Resting in What Holds Together

This article was first published in Quaker Life, Spring 2022

The truth is a paradox. We are at one and the same time citizens of the world and members of the body of Christ, the Kin-dom of God. In spite of the mixed bag of motivations and desires we carry, along with all the (as we see them) imperfections we bear, we are all whole and perfect in Christ. We are whole and perfect in Spirit as we are in this moment without any striving or groaning to be better. As we rest in what holds together, as we sustain connection to the unified field that is the Christ, we participate in building up that body, regardless how we look or feel in the moment, regardless whether we’re trying or not.

I remember once sitting at my kitchen table when out of nowhere I asked God if I had failed at something. Immediately I heard, “What if, because you’ve been offering them to me along with your gifts, your weaknesses were exactly what I needed to bring about my will in this situation?” We know it’s God’s voice and not the voice of ego when the ego enjoys no inflation or superiority. It was certainly humbling to think that what I perceived as gross imperfections, and yes, failings, could possibly be tools for God’s use in bringing about the New Creation. God simply does not do things the way we would if we were in charge. Our egos do not like that integrating force drawing and binding us together in Christ because we aren’t in control.

Integrity is the thread weaving all things into good in truth and in grace. Integrity is “the state of being whole or undivided.” Integrity is being connected to our deepest selves, to God and to one another. We don’t will ourselves into wholeness. Integrity is a gift arriving as we surrender more and more to the forces of Love in our lives, as we allow and cooperate with the movement of the Spirit within us. Our mixedness doesn’t disappear; the more we are connected to the Life of the Spirit, the more things hold together and the more our actions arise from our wholeness instead of from unconscious brokenness. As we allow the Great Physician to heal our woundedness, the more things hold together inside us and the more we are able to choose and act from a unified place—to be whole and perfect in Christ, to trust and rest in what holds together, even when we don’t see or feel it.

Simply acknowledging our dual citizenship in the world and in God’s Kin-dom brings the Spirit of Truth into the ways we live our lives daily. As we begin to see the ways we act out of our separateness, out of our small selves, we step out of illusion and into wholeness where Love and Truth work hand in hand. Sometimes we cross the borders between them many times a day. Sometimes we seem to step into Unity and dwell there for a while, until we are ready to see and integrate more. The movement of the Spirit is toward wholeness, toward healing and binding what separates us. Integrity is simply about living and moving in what holds together. Let us rest in whatever holds together inside us and around us, even if it feels messy or looks insignificant to us or wasn’t at all what we wanted. Integrity is something we allow and cooperate with, a work of Spirit already happening deep within us.