The Danger of Avoiding an Opposite

Awakening to Wholeness is a series of prompts, reflections, and teachings about how holding the tension of opposites can help us to heal division and experience wholeness. If you feel moved to share your own reflections, we invite you to email us with the subject line “Wisdom of Opposites” or tag us on social media with #EHoPWisdomOfOpposites.

After we’ve tended to the awakening of Spirit within and grown in self-awareness, there lies a temptation to become stagnant—too comfortable with what we know of ourselves.

For example, as I become familiar with my natural pattern—say, of existing in my head and not my heart, or focusing on the future and not the past—my self-awareness grows as I notice the pattern over and over: “oh, there’s me stuck in my head again!” Over time, I might come to really like my awareness of the pattern, and give up on the work of growing through my natural tendencies

At these times, being open to “my opposite” can help me to grow. If I am prone to “work,” I might grow through “rest.” We call this complementary work sunlight/moonlight work.

Then, of course, the temptation to avoid an opposite will set in again. For example, after I grow in comfort with rest, I might come to fear a return to work, not wanting to fall in the trap of “the old me.”

But this would be folly—for within the vision of wholeness, both the head and the heart are teachers. Past and future are brother and sister to the present. I grow through both work and rest.

Let us not get stuck in opposition, but also let us not fear the hard work of holding opposites.

Contemplative Questions

We intend for these teachings to be not only conceptual, but also practical. We offer the following questions as prompts to help you reflect on the presence of opposites in your spiritual practice and your life.

• What patterns have you worked to avoid in your life? What patterns have you grown comfortable—and perhaps stagnant—in?
• Can you think of a time that you engaged in the sunlight/moonlight work of holding your own sets opposites? What did it feel like?
• What barriers have hindered you in embracing the wholeness of opposites? What teachings, prayer practices, art, or people have supported you in growing through these barriers?

Christine Luna Munger

Christine Luna Munger, PhD currently serves as the director of the Episcopal House of Prayer. She previously served as Coordinator of the Spiritual Direction Certificate and Professor of Theology at St. Catherine University. She regularly writes, teaches, and leads group prayer sits at EHoP.

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