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.
Over the last few years, the deaths of more than a few loved ones have gotten my heart and mind to turn over longstanding notions of life and death. I sit with a renewed sense of how thick, or thin, the veil between the living and the dead really is.
We typically deem the threshold between life and death to be huge. Yet as I reflect on what the living do after someone has crossed over the threshold, I wonder if the perceived gap is really as big as we imagine.
When a loved one passes, most of us celebrate their life. We call forth the blessings and fullness of who they were in life, and reflect on what they contributed to the world. When I do this myself, I notice that recalling my loved one’s life, in all its fullness, makes me hungry to live more fully into my own wholeness. From the perspective of death, much of what I strive to attain in daily life seems less significant, frivolous even.
In particular, I wonder what prevents me from more fully developing a ministry of healing. If I could set aside the inner doubts and rational excuses, what would living look like if I stepped through the threshold and stood directly within the flow of Light and Life? I suspect that I would “strive” less, and yet somehow muster up even better material for my obituary someday!
Standing at the threshold, I recognize there is nothing to attain, even as I hunger to fill the emptiness that reminds me of fullness not yet realized.
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.
- Does reflecting on life and death cause you to view your own life differently?
- When you imagine living fully into your own wholeness, what feelings, practices, possibilities do you envision?
- What would living look like if you stepped through the threshold and stood directly within the flow of Light and Life?
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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