Ten years ago I visited the exquisite marble sculpture gallery at the Borghese Gallery in Rome.

The guide leading the tour said something that struck a powerful chord. She said that in the Roman era, prominent citizens often commissioned marble statues to be made of themselves to commemorate their accomplishments or those of significant family members. Sometimes, in the process, mistakes were made by the craftsmen and the stone blocks were accidentally cracked. According to folk legend, dishonest sculptors, rather than start anew, would try to fill in and conceal these flaws with ‘cere’, or wax. The sun would melt the wax away over the course of time, revealing not only the flaw but also the true character of the maker. Quality workmanship thus came to be known as ‘sin-cere‘ - literally, ‘without wax’.

What is striking is how quick we can often be to do the same sort of thing in our own lives. When a flaw or a ‘crack’ in our public persona is revealed, we scramble to ‘cover up’ what we fear others would find unacceptable. This is the product of old habit: as children we learn early on that the world is mighty and we are not; that others have power and we have none, and that we must either adapt or be rejected.

But maturity asks us to make a choice, I think. We can continue to allow our lives be ruled by old beliefs; continue, in other words, the habitual scramble to ‘wax over’ our real (and imagined) flaws so that the world won’t turn away from us.

Or we can reject that impulse. We can choose instead to embrace our imperfections, allowing them to remind us of our common bond with the people around us who are similarly flawed.