This week for Five Minute Friday at Kate Motaung's place we get to consider the word whole.
Intro: Often the one-word prompt inspires me to quote a song; sometimes I illustrate my FMF with my own art or design. This time an article I noticed and tweeted earlier today perfectly fit my thoughts about being whole, longing for completion—how covenants make us:
"The liberation of the individual was supposed to lead to mass empowerment. But it turns out that people can effectively pursue their goals only when they know who they are — when they have firm identities.
"Strong identities can come only when people are embedded in a rich social fabric. They can come only when we have defined social roles — father, plumber, Little League coach. They can come only when we are seen and admired by our neighbors and loved ones in a certain way. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, 'Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds.'
"You take away a rich social fabric and what you are left with is people who are uncertain about who they really are. It’s hard to live daringly [daring is my star word for 2016] when your very foundation is fluid and at risk."
To quote the late DH (spouse) of a DF (dear friend) from former city, "I have gifts, education, and passions I need to use if I'm to be whole, and that's not vanity." My sentiments exactly as I've attempted to explain IRL to people, as I've done my best to blog. For too long I've struggled again to become more of a component of a larger whole, an entity beyond myself, where I can act and function and simply be a member of the body in Pauline terms. Because of events I can identify along with random other happenings, I'd lost people and opportunities that had become integral parts of my daily existence, my everyday activities. In math we use the word "integer" to express whole numbers; how apt it is that we derive words like integrity and integral from that concept. Long ago I gave up imagining any human ever would be truly healthy, completely whole, totally integrated, yet when someone has a community of participation that recognizes and encourages them to use their gifts, that person – and reciprocally that community – begins approaching wholeness. Approaching the limit of a function also sounds like math, (as does "reciprocal") and it is a type of calculation where the sum of the parts adds up to a whole that exceeds the individual inputs or arguments; it's synergistic!
Outro: Happily I can report my experience of the past few months in current city have been demonstrating my conviction that I need connections and opportunities to start healing toward wholeness, completeness. The article I quoted and my own ideas could have resulted in a very long post or series of posts (hey, I'm been doing those for the past half-dozen years), but I need to trust my five minutes' worth is whole enough to be sufficiently complete.
Love what you share here, especially this: "yet when someone has a community of participation that recognizes and encourages them to use their gifts, that person – and reciprocally that community – begins approaching wholeness." The Body of Christ is such a beautiful expression of God's Love for us, when it moves in the Spirit of God. I pray that you continue to experience its blessing in and through the hardships you face.
ReplyDeleteOh friend. Great post!
ReplyDelete