On Being Flawsome

Church Street today is brought to you by the word ‘flawsome’ and by the number 40.

Jeanine and I are not with you on Sunday, August 27th. It was always part of our crafty, cunning plan to elope on this particular weekend and escape to be by ourselves. While you are reading this homily we are somewhere in Tasmania being ‘flawsome’.

All a bit cryptic? It might help if I offer a few reflections on the sacrament of marriage on this special weekend. It’s not every day you get a homily about marriage, but today it might be particularly appropriate.

There is an old saying that every woman marries a Romeo. A dazzling, charming, impeccably mannered gentleman only to discover much later on in life that she has actually married Falstaff. A bumbling, potbellied, burping, forgetful and hapless sod. Of course, to keep the balance equal I might say that every man marries … Well, I’ll leave you to fill in the rest of that bit.

In marriage, two people commit themselves for life and it is the happy couple that actually performs the sacrament. The priesty person is just there to offer the Church's blessing.

In this amazing service two people, in effect, write blank cheques to each other with their lives. Here is my life, my signature, you must write what you will .. and vice versa. Sometimes we scribble on another life, other times we tenderly doodle love hearts. Either way, writing this blank cheque is a brave, risky, daring and marvellous thing to do.

Sure there are the government bits, but we have all frequently been to homes where a couple isn’t strictly speaking ‘married’ but they are very much more together than couple x down the road who have all the bits of paper and whose names appear in the Church’s register and yet… Well, you know how it goes.

Over the course of a marriage, every wrinkle, every flaw, every annoying habit is discovered and held up to the glaring scrutiny of the other; sometimes with firm words being offered in critique. If you have been married a while you might be able to bring to mind a few examples of your own, or maybe you heard about some of these irregularities from over the back fence where couple z have loudly proclaimed that the toast was burnt, the bins not taken out and the dishes undried … again!

But here’s the lovely thing. This is the God bit. Over the years, woven through the tapestry of joys and disappointments, of hurts and pleasure, there is something else going in the tedium of the everyday humdrum where nothing much seems to be happening. And that something else is this.

To be loved for who you are when someone else has seen straight through you and knows your every quirk and flaw, gift and talent and especially those annoying little habits that you just can’t seem to shake no matter how hard you try. When that someone special loves you in spite of all these things and in the end, because of all these things, then you are transformed into the person you were always meant to be. Falstaff becomes Romeo after all and if I was to be balanced I would say the nasty stepsister becomes the beautiful princess.

And this is the really, really good bit. The celebratory bit. This unique and forgiving and ever-patient love is exactly the way that God loves you. We celebrate a God that sees straight through us. A God that knows every last wart and scurrilous secret. A God who delights in us and celebrates us, even when and especially when, we let Him down in catastrophic and spectacular ways. And this should give us the impetus and reason to send champagne corks to the ceiling and make us jive around the dance floor at the wedding reception in uninhibited ways.

Ah! But what of this word, ‘flawsome?’ The definition of flawsome according to the google dictionary is this.

Flawsome is an adjective and describes an individual who embraces their ‘flaws’ and knows that they are awesome regardless.

Got it? Flawsome … describes an individual who embraces their ‘flaws’ and knows that they are awesome regardless.

It is a rare and splendid thing when you find someone who can embrace not only your shiny bits but also your yucky stuff. It is a sublime thing when you understand your heavenly Father embraces your flaws and knows that you are awesome regardless.

But the key to all of this is when you know that you.. Yes YOU dear reader, can embrace your flaws and know that you are awesome anyway. And the couple who over the years have embraced each other, their flaws and all, should know that they too are awesome as well.

May the one who blessed the married love at Cana by the overabundance of wine and by being in the midst of the celebration, bless you also. And may his Mother Mary who quietly, unobtrusively, but with potent effect made it all happen, pray for you and walk with you in your vocation to be fully flawsome.