33/50: Wholeness is the Point
The discovery of wholeness in The Color Purple musical
“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.”
I once had a conversation with a friend who had grown up in the same theological system I had. We were taught you must “say the prayer” to be saved from hell. But I was beginning to wonder if we were after the right goal. Was Jesus just trying to get people to cross the line from heaven to hell? It seemed to me the mercy of God was bigger than saying a few magical words or being in the right place at the right time so that you could believe the right thing for just a moment.
My friend looked at me with eyes that seemed to want to go with me and asked, “So, where is the urgency? Why do this whole church, God, faith thing if it’s not to get into heaven?”
At that moment, I didn’t have a good answer. I knew what I didn’t believe but I couldn’t articulate what I did.
Nearly twenty years later, here’s my answer: wholeness.
Wholeness in me, in you, between us, in the earth, in the universe.
Even as I write it, it sounds like awfully new agey, pie-in-the-sky, sitting-with-legs-crossed, fingertips-pressed-together, flower child language. While there may be a few of those postures along the way to wholeness, I’ve found the journey to wholeness is gritty and tenacious.
Wholeness is what I am and who I’m becoming. It comes through blood, sweat and tears and it happens without me lifting one finger. Wholeness on this earth is a paradox – the hard work of becoming what we have always been.
The best analogy I can think of is children who are integrated in thought and action. What they say is who they are and what they do. As we grow, we become separate, fragmented and defended. Many to such a degree, that we no longer know who we are and who God created. Our true self is lost in a bluster of ego and fear.
The call of the Hebrew prophets, the invitation of Jesus, the pleading of the Apostle Paul is to turn away from what divides us and find our way back to the wholeness of an authentic and connected life. Jesus was totally integrated. Humanity infused with God. God infused with humanity.
But I can’t get there on my own. The ruts of my fear and self-absorbed ego are too deep. My eyes too dimmed by the multiple lenses of shame and repeated failure.
Enter Grace.
Grace comes to we who are lost in our defenses and loves us just as we are. Grace weaves its way into the darkness of our lives, illuminating hope. Grace gives us the courage to take the next step to wholeness before we could imagine what the whole journey will be. Grace stitches together the broken pieces of our hearts. Grace is a table set before us in the presence of our enemies (external and internal). Grace makes wholeness possible for everyone.