ihavebeenfloated

Kind of.

“We in the Church of 80 Percent Sincerity do not believe in miracles,” he said. “But we do believe that you have to stay alert, because good things happen. When God opens the door, you’ve got to put your foot in it. Look, 80 percent sincerity is about as good as it’s going to get. So is 80 percent compassion. Eighty percent celibacy. So 20 percent of the time, you just get to be yourself.”

... From this sermon about the Church of 80% Sincerity that quotes from one of Anne Lamott’s books.

I originally heard about the idea of the Church of 80% Sincerity from Anne Lamott on Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell me.

She explained the idea about it a bit better, saying that we’re raised to believe that 80% is kind of average, it’s like a C, it’s just barely passing. But, in reality, doing something consistently for 80% of the time is rather amazing. If you can be nice for 80% of your life, that is a miracle in itself. If you can be honest 80% of the time, that’s a lot better than most people. And so on, and so on.

When he talks about unconditional love, he gives you a new lease on life, because the way he explains it you may for the first time believe that even you could taste of this. Because, as he explains it, in the Church of 80 Percent Sincerity, everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but has a shelf life of about eight to 10 seconds. So instead of beating yourself up because you only feel it fleetingly, you savor those moments when it appears. So we might say to our beloved, ‘Honey, I’ve been having these feelings of unconditional love for you for the last eight to 10 seconds.’ Or, ‘Darling? I’ll love you till the very end of dinner.’”

It might sound a little funny, but I think saying that sort of thing to your SO, notifying them when you’re feeling those moments of unconditional love (which I have felt even before reading about this), would probably prove to be really uplifting.