{"id":4912,"date":"2015-03-20T08:30:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T13:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/?p=4912"},"modified":"2026-02-27T07:52:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:52:43","slug":"grace-and-the-incomplete-flush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/2015\/03\/20\/grace-and-the-incomplete-flush\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace and the Incomplete Flush"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sara Zarr<\/strong><\/p>\n

Almost two years ago my husband and I bought a condo in a cool old building downtown. Great location, hardwood floors, exposed brick, pocket doors\u2014charm and more charm. The trouble with cool old buildings is that they are rife with plumbing and electrical issues as ancient systems jury-rigged to keep up with modern times continually fail.<\/p>\n

Our previous home had these same issues. The electrical never bothered me much\u2014an ungrounded outlet here, a shorted breaker there, a little smoke wafting out of the dimmer switch of a summer evening. Life.<\/p>\n

But the plumbing. The plumbing is another story. The primary symptom of its troubles (and all of my angst about it) coalesces around what is known in the biz as an \u201cincomplete flush.\u201d No matter how many times you flush the toilet, you can never quite get rid of all evidence that you had to use it.<\/p>\n

This creates a low level of stress that\u2019s with me all the time. What will I find when I go into the bathroom? What will remain when I leave? How do I politely explain to guests what to expect and not to worry about it?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t overflow,\u201d I assure them. \u201cIt only looks like it will.\u201d<\/p>\n

What will they think of me?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have a number of recurring anxiety dreams.<\/p>\n

One is about being in college and realizing I have a test in a class I\u2019ve somehow neglected to attend for the entire semester. Common. Another common one is a version of \u201cthe actor\u2019s nightmare,\u201d in which I\u2019m about to go on stage before an audience only I\u2019ve never seen a script and I might also be partially nude.<\/p>\n

The third that I often have involves toilets, some variation of \u201cI gotta go\u201d and I can\u2019t find a single toilet that isn\u2019t dirty, overflowing with waste, in a stall without a door, in a room without a stall, or, oddly, in a flooded gym locker room. I assume this one is pretty common, too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My friends and I, when we talk about our various spiritual and psychological and childhood issues, often say: \u201cOh, I\u2019m just dealing with my shit.\u201d Or, \u201cSorry, my shit was coming up,\u201d when we overreact to a perceived slight or rejection.<\/p>\n

Anything that feels like evidence of what we find ugly or gross about ourselves we equate to literal crap, and ideally we could just flush it all away and never have it bubble back up at inconvenient moments, never look messy, never feel soiled.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I have a difficult time maintaining relationships once they feel dirtied\u2014and they all get dirtied. I want tidy closures and sparkling reconciliation, for everything that seemed foul and repulsive to be whooshed away into the great sewer of the universe and be completely forgotten.<\/p>\n

I have this belief that it would be less painful to be a young widow than to have to struggle through a difficult conversation in marriage, that it would be neater to have no friends at all than to work at loving people and letting them love me once we\u2019ve seen what\u2019s down there clogging up the drain, that it would be better to move on from a job once I\u2019ve sent a regrettable email or missed a deadline.<\/p>\n

I guess what I want is for there to never be evidence of my sin. I guess what I want is to never need forgiveness, understanding, patience, or mercy. I guess I don\u2019t want to need saving. I guess I want to be perfect.<\/p>\n

I joke about being a \u201cperfectionist\u201d and how it can freeze me up when I\u2019m trying to write. With writing it\u2019s one thing, just a minor symptom. It\u2019s serious, though, when it comes to my spirit and my ability to have meaningful relationships (including with myself) in the light of the gospel.<\/p>\n

Though the anxiety of not being perfect crosses every social divide, religious anxiety and some types of doctrine can really exacerbate it. My Mormon friends deal with this, I know, as do my friends from evangelical backgrounds.<\/p>\n

But in theory, anyway, it seems like Christians should be the best at being okay with not being perfect. We confess our inability to save ourselves, and exchange our imperfection for Christ\u2019s perfection. It\u2019s not our job to be perfect, but to let Christ\u2019s perfect love live in us and through us, and to know that and nothing else as our salvation.<\/p>\n

Still, there is a point in every day where I have some version of the thought:\u00a0But tomorrow I will be perfect.<\/em><\/p>\n

The thought isn\u2019t spiritual; a thought nowhere\u00a0near<\/em>\u00a0to taking hold of Christ\u2019s perfection.<\/p>\n

It is a thought that encompasses what I will eat and how I will exercise, and that I will say nothing mean or sarcastic to my husband, that I will write a thousand perfect words and only tweet perfect tweets. I will make my hair perfect and my clothes perfect and this will probably involve buying something.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll make sure no one sees me being petty, afraid, envious, stupid, or uninformed. And I will do this all through sheer force of will. Jesus doesn\u2019t even cross my mind.<\/p>\n

Then I wake up to the new day of perfection, and I have to use my cranky old toilet and go another round with the fact that I am messy, and my ways are messy, and my thoughts and issues are messy, and my relationships don\u2019t always have the whiff of clean summer breezes, and everybody knows it.<\/p>\n

Today I will need grace; I will need salvation.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, I will need it again.<\/p>\n

The above originally appeared on Good Letters at Patheos<\/a>\u00a0and is reblogged with the permission of the author.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sara Zarr<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is the\u00a0author\u00a0of five novels for young adults, most recently\u00a0The Lucy Variations<\/a>, which the New York Times called \u201can elegant novel.\u201d Her sixth,\u00a0a collaborative novel with Tara Altebrando<\/a>, came out December 2013.\u00a0She\u2019s a National Book Award finalist and two-time Utah Book Award winner. Her books have been variously named to annual best books lists of the American Library Association,\u00a0Kirkus,\u00a0Publisher\u2019s Weekly,\u00a0School Library Journal,\u00a0The Guardian, the International Reading Association, the New York Public Library and the Los Angeles Public Library, and have been translated into many languages. In 2010, she served as a judge for the National Book Award.\u00a0In fall 2014, she received a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. She currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, and online at\u00a0www.sarazarr.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Sara Zarr Almost two years ago my husband and I bought a condo in a cool old building downtown. Great location, hardwood floors, exposed brick, pocket doors\u2014charm and more charm. The trouble with cool old buildings is that they are rife with plumbing and electrical issues as ancient systems jury-rigged to keep up with modern...","protected":false},"author":4071079,"featured_media":25419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[115341],"tags":[3252,401,18215,18209,8408,197,2112069],"series":[698756626],"class_list":["post-4912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-equity-and-justice-equity-and-justice","tag-anxiety","tag-faith","tag-grace","tag-jesus-christ","tag-reflection","tag-relationships","tag-sara-zarr","series-messy-jesus-business"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/a-wide-angle-view-of-aged-wooden-floor-planks-showing-natural-texture-and-grain-pattern.-11126101-scaled.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/feed\/podcast\/messy-jesus-business","embedCode":"

Grace and the Incomplete Flush<\/a><\/blockquote>