The Wholeness Initiative

by Pam Stockton

Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) domain." They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) domain as babies?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make the male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female . . . then you will enter [the (Father's) domain]."
--Logion 22, Gospel of Thomas

These enigmatic words, which I first read in a collection by Andrew Harvey, are attributed to Jesus in the noncanonical "sayings gospel." Using examples from the world of everyday experience, Jesus gives a concrete description of oneness, a way of being in which superficial differences are erased and the all is the one. Is that what we mean when we speak of wholeness?

Or is wholeness the arrival at a peaceful inner space in which the warring factions of self are stilled in truce, at least for the moment? Is it the realization that we are a part of a vast fabric of matter and being and billions of stars, created by a loving God who is also part of us? Is it the insight, in the words of Saint Catherine of Genoa, that "My me is my God: nor do I know my selfhood except in God?" Or perhaps wholeness is nothing more than open-hearted acceptance of the impermanence of life while believing in the truth of Julian of Norwich's comforting assurance that "all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well."

With funding through a grant from Trinity Wall Street, Brigid's Place has launched the Wholeness Initiative, a program for Brigid's Place and Christ Church Cathedral that includes the development of programs, curricula, liturgies, and other means of deepening our connection to divine mystery and exploring the ways we -- individually and collectively -- hear and experience the presence of the numinous. A traditional term to describe this process of coming to wholeness, of learning the ways in which we can open ourselves to experiencing the presence of God, is "spiritual formation."

On Saturday, October 5, the Wholeness Initiative will sponsor a Spirituality Fair. We will explore ways Christians through the ages have opened themselves to the love of Christ -- encounters through which we taste and see the goodness of God -- along with habits of prayer and other practices that foster self-understanding and our daily striving to live in grace. Henri J. M. Nouwen writes: "Spiritual disciplines are nothing more and nothing less than ways to create a room where Christ can invite us to feast with him at the table of abundance." Although I admit to being initially put off by the idea of discipline in this context, I learned early on in my effort to learn to play the piano that without the discipline of repetition and practice, what I was doing did not sound particularly musical. But if I put my stubbornness aside and followed my teacher's suggestions about how to practice a piece, I found, to my amazement, that my facility with both the music and the instrument increased.

In a similar way, our cultivation of spiritual practices encourages the growth of God's Spirit in us. The process of moving toward wholeness is dynamic. Transformation is not static! In finding the ways of praying and other disciplines that help us to practice the presence of God in our daily living, we are nourished and energized for living in love of others and in the service to which God calls us as members of Christ's body. So, come, join us at the fair!

Pam Stockton is a member of the Wholeness Initiative Task Force and the Rotating Circle of Brigid's Place. She is also a student in the Master of Theological Studies program at "Perkins South," the Houston-Galveston extension program of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University.