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.”
If being torn describes our sense of two-ness at the personal level, and being ripped apart aptly names our sense of two-ness at the interpersonal level, then being divided addresses our sense of two-ness at the societal level.
Human beings are amazingly good at grouping things according to differences and dividing them apart. Biologists tell us that this ability was super helpful to our ancient ancestors; having a brain that knows how to distinguish between a bear and a bush is still a good thing.
Given, however, that most human beings no longer live in the direct vicinity of bears, we might do well to ask ourselves whether those old brain tricks still serve us entirely well. How might our hearts fare if we keep at this easy habit of dividing the world up according to differences? How do our spirits hold up when we so readily toss others into compartments and divisions: us/
them, male/female, black/white, old/young, red/blue?
My sense is that this age-old tendency toward social two-ness, either-or, weighs us down too heavily. As the full weight of division at the social level busts apart at the seams, it breaks through all the levels, ripping apart the fabric of family and friend, tearing our personal souls in two. When a society is intensely divided, families rip apart more easily and people feel torn too often. All together, the collective layers of torn, ripped, and divided becomes too much to bear.
Under the oppressive weight of all these layers of two-ness, we need to return to the One, the Source of Wholeness. Oneness-in-the-Whole is Reality; twoness and division are choices, exacerbated by further actions of habit.
Given the choice, where are you placing your attention, your intentions, your interactions, and your actions? How do we grow out of bear-brain and into expansive-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.
- Can you think of a time you’ve grouped things (or people) according to differences and divided them apart, whether consciously or unconsciously?
- Did it keep you safe (or seem to keep you safe)? Did it make you feel torn, or rip you and others apart?
- What actions do you take (or would you like to take) in order to grow toward expansiveness, rather than division?
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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