Your inner physician.

Our Hidden Wholeness

“There is in all visible things...a hidden wholeness.” Thomas Merton

I listened to an interview yesterday on Talk of the Nation with a physician who, along with his colleagues, had set out to find just how many mutations the average human genome could have and still result in a healthy individual. They expected to find a few, but after charting one hundred and seventy-nine individual genomes, they found an average of four hundred genetic mistakes—many more than they had thought! They surmised from this that “no one is perfect” and “we are all, in fact, mutants!” We knew that, right? Their best guess is that there are many other healthy genes capable of over-riding the mistakes of the mutated ones, and therefore the person does not experience the effects as disease or disability.

We can extrapolate from this bit of research that, yes, we are all imperfect, and yet, there is a hidden wholeness that organizes itself under certain circumstance to produce a healthy, functional human being. Some of our great spiritual teachers have said as much without the benefit of scientific research. Jesus told his rough, illiterate disciples, “You are the light of the world.” And, “You are the salt of the earth.” The Buddha gave this advice to his followers, “Be lamps unto yourselves; be your own confidence. Hold to the truth within yourselves as the only truth.” Carl Rogers, one of the great minds in modern psychology, spoke of the “inner physician”, an aspect of self that guides us toward health. He believed that, given an environment of compassion and unconditional positive regard, a person had within themselves the resources necessary to heal.

In spite of our flaws, we are all capable of wholeness. There is no wound from which we cannot heal. Bearing scars is different from being broken. In fact, being a “mutant” is normal! I feel better already.

                                             In the spirit,

                                                Jane