In Spite Of The Way That It Is

I want to paint you a picture of a world. 

It is not a perfect world. It never could be. 

The lion is not yet laying with the lamb, nor is there perfect harmony. Discordant notes sound across the horizon; sometimes smoke blurs the sky. Sunflowers climb along side chain-link fences, skylines are peppered with scaffolding, and somewhere, someone looks out a train window with tears streaming down their face. 

It is not a perfect world. It never could be.

But in this world, a Latter-Day Saint finds herself inside a Catholic cathedral, in the Chapel of Our Lady of Zion. She is trying to come to terms with tragedy, and with all of the complexities that comes from living as a person striving for perfection in an imperfect world, with an imperfect body and mind. She isn't sure how to balance justice and mercy within herself. Grace has always been so easy to grant others, and so impossible to give herself. She is looking at the candles, all but one unlit, and thinking of her Italian ancestors, all of whom must have found themselves in a similar place, in a different time. There is a box for donations. By a small miracle, she has a few dollar bills left in her wallet. In an imperfect way, combining two faiths and two branches of her family tree, she lights a candle and prays for all the pain she cannot ignore. 

It is not a perfect world. It never could be.

In this world, people too often hurt others through their own insecurity. Desire too often overcomes charity, uncertainty breeds dishonesty, and we love in imperfect, broken ways. 

But in this world, a man exhibits childlike joy when he realizes he has all the ingredients to make a strawberry salad for his wife. "She is going to be so excited to get back from work and have strawberry salad" he grins, and immediately sets to work. It is enough to momentarily dull the pain in a friend who still is left questioning if she will ever know what it's like to be loved so completely.

In this world, the sun shines through the trees and reminds someone why she used to believe in magic. She can see the ways this magic is still woven into her steps, into the lenses she sees the world through. 

It is not a perfect world. It never could be. 

There are protests and riots, and there are too many moments when we call silence justice, when people without voices are denied a turn at the microphone. Contention seems to be the default response to conflict, and it is exhausting trying to remain on top of each new tragedy, every broken thing in the way.  

But in this imperfect world, sometimes the smoke hazes the horizon just enough that the sun rising through the mountains is one of the most fantastical things you've ever seen. Dissonance is another form of beauty. Maybe the sunflowers and chain link compliment each other somehow admits the contrast; perhaps the scaffolding was always a signal of growing. In the end, maybe tears shed whilst traveling is most telling of a new beginning. 

It was never a perfect world. Maybe it doesn't need to be.