I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. This would surprise many, maybe all, of my recent friends, who probably think I’m quite a slacker. They’re right, of course, but I think I’ve become a slacker because I was a perfectionist for so long. Too much pressure from myself and everyone else finally got to me (at age 9), and I just quit.

But even though I quit trying to be the best in school and on the field, I never was willing to give up my image as a really good person. Through middle school and high school, I worked hard to let everyone know I was a devout Christian and an all around good guy. My sister is three years older than I am, and we went to this school that was a little nicer than the other schools in town. As seniors my sister’s class was so sick of taking shit about it that they made T-shirts that read “Dalton High School Class of 1994: We are better than you”. I should have made a similar T-shirt for myself.

I always thought Christianity was about being the most well-behaved and the most courteous and the most obedient. These are all good things, and if you do them, people’s mothers will love you as will lots of girls–they’ll always come to you to tell you about how mean their boyfriends are.

But someone told me once that Christianity has a lot to do with grace, and that makes sense to me because Jesus was always hanging out with people no one else really liked, at least not the religious leaders. But he didn’t seem to like the religious leaders very much. And he never really cared what they had to say about anything.

So, I don’t know why we were always so big on following rules. Jesus never seemed to care for them very much; he seemed to like the rule breakers more than the rule makers.

A few years ago I had an opportunity to take some classes with some men in a maximum security prison. We were students together, inmates and “free-worlders” navigating our way through classes like “Theology and Politics of Crime and Justice in America”. And I began to contemplate once again concepts like grace.

One of my pastors used to encourage me to be “a big sinner”. I think his point was that human beings should realize the depth of their own depravity and their helplessness to rectify the situation.

And in my mind I was. I thought I was an awful person. But I think I really just had low self-esteem. After all, I was in high school at the time. Too be honest, the religious indoctrination that I was a horrible sinner didn’t help matters a whole lot. I mean, I guess I was happy that God loved me anyway, but no one likes to be told they’re a piece of shit (as far as I know).

And my self-esteem isn’t nearly as low as it used to be. If anything, I think people see me as cocky, but I like to think it’s more the Andy Duphrain effect. It might have something to do with the fact that in college, in order to cope with my poor self-image and overcome my deathly fear of women, I coined the Joel postulate: “I am Joel; therefore, every woman (and I assume a healthy portion of the men) here wants me”. I don’t think that lie was nearly as damaging as the one I believed in high school.

But here I was in graduate school, sitting next to some people who had taken my pastor’s advice rather literally. I didn’t learn the nature of everyone’s crime, but no one gets sentenced to 99 years for stealing a pack of chewing gum (unless, of course, they happen to be taken prisoner in the “war on terror”).

As an aside, did you know that the United States government offered rewards “beyond your wildest dreams” for turning in some of the folks now serving indefinite sentences–without trial, without formal charge, without representation–in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? But that’s another story.

So, here we were in a classroom in the middle of a maximum security prison talking about the major Christian themes of grace and redemption. And I was a middle class (although my socio-economic status seems to be on the decline) white man hung up on my own goodness. What a fucking wanker I was! But I learned a thing or two from those men, for they became some of my most meaningful mentors.

I learned to value my own voice, for I saw that it can be taken away.

I learned that true ministry begins with authenticity. If we insist on separating ourselves from the evil around us or even within us, we are undeniably phony. There’s nothing wrong with being a salesperson, but that is not the role of a minister. If we offer anything except ourselves, exactly as we are, we might as well tell the world we are actors.

And I am beginning to learn what it is like to disappoint people. For too long I tried to please the people who have invested so much time, energy, and money in me. But to be true to myself and the spirit inside me, I have to find my own way.

I still haven’t given up on being a perfectionist. But my ideas about what it means to be perfect have changed. Authenticity, integrity, and wholeness–perfectly me.