Back in the year 1804 or so, a rabbi found himself spending several months in the czar's jails. During that time he came to know his jailkeeper a little. One day the jailkeeper said, "You're a rabbi and a wise man, me, I'm not religious at all. People are always after me to read the Bible, but I can't see what the fuss is. Here, on the very first page, God asks Adam where he is. If he's God, why doesn't he know where Adam is? One man in the whole world and God can't find him."

The rabbi smiled, and said, "God knew where Adam was. He wanted Adam to ask himself where he was." And then he added, "You're 46 years old, and you are wondering where you are."

So, I gotta ask, at least myself sometimes, where are we? That jailer thought he was free, but he was trapped, and he was seeking a way out... what cells have we locked ourselves into? And why? And really, how long do we intend to stay locked in these boxes of ours? Oh, yeah, we tell ourselves, this crummy job, or yucky neighborhood, or "settle for" whatever, is only temporary, but really, take a look, how long has it been, that you've been there in that box...

Young people have an extravagant view of time. They assume it is endless. That is why young men make the best soldiers and the worst drivers -- they don't believe they can die. They think they have forever to go after their dreams, to learn all life's lessons, to "aspire to greatness"...

We can only believe that so long. Eventually people around us begin to die, and we come to see that we will, too. There are tons of stories, true, fictional, allegorical - a person finds out he's dying, and begins to wonder if his whole life was "just a waste". Psychologist Eric Erickson even had a "stage" of development for older folks, where at around 65 or so, folks begin to look at retirement, and back over their lives, and either feel "generativity" - that they have created something of worth to leave behind to the younger generations, or "despair" - seeing "nothing"...

This sense of incompleteness is especially haunting to Americans, who have a cultural horror of anything that does not "win." Superbowl winners are held up to heaven as the best among us; the team who lost that game, and was the second-best in the NFL, is held up to ridicule. Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale received the votes of 40 million Americans, and for their trouble are remembered as national laughingstocks.

I have a MAJOR problem with this mentality - it tells 95 percent of Americans -- those of us who never come in first on anything in our entire lives -- that we don't matter, and our lives, no matter how caring and involved, are of no account. If we fall for this myth, we lock ourselves up in a cell of despair, a black box of uselessness and hopelessness...

The 5 percent who slog on to victory typically find out it is not all it is cracked up to be. Result: 100 percent disillusionment -- a 100 percent sense of loss. If we fall for this trap, we fall hard, and destroy ourselves...

We do not handle insignificance well. I know for sure I don't!! To feel complete, we must know that we made a contribution somehow. Something that will remain when we are gone, a mark that we can leave to show we were here. But so many of us are locked into a "settle for" life, and we're running out of time... and so many others simply think they have to be "perfect", so they give up, before they've even tried...

The good news, is that we don't have to write a great book, or build a stone monument to achieve this. It is just as satisfactory to do nice things on a regular basis. Nothing is so memorable to others of our kind as a simple act of kindness. Cosmic good deeds have a shorter shelf life.

I know for sure that you all have fantastic, lovely vivid memories of a moment of gentleness from someone you love who's not here with us any more, that's what I mean. That's what lives after us. That's what we need to build. Those are the most important lessons we will teach to our children, our grandchildren and our friends. Those lovely "little" things, are the things that live in our memories forever.

I think though, we've become "victims of perfectionism" - remember that movie with Jaime Lee Curtis and John Travolta? She's obsessed with being perfect, and wanting the "perfect body", and completely missing the rest of her life... and she can't see it. If anyone tries to tell her, she shrieks "What is wrong with trying to be perfect", and assumes they're "just jealous"... and she's missing her whole life...

So many women are trapped in this mentality. That's "where" they are. Struggling for a perfection that God doesn't even expect. Or want.... locked in jail cells they built with their own hands, that the have the key to, even... but there they stay, struggling to meet impossible self-imposed expectations of perfection, and desperately feeling like miserable failures because they can't...

Parents are victims of perfectionism. How many couples drive themselves to anxiety attacks trying to be everything to their children 24 hours a day -- teachers, providers, playmates, watchdogs, cooks? One false move and the child will end up on death row without a high school diploma.

But do children have any use for perfect parents? Not especially. Indeed, it is a great relief for children, struggling to be competent, to see their parents are occasionally incompetent as well. Parents provide a better service to their children by modeling how to be good, than how to be "perfect".

Even The Bible is not about perfect people, but about people who were conspicuously flawed, had terrible marriages, fought with their brothers, and so on.

Being more tolerant of our weaknesses makes us better able to accept the shortcomings of those close to us. It helps the father whose son inherited his klutziness, and will never be the shortstop is father dreamed of being.

It helps parents whose children, instead of becoming surgeons and moving in next door, don't become much of anything and keep moving back to the room they grew up in. It helps the mother who is angry that her child is not perfect, but an emotionally troubled kid who needs love, not a mother's disappointment.

It helps married people overcome the astonishing discovery that the person they courted so blissfully has foot odor, or is a slob, or could spend a few hours alone with an Ab Blaster. Because the essence of a happy marriage is not infatuation, but forgiveness. People who spend their lives as one flesh, who are physically and emotionally naked to another, will reveal every blemish, every shortcoming they have. But because we love them, we accept the flaws as part of the package.

If God only loved perfect people, God would be pretty lonely...

So, where are you? What box have you stuffed yourself into? Cracker Jack? Cardboard? Gold gift box?

Break out, live with joy, the free life God gave you as a gift. Forget trying to be "perfect" whatever that is... God loves you like he made you!