Heroes Not Zombies

This photo of Boschendal garden in South Africa always makes me think of two forces of the universe – order and chaos, or, as Thomas Berry says, discipline and wildness. Everyone who writes about these polar opposite forces argues the same point – we need both, and we need them in a particular kind of balance. Too much of either destroys what we have.

We live in an ever more divided world, presented, day after day, with a black and white version of reality, with one pole presented as “right” or “true” and the other presented as “wrong” or “false”. Genuine dialogue and understanding disappear under the noise of anger, indignation and distrust.

Reality is full of paradoxes and polarities. And it’s not that some “happy medium”, or some bland “neither this nor that”, is better. It’s about understanding and acceptance, about seeing the necessity of apparent opposites.

Reality emerges from the synthesis of these two forces, not from their dilution, or from the exclusion of one in favour of the other.