Meditation on Opposites

Becoming A Spiritual Guide for Navigating Adulthood

By Kayla Parker

From Skinner House Books

A spiritual companion for young adults and all who live amid transitions and tensions. Dozens of carefully selected readings address themes that are prominent for people in their twenties and early thirties.

Buy This Book

Spirit of the universe,
Life force that flows through all beings,
Power beyond our knowing,

We ask you to help us see beyond our dependence on opposites—
To transcend our desire to know who is like us, and who is not.

Open us to the knowledge that in this room
there are complexities and diversities of identities
beyond black and white,
old and young,
woman and man,
poor and rich,
uneducated and educated,
disabled and able-bodied,
gay and straight,
ill and healthy,
wrong and right,
broken and whole.

In this room there are ­people who embody juxtaposition,
who can tell stories written on their bodies about both and neither,
who carry intimate pieces of the truth that there is
no such thing
as opposites.

Spirit of many names and of no name at all,
Help us find release from our belief that all things must be either/or,
this belief that walls us off from one another,
ensnaring us in a ­battle of same versus different.

Help us to open our minds,
to deeply listen,
and to truly know one another,
finally glimpsing the kaleidoscopic beauty of the divine.