For the good is the enemy of the best, and vice versa

I think I would be very much humbled if I were Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, when his first Lenten sermon was being referenced in Pope's message to the youth in Africa. Given the fact that the second to the last allusion that our Pope made was a reference to St. Cyprian, a 3rd century saint from North Africa.

On a totally different note...

I remember early in the beginning of the year being very much attracted to this ceramic story:

In a similar vein comes this anecdote from Art and Fear—which is a brilliant piece of work, by the way, chock full of quotables. A ceramics class is divided into two groups. The first group is graded on quantity: it doesn't matter how good their stuff is, just how many pounds of work they end up with. The second group is graded on quality: it didn't matter how few pots they create, just how perfect the final product is. Can you guess who ends up doing the best work? It's the quantity group: the students who churned out work day after day and learned from their mistakes. Meanwhile, the quality group had wasted time mulling over how they could achieve perfection, so by the end of the class they had "little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

The other story that I have is from the Italian Sisters. Once, one of them gave an advice on making our own discernment: There will be times when we were to choose our path. At first, it may well be hard to choose virtue over sin. But as we all journey through, the choice between sin and virtue seems to not be the problem anymore, for we have a better understanding of what constitutes a sin and what constitutes a virtue. The hardest path in reaching the maturity in Christ, is in choosing the good from the best. For the good is the enemy of the best.

This Voltaire-esque idea in the first anecdote that "the perfect is the enemy of the good." contradicts the second story which says that, "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mat. 5:48), or so it seems.

And so how would we reconcile the two, if possible?

By having both attitude in mind.

After graduating from college, one of my greatest fear in moving out from the college town I was is in the idea of cooking. I am a sucker for eating out, especially when those HWs, and exams are piling up like dirt. Now with so much free times in my hand, there will be no more excuse for me to eat out, except for hanging out with friends. Let me tell you this, the weekends are the worst. It seems that crawling in bed, reading inspiring blog posts, or even cleaning up my messy apartment sounds so much better than cooking. I would do anything but to cook.

But this insatiable desire for food from my stomach can't be avoided. So I cooked. The fear began to turn into joy. I might very well be the next author of the latest edition of the joy of cooking, when it comes right to it. ;-)


Looking back, the attitude that I have is preventing me in being the better person that God wants me to be. The fear of unknown, of failure, should not be the attitude in which I hold tightly when it comes to turning that boneless chicken breast into the opor ayam that I loved.




Yet, it does not end there. The first initial spur of cooking should be complemented by the desire to reach perfection in it as well. If I were to just be satisfied in the fact that I was able to cook a ramen noodle, that does not qualify me as a chef. I should step up and be able to cook that tasty fillet mignon to obtain the title: Chef Me.

Indeed both ideas have to intertwine in order to make the most out of our life here on earth. Do not be discouraged to learn new things, but also, do not grow complacent and stop for the lowest common denominator.

So all in all, "both/and" once again win the competition against the "either/or".