Felt Cutout Saints

"A blur of romance clings to notions of "publicans," "sinners," "the poor," "the people in the marketplace," "our neighbors," as though of course God should reveal himself, if at all, to these simple people, these Sunday school watercolor figures who are so purely themselves in their tattered robes, who are single in themselves, while we now are various, complex, and full at heart.... Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead—as if innocence had ever been.... But there is no one but us. There never has been."

- Annie Dillard
An Annie Dillard Reader

This quote from Annie Dillard seems to sum up much of what I found hard about being an evangelical Christian. The idea of the perfectibility of our spirits was a goal that inspired my spiritual quest when I was new to the faith but now chokes me and leaves me condemned for not being anything like the perfect 'felt cutout saints' of Sunday School and the Sunday sermon.



Annie's acceptance of our humanity, warts and all, seems to be the only way we can live authentically and spiritually in the world.

I am at least momentarily inspired to keep trying to live in contact with the God of Abraham, Issac , Jacob et al, (even, if truth be told, I am more than a little doubleminded.)

LH