Chapter 4 - integrating and balancing opposites

Hello, Companion Mustard Seed Library book readers,

This chapter ouches me. The symptoms that there is need to make some change.

"Our exterior lives often reflect our interior lives. When a person's living quarters are disheveled, there is usually some disorganization in his or her inner life; when one's relationships are in a constant state of brokenness, there is usually much brokenness and pain within that person's psyche and spirit as well. And so we know that when there are large areas of our lives out of balance, we can look to a partial disintegration within ourselves as a possible source of the problem."

"Within our personalities are opposing energies almost too many to enumerate. Some of them are: intellect and emotion, masculine characteristics and feminine characteristics, needs to please others and needs to please ourselves, physical needs and spiritual needs, needs to work and needs to relax, seeing the way things are and seeing what we want them to be, hatred and love, hope and despair, faith and indifference, the parts of ourselves we reject and our conscious self-concept, the list could go on and on."

Does the author mean that, when it's just crazy around here in the house, it's NOT because life is just so busy to get the housework done? -- it's REALLY because of a partial disintegration within me?

A question at the end of the chapter is "Describe a time in which prayer helped you to balance your life. Did coming into balance make you feel comfortable, uncomfortable, or both? Explain. This is something to reflect upon in my new spiral bound journal.

The author's sample prayer in this chapter is "Lord Jesus, this is an area of deep healing within me and I'm not sure I understand all about it nor that I ever could. All I really know is that no one can grow through life perfectly integrated and balanced and so I need You in my personality. I ask You to stir Your Spirit within me to show me why my life needs Your sense of balance, and to show me in what particular areas I need it."

Do you agree with the author's prayer that it is "Jesus' sense of balance" that is needed in our lives and not something which we decide and control ourselves?

I know that once again this is a long blog entry, but I can't resist putting in Henri Nouwen's meditation for today:

"Putting Our Temperaments in the Service of God"

"Our temperaments--whether flamboyant, phlegmatic, introverted, or extroverted--are quite permanent fixtures of our personalities. Still, the way we "use" our temperaments on a daily basis can vary greatly. When we are attentive to the Spirit of God within us, we will gradually learn to put our temperaments in the service of a virtuous life. Then flamboyancy gives great zeal for the Kingdom, phlegmatism helps to keep an even keel in times of crisis, introversion deepens the contemplative side, and extroversion encourages creative ministry."

"Let's live with our temperaments as with gifts that help us deepen our spiritual lives."

Tomorrow, we'll look at the author's analysis of why it is difficult to make changes to more balanced living.

God bless,
Sharon