Paradox

Today was my first day back at work in over a month.  I am still not completely over my bronchitis, and it was difficult for me to head out the door early this morning.  Once I got to work, it was great to be with my amazing team of colleagues and to reconnect with them.  I felt a fresh energy and joy.  Work is an important part of life, whatever its shape.  The play of these last weeks for me has also been wonderfully restoring.  Today was a day of playful work.

Paradox is for me an important part of life and gives a different flavour and understanding than the middle ground concept of balance.  I once heard it said that it is helpful to hold both extremes of paradox in creative tension in our lives.  Chagall's fiddler reminds me that  it is in the properly tuned string, held between two opposing ends,  that we can express our life music. In the holding together of dark and light, joy and sorrow, quiet and music and small and big there is a tree of life growing by the creative energy of paradox.  Work and play, give and receive, look inward and outward, reflect and express, pray and act, and be in solitude and community.  Hold these opposing truths together in the wholeness of our being.  Most of us have propensities for one of these extremes.  It is helpful to know our own leanings and to appreciate and cultivate the other half of the whole.  There are seasons of life where we often rest in one end of the paradox, but in those times I remember the firm hold on the other end that brings depth, colour and richness to the canvas of my life.