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.”
One of my prized possessions is a bath towel that was gifted to me at my high school graduation. After nearly 25 years of using the same towel to dry off after most of my showers, the towel formed a rip down the middle. When I lamented the story to my sister-in-law, she offered to mend it for me. I was heartened, yet when my prized towel was returned to me, it was smaller. In order to mend it properly, she had to rip it completely before putting it back together. Practically speaking, I got a new towel from the shreds of the old one.
There are at least three lessons relevant to the work of wisdom that I can gather from this experience.
First, the work of mending requires a commitment to the whole. I valued the use of the towel enough, that I was willing to part with it and place it in another’s care, in order for it to become whole again. Though small in this case, such acts of offering are acts of faith in the “more” that wholeness provides. Commitment to the Whole allows us to risk the work of mending.
Second, the work of mending is skillful. I, personally, did not have the skills to mend my towel, yet I could trust in another to use her skills to make things better. When we use our skills in service to the common good, we contribute to the communal aspect of the work of mending.
Third, we must be open to that which is truly new in order to accomplish the work of mending and live from the fullness of wholeness. My mended towel was not the same. It was smaller. Yet, it was also stronger and more functional than it had been. What had been the edges of the whole now became the new center. That which has been ripped brings resilience back to the Whole.
May we allow our ordinary experiences of being ripped apart teach us the wisdom work of being made whole again! May we have faith in the inherent risks of the work of mending.
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 have you valued enough to commit to mending it (whether a physical object like a towel, a relationship, or something else)?
- When have you used your own skills to mend something? When have you turned to someone else for help? How has this sharing of skills contributed to the communal aspect of mending?
- When have you mended something, only for it to become different than it was before? How have you remained open to that newness? (Or, on the contrary, how have you struggled to stay open to this kind of change?)
Join the conversation! If you feel moved to share your reflections, we invite you to email us with the subject line “Wisdom of Opposites.”
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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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