Recently, a few passages from Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI have been floating through my head. They all have to do with the triple-theme of humility, resiliency, and courage.1
Regarding humility, he says that we need humiliations. This appears in his Last Testament, as he recounts a certain academic trial pertaining to his post-doctoral thesis. Regarding this trial — a negative report by his second examiner and a need for revision — he says:
I believe that it is dangerous for a young person simply to go from achieving goal after goal, generally being praised along the way. So it is good for a young person to experience his limit, occasionally to be dealt with critically, to suffer his way through a period of negativity, to recognize his own limits himself, not simply to win victory after victory. A human being needs to endure something in order to learn to assess himself correctly, and not least to learn to think with others. Then he will not simply judge others hastily and stay aloof, but rather accept them positively, in his labours and his weaknesses.2
I believe I may tattoo this on the foreheads of my children, given the entitled and self-absorbed world in which they live, move, and have their being. I mean, the lack of resiliency and critical thinking, the waiting for Internet mommy to come along and fix problems and provide answers, etc…
The next tidbit comes from Fr. Vincent Twomey, one of Ratzinger’s doctoral students (and one of the examiners of my own doctoral dissertation — the most challenging to be sure, given his pages and pages of commentary and proposed revisions to my work). Twomey recounts Ratzinger’s attack on his perfectionism:
Once he asked me gently about the progress of my thesis. It was about time, as I had been working on it for some seven years. I told him that I thought there was still some work to be done. He turned to me with those piercing but kindly eyes, saying with a smile: “Nur Mut zur LŸcke” (Have the courage to leave some gaps). In other words, be courageous enough to be imperfect.3
Today, we might say something like, “the best dissertation is a done dissertation,” or “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” or Chesterton’s “if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” The point is this: have the courage to put something out there (i.e., to put yourself out there), knowing your limits and knowing it’s imperfect.
And, to round this out, I return to a thought from Pope Benedict XVI that I recall almost on a daily basis. I think it balances the previous point. Putting oneself out there means opening to correction and revision. The very nature of the pencil captures this:
As a young lad I wrote in pencil and then stayed with it. The pencil has an advantage in that one can erase things. If I write with ink, it is written.4
I think about this daily because I always carry a pen in my pocket, but I wish it were a pencil. A pencil is a humbler implement. However, when I tried carrying a mechanical pencil in my pocket, the sharp tip of the thing tore a hole in my pocket and it slid down my leg and wound up in my shoe. It’s hard to play it cool when something like that happens. Humiliations. Carrying a normal #2 in my pocket just seems strange, so I keep going back to the pen. Maybe I just need to have the courage to have gaps in my papers and holes in my pockets.
I think the thoughts are meandering around due to the felt vulnerability that comes from publishing a book — or anything for that matter.
Benedict XVI, Last Testament, 95.
See Twomey’s “The Courage to Be Imperfect,” at https://benedict16legacy.com/the-courage-to-be-imperfect/
Benedict XVI, Last Testament, 109.