As part of our spiritual, emotional, psychic journey we are wanting to move towards “wholeness”. The “wanting to move” is significant – do we want to be whole or maybe the path seems too strewn with rocks over which to stumble and briars too prevalent to escape scratching, bruising pain.’

“I call with my whole heart” Psalm 119:145. This verse is part of that extremely long, the longest, Psalm in Judaeo-Christian Scripture.  The Psalmist has that sense that to call upon, to invoke help is best accomplished with a whole heart; I hear also the Psalmist telling me that the very action of invocation leads nearer to wholeness as self-sufficiency is discarded and dependence is articulated. It is the ironic miracle of growth that it takes place as we surrender self-sufficiency and self-help and accept, admit that our wholeness is secured by others. I think especially by the divine “other” both present in itself and in others around us.

So call, call, call.

Elsewhere in Psalm 119, the Psalmist writes, “They draw near, but you O Lord are close at hand” Psalm 119:150. We are rightly sensitive about what comes near, nearest, to our deepest being and our most honest thoughts. The process to wholeness cannot be achieved without the adoption of vulnerability but this vulnerability is best exposed as we know that the Lord “is close at hand”. You see the ancient proverb is not right, it should read “Keep your enemies (enemies of wholeness) near but keep your divine protector nearer”.