Now the line on which the song is based comes from the following from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
No human being is entirely one thing or another. The seemingly worst of us have good qualities and the best of us have negative ones. There is no perfection in any of us, in life itself. We all of us contain multitudes of contradictions, people constantly surprise me, I hope I do them.
In “Resurrection” Tolstoy captures this idea when he states (edited using gender inclusive language)
“Every person bears within him or herself the germs of every human quality, but sometimes one quality manifests itself, sometimes another, and the person often becomes unlike him or herself, while still remaining the same person.”
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
How often in life do we say that such and such acted out of character. Well maybe they just displayed an aspect of their character that is rarely seen. We are all complex, we contain multitudes. It is vital that we recognise that in others and one another. To be fully human is to be complex and inconsistent. I have been thinking of this as I have thought of a dear friend and congregant who died this week. A strong, passionate, vivacious character, a person who could get things done and would do anything for anyone. This of course was not all that she was, like all of us she had her own demons and succumbed to them in the end. So many people are feeling the pain of her loss this week. I most certainly have been doing. As I felt constant grief and loss for the world, I would hope we all do. There is suffering everywhere and in everything, but that is not all there is. Life is not suffering, but there is suffering in everything. There is horror and there is violence, but that is not all there is, there is love, there is compassion, there is deep, deep care. People care a lot. Never stop caring. To care of course originally meant “sorrow, anxiety, grief.” From an Old Anglo Saxon word karo meaning sorrow or lament, from a proto Germanic word Kara. The modern German phrase Kairfretag meaning Good Friday shares this same root. Isn’t the whole world lamenting at the horrors in the Ukraine. That said this is not all that is life. I have witnessed and experienced more love this week, than I can remember doing for a long time.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I know myself I am full of contradictions. I am inconsistent in what I believe about life, faith and God. I have been considering that his week as I have felt the grief of the loss of my friend, especially the way her life ended. Grief changes us, it should and each new loss builds into others. Nothing in life is experienced within itself. I have been thinking of profound spiritual experiences I have had, moments that have transformed my experience of life. Some have been the most beautiful and uplifting, some of been the most excruciatingly painful. An agony I experienced like no other, came at the moment of a great loss in my life, one I only discovered had happened much later. A moment that changed my whole life, a moment I wish had never happened, but was beyond my control. Some of these most powerful moments have been experienced alone and in isolation and others shared with others. Some my rational mind has attempted to explain away, others I have accepted. Each contained their own multitude of experiences. What they have done is better enabled me to do the work I have been given, despite the complexities of my humanity. All have enabled me to live a little better from that “Love that passeth all understanding”. They have all enabled me to care more, but not without deep sorrow.
Life is not always as it seems and sometimes this is down to perspective and point of vision. Even light can be a tricky and contradictory thing, as the physicist Niels Bohr discovered when he tried to describe the nature of electrons and neutrons, lights elementary units. He discovered that under some experimental conditions, these units behaved as though they were particles, but under other experimental conditions they behaved as though they were waves.
So which one is correct? Were they particles or were they waves? Surely light could not be both? Surely they must be one or the other? Well Niels Bohr said they were both. He said the observer and the circumstances of the observer make a difference, and so you need a "principle of complementarity" to understand the nature of light. He concluded that under some observational circumstances the units of light must be considered particles, and under other circumstances they must be considered waves. It would appear that the two points of view both compliment and contradict each other. So, by taking both together you improve the picture, even though they contradict themselves.
So, despite the challenge that comes with accepting these complimentary contradictions they paint an enlarging view of the nature of life. I suspect it is the same with us, with our lives, with life in general and certainly the spiritual life. In fact, I would suggest that complimentary contradictions help to enhance the spiritual life, for after all the spiritual life is one of paradox.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
David Whyte suggests an interesting paradox with regards to the spiritual life. He believes that the deeper our commitment to the principles in our lives, the more fluid life starts to feel. True commitment often doesn't mean rigidity, it's more likely to result in flow and movement. Commitment is liberating and contradictions are complimentary.
The world’s religious traditions are no stranger to paradox. Taoism is full, or do I mean empty, of them. Here is one example:
Fullness and emptiness give birth to each other.
Difficult and easy complete each other.
Long and short shape each other.
Tones and voice harmonize with each other.
Front and back follow each other.
Therefore wherever the sage is, he dwells among affairs by not doing.
He teaches without words.
The ten-thousand things arise, but he doesn’t impel them.
He gives birth, but he doesn’t possess.
He acts, but he doesn’t rely on what he has done.
He has successes, but he doesn’t claim credit.
So by not claiming credit, he is never empty.
The teachings of Jesus are firmly grounded in paradox. He said “the first shall be last”; “empty yourself and be filled”; “lose yourself and be found” The epistle Paul wrote “As dying, and, behold, we live”; he said of his fellow Christians “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”; and he said of himself “When I am weak, then I am strong”
Aristotle saw this as absolute twaddle of course. He is the great grandfather of scientific methodology, of all who pride themselves on their critical faculties and all who claim rationality. He talked of the law of the excluded middle. Put simply something cannot be both hot and cold at the same time. How can anyone argue with such logic? We cannot be rich if we are poor; we cannot be first if we are last; we cannot experience joy if our lives are full of sorrow.
Is he correct? Well, he sounds like he is making sense. How on earth can we receive when we are giving? It does not seem to make sense, when thinking logically and yet.
The religious sages tell us otherwise. As does light at least according to Neils Bohr and his observations on the nature of light.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Of course a paradox does not make sense in a purely logical sense, but to expect it to do so is to fail to understand its purpose. It is the tool that broadens the framework in which we see reality. Things can both contradict and compliment each other.
Paradox stretches the boundaries of truth. Through our imaginations we push truth past its seeming limits. Without imagination, without foresight we would probably never have come down from the trees, or out of the caves. A paradox cannot be solved by conventional truths, it requires unconventional truths. It stretches common sense to the point where it becomes uncommon sense and thus moves our experiences of life forward. It challenges the status quo and the understanding of any given time. This is of course what the great religious sages did, they brought new understanding to their time and place, as does good science.
Our lives are riddled with paradoxes. How often have we heard the following statements? “I am surrounded by people and yet I am lonely” “My life is so full of choices, that I can’t make a decision about anything” or on the more optimistic end of the scale “I am skint and yet I am happy” or “I have so much, because I have so little”
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Life is full or do I mean empty of paradoxes. There are so many contradictions, nothing adds up absolutely. Our ducks will never be truly in a row. This is the nature of existence, both material and spiritual. There are so many contradictions in all of us as there is in life and it is these very contradictions that compliment each other and make far more than the sum of lifes parts, far more. Life contains multitiudes.
So let us keep on contradicting ourselves. Let us share these beautiful contradictions and in so doing we will create something larger than we could imagine, that compliments all our lives. Let us continue enlarging everything by sharing our many multitudes. The more we give it away, the more we will all receive and in abundance.
Let us continue to enlarge our multitides.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Below is a video devotion based
on the material in this "blogspot"
