On Perfection as a Reflection of Harmony in Community

For many years I’ve lived in a small island community where the weather is often harsh, people work hard, often wearing many hats to get by, and where it’s difficult to leave the house without running into someone you know. Because we see the same people (and potentially multiple members of their extended family) over and over in a diversity of contexts and situations, islanders tend to tread softly, careful to not offend. People have adopted practices and expressions that allow respectful acknowledgement of each other’s presence without having to stop every few steps for lengthy conversations that nobody really has the time for. The expression “good enough” is an example of this. Ask an islander how they are doing, if the grass has been mowed, the kids are well, a meal was well-prepared, the gas tank filled, bills paid, test scores high enough, house clean, and a common response is “good enough.” Passing people you know on the street is often accompanied by a nod and a simple “good?” The response, usually delivered with buoyant humour, is usually “good enough!”

I come from a family of artists and musicians who strove after perfection. My father, a pianist and composer, spent a good portion of his years on this planet seated at his piano composing and then rehearsing with a degree of discipline that left me in awe. When he performed a piece, every note was exact—the delivery so masterful that the music transported audiences to another realm…it was a true “ladder for the soul.”¹ My mother, a visual artist, taught me from a very young age how to notice the smallest details in the world around me, how to capture depth of perspective, measure distances, mix colours, create textures, and depict light and shadow on my paper or canvas so that the image that materialized as faithfully as possible reflected my surroundings. Once I’d acquired the foundational principles, we explored abstract form, the breaking away from realism seen as a natural expansion in the development of creative process. As artists, the word “perfection” was never used in our family, but the hours of work put into honing the degree of skill necessary to create works that left a lasting impression felt, to me, like striving toward perfection.

Growing up, my understanding was that we aimed for perfection in order to make whatever we were doing or creating the absolute best that it could be. I knew perfection could never truly be achieved, but it pushed me to try my hardest and push the boundaries of what I knew was possible. My perception of perfection back then was that it was a quality to be pursued for the improvement of our individual capacity, skills and service—even if at times the process of self-improvement was done at the expense of others. In other words, for most of my life I believed that the quality of the end-product justified the means used to get there.    

Recently I came across this quote by Abdu’l-Baha in The Secret of Divine Civilization:

“The second attribute of perfection is justice and impartiality. This means to have no regard for one’s own personal benefits and selfish advantages, and to carry out the laws of God without the slightest concern for anything else. It means to see one’s self as only one of the servants of God, the All-Possessing, and except for aspiring to spiritual distinction, never attempting to be singled out from the others. It means to consider the welfare of the community as one’s own. It means, in brief, to regard humanity as a single individual, and one’s own self as a member of that corporeal form, and to know of a certainty that if pain or injury afflicts any member of that body, it must inevitably result in suffering for all the rest.”²           

It now seems like a rather massive oversight on my part that I had never considered the harmony and wellbeing of the collective as an expression of perfection. Reading this passage made me realize the degree to which my understanding had been both shaped and limited by western cultural norms, where the means are accepted and even respected if they result in the realization of the achievement of personal excellence and distinction—oftentimes even if these are accomplished at considerable expense to community unity and health.

But back to “good enough.” I am embarrassed to admit that when I first moved to the island, this expression felt like an indication of a society that accepted mediocrity. Over the last 20 years I’ve learned what it means to belong in a tightly-knit community where people turn up for each other, support one-another through life’s ups and downs, and are mostly kind, compassionate, and nurturing. A place where collective wellbeing is prized, and where excellence in all arenas of life abounds because the community environment is one that is conducive to and encouraging of perfection. As Shoghi Effendi says in Lights of Guidance, “[p]erfection will never be reached, but great, and ever greater, progress can be made.”³

I crossed paths with a friend this week, pausing to ask how her week was going. She grinned back at me, swept her arm around her to indicate all the blessings we’re surrounded by, and said “good enough!” I continued on my way with a full heart knowing that being seen and acknowledged, living in a community where we take care of each other, and where contentment with having enough and knowing that others have enough too are daily expressions of perfection. Perfection does not have to be grandiose. In its purest form, perfection can be manifest in the small, seemingly ordinary ways we look after one another every single day.

How does your community practice perfection? What small action could you take to manifest a little perfection in your community today?

1. Baha’u’llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 38 [↩]
2. Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 39 [↩]
3. Shoghi Effendi, Lights of Guidance, p. 113 [↩]

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Ariana Salvo

Ariana Salvo was born in the United States, and spent sixteen years of her childhood on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. She moved to Prince Edward Island to do her master’s degree in Island Studies, fell in love with the tightly knit community, and has never left. When not writing, she can be found exploring art at galleries around the world, flower farming, traveling to remote islands, hiking and taking photos of the wild natural landscapes of Canada’s eastern shore, teaching English to international students and reading historical fiction with a good cup of tea.