wholeness

This week, I read from Martin Buber's essay on "The Validity and Limitation of the Political Principle," and I thought about what it means to grow up. Buber talks about our lives being held within two worlds: a "sphere of wholeness" and a "sphere of separation". The sphere of wholeness is like our dearest childhood image of something pure, perfect and unlimited out there. We might call it holiness. Let's say that at the center of the sphere of wholeness is God.

The sphere of separation is where we live our day-to-day lives on earth, as we make imperfect choices, join teams and take sides. When we make choices and then take action, sometimes we regret the path not chosen. In part, we feel regret because no choice is perfect. And in our souls we ache when choices take us farther from the sphere of wholeness.

So, many people are pained to enter into the world of separateness, for fear that it might compromise their ideals. Teenagers seem especially ready for this fight. They view many things as hypocritical if they aren't idealistic or even idealized. But this is the wrong idea. It's not hypocrisy to compromise a principle - it's living. We must serve God even as we act within the world of compromises.

If not, we can get tripped up and trapped in a binary, all-or-nothing way of thinking, where we don't enter into any committments for fear of breaking our connection to the sphere of wholeness. But you can't sit still all day and contemplate God. You have to get your hands dirty in the real world, or at least go out to buy groceries. We can't exist as perfect ideas - we have to act.

"It is possible to serve God and the group to which one belongs if one is courageously intent on serving God in the sphere of the group as much as one can," which is Buber's way of saying that we should always keep God and holiness high on our minds when we help others, or even when we're running errands. And these choices, at least our best choices, are informed by a desire for wholeness and holiness. If we do it right, our every action in the world of separation - the world of committees, meetings and deadlines - can be a service to God. We serve God as we serve our carpool committments: Buber calls these "service and service".

I agree with Buber that it's not "either-or" but "as-much-as-one-can." You don't have to hold back from the sphere of separateness, or from making choices. You have to embrace life in all of its messiness, flaws and nuances. Otherwise, you'll get nothing done. It's this effort that unites us all. We all share a common striving - united along a common "front", Buber says, in "the one fight for human truth." The truth that there is something Divine beyond us which our souls are seeking. That striving is the highest ideal of humankind.