Becoming Whole

As human beings, our species is relatively young, about 250,000 years. In contrast, the dinosaurs evolved for 170 million years before becoming extinct. We have not separated very far from our common ancestor of chimpanzees. In many ways we have a long way to go in our evolutionary development. But as Christians, we have seen in Jesus the full potential of our humanity. We glimpse our own potential of wholeness as a human being. The transforming power of the presence of the resurrected Jesus is in each of us – if only we will accept it. John in 14:20 describes this when he has Jesus say, “I am in my Father, and I in you, and you in me.” I think of Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela as two examples of humans who have reached out to wholeness in their own lives.

We see too much brokenness and incompleteness in humanity – causing so much distress and hurt and evil in the world. It need not be. Listen to the vision of a poet.

I bow with ever changing waves
that wash the shore
to clutch a stone, a shell,
a hope to hold before all
opening doors.

I also reach with every pine
to touch the best that I can be
and brush the heavens of my dreams
with wispy clouds of certainty.

Of sea am I
and, too, of breeze
and all that in between
my soul may seize
to lead me ever past my reach
and touch the wholeness of myself.

Loren Bullock
February 9, 2018

In 1960 or so I found the above poem in something I was reading and copied it down. I have no record or memory of the author or source.  For myself, I sometimes replace the word certainty with mystery, to reflect my increasing recognition of the wonderful mystery of it all..