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.”
A good pause marks both waiting and resting. Taking a moment to think before I speak is one example of how a pause can play into the process of waiting. Pausing also factors in to good resting. In order to rest well, we often need to push the pause button on our usual flow of activities of life before we can enter fully and fruitfully into the stillness of rest.
While there are parallels of pause in waiting and resting, there are also notable differences between waiting and resting. For example the posture of waiting is more active and anticipatory, while the posture of resting is more passive and revelatory. While we wait, we exert an energy of expectancy, and this expectancy is active, even as “the thing” has not happened yet. Too much, overdue waiting can exhaust us, even though nothing is happening!
When we rest, we let go of exertion, and we learn how to “be-held.” In rest, energy is stored up, and when the cycle begins again, the energy from rest can convert into the energy of expectancy in waiting again. Being-held allows us to be-hold! The wisdom pattern is to allow the two parts of the cycle to inform one another. In this way, the flow of energy remains life-giving rather than life-draining, when too much waiting, or resting, can become exhausting.
May we recognize the pattern of wisdom in our daily lives and allow it to work on us!
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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