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.
Not long ago, it caught my attention that two words which seem to contrast so much in their meaning share the same root. Looking into the etymology of “contempt,” my suspicion of the paradox is confirmed. The Latin roots “con” + “tempere” point to pre-Latin words, in Greek and Middle Irish, meaning to cut, to wound, to divide. Therefore, while to have contempt for someone is to feel a combination of disgust and anger, the practical result of contempt is separation or woundedness.
Today, we need only look so far as the public vitriol of politics and culture wars to gain a lived sense of the wounding consequences of contempt. To gaze at something or someone with contempt is to cause separation and wound relationship.
In stark contrast, a popular and modern definition of “contemplation” is to take a “long, loving look at the Real.” The gaze of contemplation seeks wholeness, allows all of what actually is. The gaze of contemplation provokes love, not wounding.
Even in the face of difference, the good, the bad, and the ugly, all “fit” within the loving gaze of contemplation. In contrast to contempt, no object or person or reality need be separated or cut away from the whole.
In the wisdom way of knowing, then, as we hold the tension of opposites, both the gaze of contemplation, and even the look of contempt, can help us in the healing work of wholeness. Whereas the loving gaze of contemplation shows us the path of fullness toward wholeness, the look of contempt can show us where we miss the mark in 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 you’ve felt contempt toward someone. How did your contempt affect that person? How did it affect you?
- What would happen if you looked at that same person with a contemplative gaze? If you took a “long, loving look” at all of this person, good and bad, how would it affect them? How would it affect you?
- How can you learn from both contemplation and contempt?
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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