When Good is not good enough

Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"- therfore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)

In a way, the Garden is always with us. Our memories of good moments, and our wishes for ourselves and others to be better, keep the image of the ideal in our hearts. At times this encourages us, and at others it torments us, such as when we have thoughts like, "I shouldn't have made that error-I knew better. Why did I let it happen again?"

So the jolting experience of imperfection and the knowledge of good and evil land a one-two punch on most of us, and a dilemma is born. It can be stated this way: I'd like to be the ideal me-living in an ideal world. I can even imagine it. What then do I do with the badness in myself and the world? How do I co-exist with injustice? Failure? Imperfection? Disappointment?

The reason this is such a monumental issue for some of us, such as the perfectionist or the frustrated idealist, is that the kernel of the problem is a fear that bad will overwhelm and contaminate good. The one bad apple spoils a lifetime, thinks the idealist. This is a sign of developmental inability to trust that the good can coexist with the bad.

(Hiding from Love by Dr. John Townsend)