Perfection Achieved

Can Perfection Come From Disappointment?(Rebecca Erekson in the Kennedy Center)

Perfection is a hard image to capture. After all, all one ever hears is that no one and nothing is perfect. Nevertheless, the scriptures demand perfection and we do have at least one mortal example of perfection, so to me there must be other instances and measures that allow us to dabble in perfection so we can begin to have some image of what it is we are supposed to attain. So, here's a perfect day for Jeanne: get tickets to My Fair Lady at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and take her husband and children to see it. Jeanne had the soundtrack when she was young. She used to listen to musicals in the 8 track player of the station wagon as a teenager above the objections of her friends. So, when she saw the musical was coming to D.C. during the time that Casey and Mary would be home from college for Christmas vacation, she prodded Rodger to buy some tickets right away as "Christmas Presents."
I think if one ever is going to capture a vision of perfection, there must be belief that it can happen. So, what happens to this "perfect" scenario when two of your children (the most unlikely two - Mary and Emily) inform you that they can't or don't want to go to the show? Well, the first resort is retreat. Are the tickets refundable? No! (Of course not!) Perfection, I believe, does require creativity, and Jeanne has never been short on that account. She wondered out loud, sometime after hearing the bad news from her children, (I'm not sure why) whether the Erekson girls (Rebecca and Janessa) might be interested in going with us. Of course, necessity is the mother of all inven... for our purposes "creativity" so this creative thought occurred perhaps 36 hours before the event (proverbial crunch time). But, if you believe something can happen, well, it can!
Speaking of perfection, couples are a perfect creation. God knew we were not meant to be alone, it would be too hard to be creative and proactive at the same time, so he created Jeanne and Rodger. Jeanne mutters the creative idea and Rodger somehow puts a plan into action. Mind you, the creative idea is the more difficult challenge even though most of the credit usually goes to the activator. So, Jeanne wonders if the Erekson girls might be interested and Rodger needs to find a way to get in touch with them in a very short time frame to find out. Here's how that works. Rebecca stayed with the Picketts for the last 6 weeks of high school (five years previously). She and Rodger emailed occasionally to keep up on life. Rebecca and Rodger email while Rebecca is on her mission in Paris, France. When Rebecca returns, she emails Rodger and he emails back (in October 2007). It is now January 2008 but Rodger is confident he can find Rebecca's email address from their last correspondance and is right. He emails Rebecca at approximately 8p the night before the matinee performance in D.C. Rebecca, for unknown reasons, looks at her email approximately 3 minutes after Rodger emails (for the last time that night) and the plan is hatched to pick her and her sister up the next morning at their home in Sykesville, MD on the way to D.C. Now, that's cool, but is it perfect?

(Janessa Erekson in the Kennedy Center cafeteria)

Well, if that's not perfect, this makes it pretty close. As it turns out, the Eriksons are BIG fans, not only of musicals, but of My Fair Lady! They know the story, they know all the words, they know all the songs. AND - they were THRILLED to be able to go with us to the show. Now that's getting very close to perfection. (You might notice from the above picture that Janessa gets pretty close to perfection as well - sorry, I got off track.)

The show was very good. The cast was talented, the seats were great, the music was good (but the dialogue was too long - whoops, so much for perfection). Ahh, so you're wondering, if the dialogue was too long how could the day have been perfect even if the Ereksons were perfect company? Well, the show started at 1:30p and ended at 4:30p (see what I mean about the dialogue). We parked right under the Kennedy Center, so we went down to the parking, drove out into the late afternoon sun and ohh, it was perfect. The temperature was hovering around 23 degrees. There was a pretty stiff breeze, but the light was incredible. Of course, Rodger wanted to take pictures. He kept trying to find some parking by the mall so he could shoot monuments (and this is where sometimes what appears to be adversity leads us right to where we are supposed to be) without any luck, so he finally looked over at Jeanne, while at a red light, and said, "you drive, I'm getting out," grabbed his camera bag and bolted. "I have my cell phone," he yelled as he ran away, to which came Jeanne's response, "I don't have mine."
The light was spectacular, thrilling! Rodger started shooting picture after picture across the Potomac at the Jefferson memorial and then turn around and shoot the Washington memorial. It just so happened that that's where the stop light was.
At first it was utterly enthralling. It was perfect.
Perhaps as a reminder of the nature of perfection and just how much must be done to achieve it, Rodger did begin, after perhaps twenty minutes, to notice that it was quite cold out. He had a sweater and leather jacket on, but wondered, momentarily, if Jeanne and the kids would ever find him again before he froze to death, leaving only his last photographs as a memorial. He pondered taking a self-portrait so his grieving loved ones might have one, last portrait of a smiling Rodger and be consoled in knowing he died doing something he loved (ok, that was artistic license, I don't think that actually happeded, but it made the story better).
Finally, he thought, "perhaps one of the kids has their phone." Rebecca's number was at the top of his "Last Calls" list, so he dialed. Only a few other times in life had there been a more welcome "hello?" He was saved, they could find him now and he wouldn't freeze.

Sorry to have left my thesis about perfection. To tie it all together - if this isn't a perfect sunset, then I don't know if there is such a thing. And seeing that this kind of perfection exists reminds me that God loves me and affords some earthly examples of just what it is we are all striving for. Thanks Jeanne for the tickets, thanks Casey for coming, thanks Rebecca and Janessa for making it a "perfect" outing, and thanks God for perfect sunsets.