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.
When learning to listen for the contours of consolation and desolation, a common temptation is to assume that consolation will be easy and feel good, and that desolation will be hard and feel bad.
Certainly, it does work out that way, at times. But not always.
Ignatius insists that there is easy consolation and hard consolation. Similarly, there is easy desolation and hard desolation. For example, to find easy desolation, we might point to the pleasures of addiction. It might feel “good” to attain whatever we are addicted to, even though the movement of the pleasure draws us away from God, since it serves as a substitute for healing and wholeness.
Conversely, consolations can feel not-so-great, even though they are a movement toward God. For example, when a dear loved one passes and crosses the veil of life, those of us left living usually feel terrible—sad, grieved, angry—on the surface of things. Yet we can also feel a deeper peace, or sense of letting the person go, into Spirit.
The paradox is that not all consolations feel good and not all desolations feel bad. To recognize this nuance helps us to soften our biases toward pairs of opposites that often lure us into either-or thinking—good/bad, easy/hard, life-giving/life-draining. More often than not, real life is a mixed bag. When dealing with the messiness of real life, it turns out to not only be okay, but actually assuring that good things do not always feel good. This is certainly a gift, because hard is not aways easy!
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.
- Think of a time of consolation in your life that felt easy or good. Now think of one that felt hard or bad. What was each experience like? How did they bring you closer to God?
- Think of a time of desolation in your life that felt easy or good. Now think of one that felt hard or bad. What was each experience like? How did it bring you further away from God?
- How could this paradox—that not all consolations feel good and not all desolations feel bad—help you make sense of the messiness of life and move toward wholeness?
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.
You can now sign up to have every post in the Awakening to Wholeness series delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe here.
You must be logged in to post a comment.