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.
One of my deepest longings is to be fully alive. In the Northern hemisphere springtime, the great traditions tell stories of living fully by juxtaposing living with dying. In Holy Week, Jesus dies on Good Friday, lies in wait on Holy Saturday, and becomes fully alive as the resurrected Christ on Easter Sunday. New life came after waiting.
During Passover, the death of the slaughtered sheep, after the families lie in wait overnight within their blood-marked homes, marks the passing over of death upon the first-born of the People of God. Renewed faith came through the waiting.
In Ramadan, seekers pass through the hours of sunlight fasting from food and water, waiting upon the revealed word of the Holy One. Fullness comes after fasting.
All three great stories of life after death point to periods of waiting in emptiness before the fullness of life.
The great pattern seems a good starting point for the ordinary, particular patterns that each of us can follow. In dying to my rigid ideas about how I thought my day would turn out, I open to opportunities not yet known. In dying to my disappointment that someone didn’t do what I wanted them to do, I open my heart to empathy for them. In dying to the resentment that I feel when life doesn’t seem fair, I open a space to make a difference.
In each little dying, there is a significant period of waiting, unknowing, and emptiness, within which, I can choose to remain on the path of death, or to cross the threshold into new life. Staying stuck in my rigid daily schedule is tempting, but I might feel more freedom if I let go of it. Being bitter towards someone who disappoints me might feel good for a while, but over time I lose my joy. Getting lost in the big, bad world of injustice might seem liberating at first, but over time, the wandering doesn’t give me life, but drains me of it.
This pattern of healing and wholeness holds life and death closely together. In the in-between, when we wait for it, we find the ongoing option to choose fullness.
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 moments of “little dying” that you have experienced. What did you lose? How did you cross the threshold to new life?
- Think of something wonderful in your life: perhaps a relationship, an experience, or a practice. What did you have to let go of in order for this wonderful thing to become possible for you?
- How have these holidays (or others) informed your understanding of living by dying, of death and rebirth?
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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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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