Living incarnation: Choosing wholeness in a divided world

As the winter solstice approaches — the turning point of the year — many people feel both the weight of what has been and the quiet stirring of what longs to be born. This reflection explores that threshold moment, inviting us to consider incarnation not as a belief system, but as a lived practice of integration: wisdom taking form in ordinary lives, love made visible in the world we share.

We are living through what feels, in many ways, like a midlife moment — not only personally, but collectively.

In midlife, what once sustained us no longer does. Not because it was wrong, but because it was partial. The stories that carried us — about who we are, how the world works, who belongs and who does not — begin to strain under the weight of lived reality.

This is not collapse for its own sake.

It is a turning.

Across spiritual and psychological traditions, human development follows a recognizable arc. There is an early sense of belonging — an innocence where self and world are not yet separate. Then comes the long work of differentiation: identity, institutions, power, progress, the building of lives and systems shaped by oppositions — us and them, right and wrong, sacred and secular.

That phase was necessary.

But it was never meant to be the end of the story.

What comes next — individually and collectively — is a wisdom turn. A moment when we are asked not to go backward, nor to push harder forward, but to integrate what has been split.

I’ve been sitting with an image that helps me stay oriented in this moment. It’s a simple mandala: a circle holding a cross. At the upper edges are two realities we often keep separate — soul essence and human form. At the center is a quiet choosing point. And at the bottom, anchoring everything, is what I’ve come to call living incarnation — embodied wholeness, love made visible, elderhood.

The movement of the image is not upward, but downward. Not toward escape, but toward embodiment.

This is not spirituality as transcendence.

It is spirituality as practice.

Living incarnation names the ongoing work of letting what we know inwardly take form outwardly — in our bodies, our relationships, our choices, our communities. It is not about achieving perfection or claiming moral high ground. 

It is about choosing love, again and again, in the midst of real life.

It is no accident that these questions arise during Advent. Across the centuries, mystics have named this same invitation. Meister Eckhart famously asked, “What good is the birth of the Word if it does not take place in us?“

Advent is not only about remembering something that happened long ago, but about attending to what longs to be born now – in ordinary lives, in real bodies, in a world that aches for coherence. Living incarnation is simply this: allowing the Word, the wisdom, the love we name to take flesh again, here and now.

For me, this work is not abstract.

Recently, while walking with my dog on a familiar trail, she stopped abruptly and refused to go on. Normally she leads eagerly, but this time she turned and blocked the path. I didn’t know why – there was no obvious danger – but I trusted her embodied knowing and we turned back.

It was a small moment, but it felt instructive.

Living incarnation often looks like this: listening rather than forcing, yielding without collapsing, trusting a wisdom that moves through bodies, relationships, and the more-than-human world. Not every choice comes with clarity or certainty. But coherence can still be felt.

This way of seeing also changes how we understand conflict and harm. If we remain trapped in oppositional thinking, we inevitably need enemies to define ourselves. But living incarnation asks something harder and deeper: a refusal to other – even while naming harm clearly and choosing boundaries wisely.

This does not excuse violence or injustice.

It refuses to grant them ultimate meaning.

Those who act from woundedness often carry unbearable inner pressure. Seeing this does not make their actions acceptable — but it does keep us from becoming what we oppose. Love, in this sense, is not sentiment. It is a disciplined, embodied choice.

Elizabeth Jameson is an ordained Episcopal priest, writer, retreat leader, and soul companion. For those who feel drawn to explore existential and spiritual questions more deeply, Jameson offers opportunities—both in Estes Park and online—to delve into them through shared reflection and practice. These are not programs so much as paths of attention and discernment, for those who find resonance. Jameson can be reached through her website, Broken Open, or her Substack site.