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.
If Goodness, Truth, and Beauty are the philosopher’s divine qualities, then mercy and compassion are qualities of the Holy One from the lens of faith. While the pair often come in preaching packages that lump them together as if they were one single quality of the actions of the Holy One, from the perspective of lived experience, the pair form a powerful package of oppositional tension.
Compassion provokes fierceness, whereas mercy prompts tenderness. Compassion finds justice and mercy lands in love. Compassion stirs when something from without moves something within, and then it moves out, from within, to reconcile whatever suffering caused the stirring. Mercy arrives from without when something from within needs tending, and as it moves in, from without, it heals whatever brokenness needed mending.
When my heart breaks because I witness something deeply wrong in how the world is working, I know compassion. When my heart aches because I deeply long for something unmet within, I know mercy. Mercy and compassion both point toward wholeness. Yet, they are like the left and right hand of the Holy One, working in distinct ways to complete the ongoing work of healing.
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 when you’ve experienced mercy. How did it feel? How did it prompt you to engage with the world, with yourself, or with God?
- Think of a time when you’ve experienced compassion. How did it feel? How did it prompt you to engage with the world, with yourself, or with God?
- How might you live into the qualities of mercy and compassion this Holy Week?
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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