Wholeness is a challenging spiritual theme, in part because we are so ambivalent about it. Wholeness suggests finality. “To do list” complete. Check.  

Most of us are such goal-directed folks that living without a destination is a disorienting experience. 

Gwendolyn Brooks describes, poetically, a different understanding of the way the universe works and how we might best approach our own lives. The title of the poem is almost as long as the poem itself: 

Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III) 

Say to them, 

say to the down-keepers, 

the sun-slappers, 

the self-soilers, 

the harmony-hushers, 

“Even if you are not ready for day 

It cannot always be night.” 

You will be right. 

For that is the hard home-run. 

Live not for battles won. 

Live not for the-end-of-the-song. 

Live in the along.  

Brooks is bringing process theology down to where the rubber meets the road. 

“Live in the along.” 

I have come to believe that there is real wisdom in that poem and in that way of approaching life. Not passive but awake and aware of life as it unfolds.  

But how then do we understand our desires and our commitments to build the Beloved Community? How do those fit if we are “living in the along?” 

The challenge, the test is to find some balance, to find a way to know and to hold our desires and our commitments while understanding that we will never be completely in control. It is a hard balance to maintain, because our desires are real as well.  

Imani Perry, in her new book, Breathe, speaks to this dilemma in a way that has resonated with me: 

“Desire is such a beautiful and mysterious thing. … Take the time to strip yourself down to the core, to the simplest of joys. What if you dream your life but remove all money moves, all contingent material fantasies? And just fill it with connection, grace, and rituals. How would it be? What would it look like? That isn’t an ascetic’s dream so much as it is a gospel of living in the along. 

“It is a ritual of reorientation, a steadying, a sense of grace. It might not be enough, but it is something. And the fact is, if you get desire right, you will probably get love right too.” 

Privilege is required for that discipline to make sense. Seeing the number of Portlanders who are sleeping on the street during the snow and ice makes reflection on my privilege unavoidable. That truth makes my own commitment to the Beloved Community even stronger. 

The world is changing around us. We know that the normal we knew will not return. We need “a reorientation, a steadying” and a “sense of grace.” May your reflections of wholeness this month lead you to depth. Getting love right, as our world shifts and changes, feels like it should be “Job 1.” 

Blessings, 

Bill