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285 The Habits of Perfection So said Sinatra of his faith, “Whatever gets you through the night.” That’s quasi-ecumenical, but still he had a point. It seems more sensible than burdening each day with absolute denial, climbing to a shrine barefooted over rocks, repenting in a cell, regarding women as subservient by nature, lashing the flesh with knotted whips or speaking not a syllable to anybody for a lifetime. Whoever said that holiness should sentence us to misery? And what of all those dervishes who twirl until they topple, penitents who lie unscreaming over heated coals, or monks who live like hermits in the Himalayas? Extreme examples, to be sure, but who can doubt their faith? I’ll take them now and always over television’s reborn salesmen who converse with God out loud, harangue the easily converted for their tithes, and shout, “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord!” But even worse are righteous murderers like General Pinochet 286 who “disappeared” his enemies from helicopters far from shore by dropping them in handcuffs in the open sea. Yet Sunday after Sunday his bishop of choice would place serenely on his tongue the body of God in a biscuit. Earlier by centuries the script was similar. Crusaders marched behind the cross and killed for Christ. Invaders of the newer world slew tribes of unbelievers to extinction. Murder for murder’s sake is reprehensible enough apart from murdering for God, but who can say if getting through the night will let us wake and be less murderous by day? Or even sooner? ...

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