Invitation to Wholeness

The invitation to wholeness comes in a strange envelope.  Most invitations come in a phone call, an email, or a printed card in our mail box.  But not the most important invitation of all.

Most invitations request our presence and participation in a pleasant gathering of friends and acquaintances–a party, shower, wedding, celebration.  Usually we are delighted to be included and look forward to the event.  We begin to plan a gift we will take, what we will wear, etc.

The invitation to New Life is altogether different.  For one thing, it comes from inside, not outside us.  Secondly, it is anything butpleasant.

The invitation to New Life can take many forms–none of them enjoyable.  It comes as a negative feeling we cannot shake or ignore: a nagging restlessness we cannot satisfy; a dissatisfaction with activities that formerly gave us pleasure; a general feeling of failure; a kind of death gnawing away inside us; a conscious realization that we really don’t like ourselves very much.

Unfortunately an unwelcome invitation seems to be the only way our Life Force can get our attention.  As long as we find our life satisfying, there is no impetus to change.  Only something negative can get our attention.

For social gatherings it doesn’t matter much whether we accept or regret the invitations we receive.  Not true of the Invitation to Wholeness.  The Life Force is determined for us to have something more than the best we have experienced of this life.  It will be relentless in its attempts to get our attention–and our permission to let it do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  To try to ignore or dismiss this invitation may mean physical or psychological illness.

Would that we all might listen to the message of our pain and cooperate in our miracle of wholeness.

 (Courtesy to author)