I’m sure it’s a good thing to have friends who are intelligent and thoughtful, friends who pay attention and lean in, asking about things I would rather skate over.
But at the moment, I am ruing that fact. Because one of those thoughtful friends reached out to me after last week’s post and asked me what I meant by the phrase “faultless monster.” It was something I’d applied to the divine, the Goodness and Power that lives in and through everything and everyone.
To be honest, I was kind of hoping that particular phrase would slip by unnoticed, because while I love the sound and idea of it, I wasn’t completely sure what it meant. And, to be really honest, I didn’t want to do the hard work of figuring it out.
But thank goodness my friend nudged me into considering this more. While I am still not a hundred percent sure how “faultless monster” applies to the divine, I am even more captivated by this idea than ever.
I found the phrase in the Oxford English Dictionary, a book I have long loved, and the one I would choose to have with me if I were on a desert island. I was nosing around in there to find new and fresh ways to think about the divine, and this phrase was in the entry for “monsters.” (I honestly cannot remember why I was looking for inspiration about the divine under monsters. Freud and Jung would probably have a field day with that.)
The entry explained “faultless monster” had at one time been used along with “monster of perfection” to indicate “an astonishing or unnatural degree of excellence.”
While I was drawn to the idea of a faultless monster, I am repulsed by the monster of perfection. As Marion Woodman writes, “perfection is defeat.” Because it is impossible.
And still, it can be so seductive—because perfection promises feelings of worth and untold riches and everlasting happiness.
But we know. We. Know. Perfection, and our eternal chasing after it, crushes our spirits and leaves us feeling exhausted, spent, like we are never good enough.
I would much rather live into the phrase a student in my yoga workshop this past weekend came up with. She described humans as “bright and broken.”
Her phrase moves us away from the impossibility of perfection and into the realm of monsters, where we become rare marvels, sometimes “incompatible with life,” where we are capable of wreaking such havoc and at the same time, capable of such skillfulness and power (as in, “she was a monster on the court”).
What if the “faultless monster” that I equated with some form of God is really what is in each of us?
What if it is God in us?
What if I am a monster and you are a monster and we are Faultless for it?
This does not mean that we are excused from our behaviors and their repercussions. When we hurt others or the world, we don’t get to throw up our hands and say with a shrug, “Oops. My bad. I’m just a faultless monster.”
We act and our actions have consequences, and if those consequences mean we have hurt others, then we need to name that and make whatever reparations we can.
Because otherwise we live our lives tearing ourselves, others, and our world apart.
To say that we are monsters is not an invitation to mayhem and madness; it is an invitation to acknowledge we carry it all within ourselves—the good, the bad, and the ugly, to be sure, but also, the curious, the wondrous, and the ridiculous.
To claim our status as faultless monsters means we will not fit into the world’s boxes, and it is likely we will fail, at least by the usual standards of what we consider “good” and “successful.”
Maybe that’s why I chose to apply “faultless monster” to the divine—because I want the divine to fail. To fail at living in our boxes. To fail at being contained by our small notions of what is good and successful.
Because as I understand the divine right here and now, it is not cuddly and controllable. It is wild and roaming, weird and roaring. It will live and act in ways that I will never understand. And there might even be times when it feels like it has turned on me and started growling or even tearing me apart.
I don’t know why.
But if I see the divine as a faultless monster, I do exactly what my friend did. I begin to pay attention. I lean in. I get curious not only about This Power, but also about The Power in myself.
And I get really, really curious about what it looks like to live a fully human life. A life not of perfection but of completeness where I Am It All, where I will remain until the end of my days Faultlessly Bright and Broken.