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 I facilitate groups for mini retreats and workshops, folks are often surprised by how quickly they can enter into a posture of deep listening with one another, even among strangers. Over time, I have come to expect these fruits of full presence, and I am sometimes surprised by others’ surprise.
It catches my attention that so many of our daily interactions are marked by conventional structures, many of which prioritize engaging our minds in the productive and efficient use of rational knowing. When folks find themselves in settings where we also welcome engaging with one another’s hearts, it can feel novel, even awkward, if we are not intentional about creating the space.
Yet we all have heads and hearts, and most of us hunger for spaces and places in which our whole self is welcome and befriended. Therefore, while perhaps they are surprised by the depth of connection in head and heart spaces, so readily accessible because of our intimate capacities, they also recognize hunger and longing for such connections. The work of healing and wholeness occurs in such settings.
Over 1,500 years ago, St. Benedict wrote a Rule of Life for his monks, instructing them to find the fullness of their humanity in a life lived with God as the center and foundation. He opened the Prologue of that Rule with the instructions to listen carefully, with the ear of one’s heart. Benedict must have recognized the same tension of head and heart space, drawing together the ear, a portal into the mind, and the heart, the core of the person. To listen carefully, to be deeply present, we must bring our whole selves into the the encounter—head and heart.
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.
- What does it feel like when you’re engaging with the world rationally, with your head? What places or people encourage you to engage with the world in this way?
- What does it feel like when you’re engaging with the world with your heart? What places or people encourage you to engage with the world in this way?
- What does it feel like to engage with the world with your whole self, head and heart? What places, people, or practices support you in doing this?
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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