The Parable of the Blue Pot:
A Sermon On Accepting Imperfection
Hello, and welcome! I thank you all for taking time out of your evenings to come here me speak, and I hope that you find merit in the words I have to share. This is a long one, so I most certainly appreciate patience, and I will be glad to take any questions at the end. I would like to begin with a folk tale that has been passed down many generations, entitled The Blue Pot.
There is a city in the sand, a place from which a veritable mansion rises like a mirage in the desert heat. We know its name to be Jempek, but there was a time before it had this name, or any name at all; before anyone governed it, before its streets were paved or it became renowned for those fruit drinks we love, before it even had a place on our maps. It began as a small desert city built by a tiny community that managed to thrive even under such harsh conditions due, in large part, to the nearby oasis - a blessing, mayhaps the tears of the gods at the people's suffering in the sun and the heat, the townsfolk wagered.
A narrow path led through dunes of sand to the oasis, but few were bold enough to brave this route unless in dire need of water. Harsh desert winds would often stir up the sand and send it raging against any who dared walk its expanse, and the heat was so unbearable that the skin would blister in moments if left untended. But even so, a slight figure could be seen venturing this way every morning before even the sun awoke, like clockwork. The sand would rage at her defiance of its wrath, most certainly, but she was clever and wrapped her face and arms in sturdy cloth, woven to repel sand and heat alike. The sand, fine as powdered snow but sharp as daggers, couldn't touch her. And the sun, angry being that it was, had not yet risen to beset her with its glare.
This young woman went by the name of Sarai, and every day without fail she made a journey to the oasis with two large clay pots attached to a stick laid across her shoulders. Though the pole, with a water-laden pot suspended from each end, oft left bruises on her skin and made her back ache, she had grown used to its weight. Sarai had made the pots with her mother when she was but a girl. One pot she painted a brilliant, cheery yellow - for the sun had kind faces, as well as cruel ones - and the other, she painted a clear and endless blue, as lovely as the oasis water with which she filled them. On both, she depicted in bright hues an array of flowers. Sarai did not mind their weight, for in these pots, she carried life to her friends and her family.
For many, many years, Sarai made the trek to and from the oasis every day, without fail. She was getting a little older, and so were the two pots, but together they weathered the daily journeys. Until one day... to Sarai's sad dismay, she found a jagged hairline crack that snaked its way along the blue jug's smooth expanse. Sarai considered simply crafting a new one from clay, but decided against it, and instead hung both blue and yellow pots from her stick and wandered off into the desert like usual. "You will do just fine," she would tell the blue pot each day, though she noted the crack growing a little longer with each trip. But at the end of her expedition, Sarai would notice that the blue pot was only half-full of water, where the yellow was filled to the brim. Still, she continued to use it.
Finally, one morning came when both the blue pot and Sarai noticed that the crack had grown so large that only about a fourth of the water made it through the hike back from the oasis, and the pot stopped her from hanging it on the stick. "Please," it said. "You've been kind to keep me for so long despite my uselessness, but please get rid of me. I'm only a hindrance to you now. Get rid of me and get a new pot!"
Sarai laughed gently and lifted the pot onto her shoulder. "You think you are useless?" She asked it, and it wailed in reply that of course it was, it was a no good, rotten failure. "You see so little," Sarai said simply and brought the blue pot out to the beginning of the oasis path. The pot was so surprised by what it saw that silence reigned for several long minutes.
"You see," Sarai murmured to the pot, gesturing to the seemingly endless row of mesquite trees that lined the right side of the path. "I knew of your flaw all long, so I planted seeds all in a row along the path and made sure to put you on the left side of the pole on the way back from the oasis. Every single day, you wept for the water you spilled from this crack here, but you did not see what beauty you left in the wake of your tears. You watered these trees for many years, my friend. Now, they grow strong and tall despite the fury of the desert. Soon, I will be too old to make this journey, as will you and yellow pot, but these trees will stand even when we are aged and broken and they will mark the path to the oasis for generations to come; and because the wind blows from the east, these trees you watered day in and day out will protect those who walk this path from the sand, and shade them from the heat."
Just as the blue pot was so busy fixating on what it perceived to be a fatal flaw that it did not see its own worth, we, too, tend to cling so tightly to our own sense of unworthiness that we fail to see the reasons why we -are- worthy. Too often are we are blind to the strengths that lie within our weaknesses. And that is what I would like to talk to each of you about today.
There are those will look you over with cold eyes and list all the things they see wrong with you. They will hand you this list without shame and without hesitation, and they will tell you to fix everything they've written down, to bury every broken thing about yourself. You will be called to do this in the name of many faux-gods: fame, wealth, love, power, strength. All it takes, these idols will whisper in your ear, is willpower and determination. "Kill your flaws," you will be told time and time again. "Drown your weaknesses."
This logic is, however, inherently flawed. It accounts neither for the existence of very real strengths that stem from weaknesses, just as the blue pot watered a veritable desert forest with his greatest flaw, nor does it address the fact that there are some flaws that will never realistically be overcome.
The former point is made most evident within the parameters of my parable. Parables are quite effective, undoubtedly, but it's often an easy mistake to use them to preach a message without offering concrete evidence to attest to the validity of said message. I do not, however, intend to be so hollow a preacher. It would be rather poor form for me to cite flaws I see or know in the members of my good audience, so I will volunteer myself.
When I was tasking to join the Lady's faith as a member of Her clergy, one of my future guildmates asked me a question. "What is your greatest weakness?" I regret my answer deeply, for all that it was an honest one, because it showcases such vast ignorance about my own self. I replied to his query that my greatest fault, the flaw that haunts me, is that I was raised as a fervent supporter of Dahkoar. I had done terrible things in the name of a Dark god. I was so ashamed of this fault that I could not meet their eyes.
Months later, after many prayers and countless hours of self-reflection and long days and nights of learning, I can safely say that I was deeply wrong to cite this as a flaw.
While it appeared as a weakness at the time, and perhaps to those who looked upon me in that moment, my dark past has become one of my greatest assets as a servant of the Light. One of our jobs, arguably the most important one we as clerics have, is to reach out to the world around us and spread Waylumi's word and teachings. To offer the hand of grace to those shrouded in darkness and show them this path, this beautiful, illuminated way. Who better to find those who are lost in the dark than one who was lost herself? One who walked those very paths, and one who has gazed into that abyss. I understand what it means to be lost, and so I am equipped in a most fundamental way, to empathize with and connect with those who cannot find their way home.
Furthermore, as a result of what I had once thought to be my greatest flaw, I understand in depth the tenets and teachings of our opposite number. As such, I find that I am, more often than not, equally equipped to handle and combat these teachings with understanding and with Wisdom. Had I simply tried to purge myself of this piece of me, rejected it on principal, I would have lost so many valuable tools that I now understand make me a better cleric, and a better woman. So take a moment now, if you will, on think of those aspects of yourself that you consider to be flawed or broken. Can you find, if you truly look at these weak points and assess them objectively, a way to draw strength from them? Sometimes you need simply a pair of clear eyes and a new perspective.
As you reflect on some of your own imperfections, I’d like to clarify that there's nothing wrong with seeking personal growth. I'm not here to argue the fact that we absolutely have flaws and imperfections we -do- need to work on, because I'd be a fool to choose the losing end of such a debate. Flaws that harm ourselves or the people around us are flaws that need to be hammered out. Wisdom can be dutifully employed to understand the difference between such imperfections and those that we cannot alter. My focus here is on the latter, the fact that there are always going to exist within us broken edges and cracked pieces. Some of these things aren't ones we are capable of changing: things like our pasts, like our age, like being short when you just really want to be a few inches taller! Like a gentle heart, or one some might think too fierce.
So if you’ve found in reflection some strengths in your own weaknesses, or beauty in your flaws, well done. You are seeing clearly this evening. And if you’ve come to the conclusion that your imperfection just can’t be flipped… then you must do the thing that takes perhaps the most strength of all.
Learn to accept that which you cannot change.
There is undeniable imperfection lurking within each of us. Some imperfections are darker than others, some deeper, some more insidious and some more pervasive. We all have this brokenness, this weakness, the part of our souls that is irreparably and forever changed by the trial that is life. There is no grand cure to the epidemic of imperfection, no panacea to make these flaws disappear. The simple fact is that these imperfections are pieces of the whole, neither wonderful nor terrible on their own, until you make them so. In accepting your flaws, and in understanding that the true nature of Love extends not only to others but to yourselves, you give yourself the ability and permission to truly be you. Only through acceptance can we capitalize on the strengths within ourselves. Please believe me when I tell you: there is so much strength inside of us, if we only take the time to recognize it.
If there is one thing I might hope you take away from my ramblings today, which you have so kindly listened to, it is simply that, whether you follow the same creeds and beliefs that I do, or whether yours are quite different, this is a commonality we hold between us: we are the blue pot, all of us. As such, I want you to express to you most fully and completely that strength isn't born within the systematic process of beating one's own characteristics - one’s self - to death. Rather, it grows from acceptance of the flaws that do reside within us, and the self-awareness to exist and thrive despite them. Or better yet, because of them. Acceptance is a necessary part of life, happiness and Light; acceptance is Love, and how you love yourselves, my friends, is how you teach others to love the world.