a failure for doing so.
- There is a wholeness about the man or woman who has learned
- that he or she is strong enough to go through a tragedy and survive,
- who can lose someone and still feel like a complete person.
- Life is not a trap set for us by God so that he can condemn us for failing.
- Life is not a spelling bee, where no matter how many words you’ve gotten right,
- you’re disqualified if you make one mistake. Life is more like a baseball season,
- where even the best team loses one-third of its games and even the worst team has its days of brilliance.
- Our goal is to win more games than we lose.
- When we accept that imperfection is part of being human,
- and when we can continue rolling through life and appreciate it,
- we will have achieved a wholeness that others can only aspire to.
- That, I believe, is what God asks of us - not “Be perfect”, not “Don’t even make a mistake”, but “Be whole”.
- If we are brave enough to love, strong enough to forgive, generous enough to rejoice in another’s happiness,
- and wise enough to know there is enough love to go around for us all,
- then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know.
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