Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Blind Spots

Kathy Lewis Parmentier
September 21, 2008
Palo Alto, CA

Ben Bova in The Story of Light wrote:

There is a blind spot in the retina, the place on the nasal side of the eyeball where the optic nerve leads out of the eye and into the brain. Without this connection, the eye could not pass information on to the brain. Yet because of this connection, there is a spot in each retina that contains neither rods nor cones, and therefore cannot perceive light at all. Each of us has our blind spot; without it, we could not see. ¹

In the last few years I’ve had some of my mental blind spots illuminated. I wasn’t really aware until recently that when I start something that is really important, I am full of unfocussed anxiety. I’m sure that I won’t be good enough and the something, whatever it is, will fail and it will be my fault. When I’m in this state, I’m particularly vulnerable to criticism by a person who I see as having “authority”. I can really focus on that person and how unreasonable he or she is. I must prove myself. I can’t ask for help. I am also completely self-righteous.

Here is an example. Last year, I started teaching 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th grade music two days a week. I spent most of the previous 30 years teaching adults computer hardware maintenance. Last year was rough. I had a lot to learn. The woman who wrote the curriculum was full of anxiety about this program. Her response to anxiety was to make it clear that she wanted us to teach as she does. We were given scripts as lesson plans. I expended a lot of energy both feeling incompetent because I couldn’t teach using these scripts and also angry at her, blaming her for her rigidity. When I got a class that was completely out of control, I struggled self-righteously with it all quarter, complaining a lot, but not asking for help, because I had to prove that I could handle ALL the classes.

We are idealists, here. Maybe all religious people are. It can be a short step from idealism to perfectionism. I think of “the ideal”, then make that the only result that will be good enough. If I am starting something new, then my beginning skills will not be good enough for “the ideal”. In fact, only heroic achievement could be. By that evaluation, I’ll be a failure. And I’ll feel that I need to atone for not meeting these impossible standards. Atonement for true failings is an important part of maturity. Atonement for false failings keeps me focused on the other, and keeps me from taking honest pride in my accomplishments, makes me blind to my true failings and reduces my choices. This church is a place of idealism, but it is also a place where I find friends and acceptance, and maybe illumination of my blind spots.

Reinhold Niebuhr reminds us: ²

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

 

---