Professor Mary Holmes called paradox "the natural condition of the world. It is both the working principle and the mystery of life... We are always surrounded by paradox because all of creation is the union of opposites. All energy comes from the union of opposites."3 Holmes is here tying our experience of paradox to our consciousness of opposites. And her insight reminds us that though our human categories of thought are insufficient to contain all of reality, yet our experience of paradoxical contraries invites us to ask: What is the unity that binds these opposites into relation to one another, that reveals two mutual exclusives as paradoxically parts of one underlying reality? The following observations consider without finality some of the fundamental contraries that we human persons experience as paradoxes in contemplating ourselves and the world.
