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.
My oldest child turned 13 years old this year. As I observe his spurts of physical growth and outbursts of emotion, all spurred by the chaotic invasion of hormones in his body, I am reminded of my own journey.
I do not carry many specific memories of my early years, but one exception is when I was about 12 or 13. My parents divorced when I was 8, and we had lived without my dad’s physical presence for four years. Even before then, when he was physically present in the household, he was pretty much absent emotionally and socially.
When I was 13, landline phones still had cables attached to them, and on that day, I recall sprawling on the floor between the kitchen and the dining room, limited by the length of the phone cord, sobbing and yelling through the line to my dad.
Years of pent-up emotions unleashed. I ached for his comforts; I longed for his counsel; I wished he had been there. That day is like a symbol of the many years of built-up angst. I longed for his presence, but my dad would come to shape me more through his absence.
By my mid-twenties, I came to recognize significant patterns in myself that had grown in a response to that angsty longing. As I sought a lifelong partner, I had to deal with the hard work of bringing those patterns to light in my life. Absence and presence became a foundational set of opposites in my life. It is no wonder that to this day, my preferred name for God is Presence!
Those formative years of longing for Presence through absence painfully carved out an empty space in the cavern of my heart. Over time, I saw that even though the carving-out was painful, it also created an open, receptive spaciousness within me. That same space that held pain would also come to be filled with the joy of love.
Even so, the pain does not go away, and my memory of it allows me to hold compassion for my son as he endures his own growing pains.
Contemplative Questions
We offer the following questions as prompts to help you reflect on the presence of opposites in your spiritual practice and your life.
- Can you recognize patterns within yourself that have developed as a response to absence or longing?
- Are there painful experiences that ultimately created “an open, receptive spaciousness” within you? How have these experiences made you more receptive to joy, love, or God?
- When you reflect on the roles of opposites within your own life, does it help you to hold compassion for others?
Join the conversation! If you feel moved to share your reflections, we invite you to email us with the subject line “Wisdom of Opposites” or tag us on social media with #EHoPWisdomOfOpposites.
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