To Fly with Both Wings
Updated: Oct 2
One Wing Is Not Enough
Have you ever watched a bird soar high above the earth, seemingly weightless, effortless? It doesn’t struggle to fly. It trusts its wings - both wings.
One wing weak, broken, or ignored, and the flight turns erratic, painful… or impossible.
We are no different.
I was walking along the river in my city in Ontario, still waiting for true spring, when the birds erupted in song, and the words of Psalm 91 rose unbidden in my mind:
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty…”
In that moment, the metaphor landed hard. So many of us live suspended between earth and sky, body and soul, past and future, moving, yet never truly flying.
The birds were chirping like crazy - it was the best music for today as I looked around to spot signs of spring.
Between Earth and Sky
So many people I’ve met, and at times, myself included, live as though suspended between the past and the future. They are in motion, but not truly moving. Stuck in a state of “in-between.”
And the quiet tragedy is that they have come to call this “living fully.”
But tell me:
Would you reheat yesterday’s coffee and call it fresh?
Would you relive yesterday’s pain and call it peace?
The Wing of the Body, the Wing of the Soul
St. Hildegard of Bingen, mystic and healer, once said that
“the soul and body form a single harmony.”
One cannot sing the song of life alone. If we tend only to the soul, neglecting the body, we lose grounding. If we focus only on the body, the soul withers, restless and unheard.
Carl Jung echoed this in his own way. He believed that wholeness comes not from perfection, but from integration - from acknowledging every part of ourselves, even the parts we’ve exiled to shadow.
The Rhythm of Grace
Harmony is when the war within you finally hears the rhythm set by grace.
Harmony is movement where nothing fights with anything else. It is trusting the Conductor - letting Him weave your chaos into something unexpectedly beautiful.
Harmony is about being held together by the One who knows every note of your soul, even the ones you’ve tried to silence.
To live in harmony is to let your thoughts, your flesh, your longings, your soul, your memories, and your hopes honestly move in the same direction.
It’s letting God be the breath under both wings.
To fly, we need both wings:
One wing of flesh - rest, boundaries, food, tears, joy, intimacy.
One wing of spirit - silence, prayer, wonder, calling, presence.
Neither wing is sinful. Both are sacred.
This is where the old Greek dualism quietly betrays us. Plato taught us to see the body as a temporary prison and the soul as the true, immortal self - higher, purer, more real.
Much of Christian thought absorbed this division without noticing. We began to treat the flesh as suspect and the spirit as the only part worth saving.
But the Hebrew Scriptures never spoke this way. The word nephesh does not mean an immortal soul trapped inside a body. It means the whole living person - breathing, desiring, feeling, embodied.
In Genesis, the human does not receive a soul; the human becomes a living nephesh when breath enters the dust. Body and spirit are not two rival kingdoms. They are one life.
The hope of resurrection in the Old Testament (and later in the New Testament) concerns the whole person, not a disembodied soul.
Under the Shadow of His Wings
In the Psalms Psalm 17:8, Psalm 36:7, Psalm 91:4 we read:
“Hide me in the shadow of Your wings”
“How precious is Your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.”
“He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge.”
To take refuge in God is to become more whole than ever before - to let Him gather the scattered pieces of who we are and return them to us, healed.
Being under the shadow of His wings allows us to look at ourselves in truth and with love. This is the true balance of the two wings: a mature gaze that has the courage to accept both our strengths and gifts, and our flaws, weaknesses, and limitations.
Seeing our positive qualities in truth stirs us to raise the standard - to rise higher with wings outstretched. It helps us remain in what is good and overcome the difficulties that are inevitable, for we cannot always fly with the wind. The same is true of painful truths. Under the wings of God’s truth, we can avoid pride, selfishness, discouragement, and despair.
The second aspect of the two wings is mature self-love. The person who can love themselves maturely soars with outstretched wings in the present moment. They are not suspended between past and future, between heaven and earth. They are here - now. The past becomes a source of knowledge and wisdom; the future gives proper perspective to the efforts of today. A bird trapped in the past or the future cannot rise, cannot fly.
To act with nobility and live fully in the present, we must remain in the triple love - for God, for ourselves, and for our neighbour. Responsible living in the present, under the wings of the Almighty, is the only path to a good future - both temporal and eternal.
Are You Flying, or Just Floating?
Maybe it’s time to ask yourself:
Am I giving space for both my soul and body to thrive?
What part of me have I ignored in the name of “being spiritual”?
What wing do I need to heal before I can truly fly?
Jesus didn’t say, “Float through life.” In John 10,10 He said:
“I came so that you may have life, and have it abundantly.”
That kind of life needs two wings.
A Prayer for Flight
Lord, teach me to fly with both wings.
Help me honour my soul without punishing my body.
Help me nourish my body without silencing my soul.
May I live fully, not in fragments suspended between what was and what could be - but here, now, whole, under Your wings.💮🤍💮
Amen.
💮🤍💮
Thank you for being here and spending a little time with me. 💛
I’m grateful for every woman who stops by, reads a few words, pauses for a moment, and perhaps carries one little thought with her into the rest of the day.
If something here spoke to your heart, take it with you. And if you feel like sharing what you discovered, I’d love to hear from you.
May we keep learning to fly with both wings, not alone, but together, under the shadow of our Abba - Father.
Blessings & Hugs,
BE 💕
Many Stoic insights align perfectly with Christian values like inner peace, self-control, compassion, and courage.
Psalm 91 offers a powerful promise: God is our refuge and our fortress, the place where anxious hearts find real rest.
Psalm 1 stands at the very beginning of the Psalter, almost like a doorway into the whole book of Psalms. It introduces one of its central themes: the choice between two ways of living.
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