Conversations with a Soul (10 page)

We can never explore and understand a word, any word, until we invite its images to be present, thereby releasing it from a page of print and allowing it to stand before us in whatever form it would. Thus word and image have a symbiotic relationship.

Words encapsulate time and they have the power to affect all manner of changes. Words share the same complexity as human beings and demand the same care and nurture. When we choose a particular word in a given context the mere act of choosing the word brings about change, some of which we never fully anticipate.

Furthermore, we understand ourselves to be complex beings, for we are all surrounded and influenced by a living context, and so it is with words. Sometimes the real power of a word resides in the context, attached to the word. For example, pompous individuals who chose to ignore the power of context have been heard to defend themselves by protesting their innocence;
I don’t understand why she got so upset, I merely commented. . . . .

One of the results of our secret conversations is that we learn to rely less on the sound of a word and instead we learn about the
potency
of a word. Many men and women have lived a life tinged by despair simply because someone planted a destructive word into their self-understanding, and from an unassailable position of authority, managed to reinforce their verdict, until the contorted information ate its way into every opportunity and continued to influence them. Frequently the healing that comes from a Soul conversation flows from the discovery of new, powerful words with which to understand ourselves and often demand a radical reappraisal of our being.

The word,
Soul
is another word that we use quite freely, without attempting to flesh out.

Heart and soul
seems to be a short-hand way to describe the totality of a person;
soulful
feels sad and
soul music
is a combination of various musical styles rooted in the unique experience of black people, which has the power to reach across the years and summon afresh their struggles.

Whenever the word is used it frequently points to the guts of something without disclosing who or what the Soul is.

However, unlike the word
love,
once we begin to explore
Soul
, something strange seems to happen! The more we try to define the word, the more obscure it becomes. The Soul seems to know when we are intent on capturing the Soul’s essence in words and definitions and immediately takes flight! It is almost as though the Soul has no wish to be exposed and hides within the very structures it illuminates. Heraclitus, a fifth century Greek sage, warned that,
The Soul is its own source of unfolding.

It has taken me a long time to learn the wisdom of those words!

A conversation with the Soul has nothing to do with ghostly visions or strange voices. Instead, a conversation with the Soul takes place through the Soul’s
illuminating presence
, most powerfully present in the words around which we structure our lives, and in the images that contain our stories.

In the telling of our personal histories, we’ve all assigned persons, events, chance encounters and a variety of experiences to account for the life-changing decisions that we’ve made.

Who could have predicted…..I never expected….. Out of the blue…...
are all common phrases that we weave into our stories and set the scene so as to account for the mystery that attends every life. However, what we seldom recognize, is that
behind
these chance events and unplanned encounters, is an even greater mystery: a mystical presence that works through people and circumstances. Sometimes, usually in hindsight, we catch a glimpse of something or someone but it is never more than simply a glimpse, for we cannot strip away the mystery in which the Soul chooses to be cloaked, all we can do is simply be present and open to the mysterious promptings that arise from within.

James Hillman phrased our engagement with the Soul in a striking way, which I have found illuminating:

It is as if consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate – an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence – that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify Soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it by itself apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light.
²⁸

Most of us have an idea that the study of the Soul rightly belongs in the custody of learned theologians and philosophers. Never the less, over the years, we have put together
our own
ideas of who the Soul is and how the Soul relates to us. We would probably be the first to confess that our language is far simpler and more homely than the scholarly pronouncements we might expect to find coming from academics, and, were we honest, we might also acknowledge that our language is full of contradictions and confusion, both portals through which wisdom is wont to climb into our lives!

It is usually when we are unwilling or unable to own our uncertainties that something demonic claims us. Fundamentalism in any shape is a form of blindness and an affront to the Soul.

Our journey in quest of the Soul is initially forged and shaped in the indiscriminate, mythical world of childhood. Ideas about God and about what we believed flowed quite naturally from our fertile imaginations, not to mention our willingness to absorb whatever we overheard of adult chatter. The uncomplicated, untroubled and unquestioned faith of our childhood days found, or created solutions to every problem and framed answers to every question.

Little did we know it at the time, but the Soul had already initiated a conversation.

I cannot remember how I first learned about the existence of my Soul, or who taught me, although I suspect my Scottish grandparents had something to do with it. Before I was allowed to fall asleep, evening prayers had to be said, which frequently concluded with a recitation of an ancient 18
^th
. Century children’s prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my Soul to keep;
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take.

As the lights were extinguished and the
'Goodnight, sleep wells'
were finally silenced, I was left in darkness; whereupon my immature powers of reasoning were immediately summoned. I concluded that, given the words I had so recently recited, my Soul must, apparently, have something to do with living and dying. If I was fortunate, my Soul would eventually find a way to live in the presence of Jesus, although, I needed to confess, if the Lord didn’t mind, I would much prefer another day of wrestling with my grandmother’s dog or spend the afternoon fashioning clay animals down at the river.

Before sleep claimed me and silenced my thoughts, I remembered that one of my playmates told me that he had heard that on one occasion Jesus had fashioned a clay bird that suddenly came to life and few off! I was never able to reproduce that feat, which I assumed, was irrefutable evidence of my lack of faith. My creation just sat there until I blasted it to smithereens with a well-aimed mud ball!

Later, lessons at Sunday school had a contribution to make as did conversations with my young companions, each of whom could speak authoritatively about the murky domain within which ghosts, witches, fairies, angels and sundry spirits resided thereby providing a possible setting for the Soul. We became fascinated with stories about the moving glass and tales of the occult.

On those occasions when we felt particularly brave we would extinguish the lights and conduct our research into the word of the supernatural in the dark, although it needs to be noted that our explorations consisted mainly of sharing stories we had shared before but now embroidered with imaginative outcomes. Sometimes we would even go so far as to leave the security of our homes and gather under an ancient tree where the sounds of night added a spine-tingling reality to our whispered stories. None of us would admit to the terror of walking home afterwards, afraid that it was not a passing breeze that made the grass move but something far more sinister!

I can remember that from an early age, probably inspired by a dream, I suspected that my Soul left my body while I slept and returned just before I awoke. I used to wonder if I awoke before my Soul managed to get back in, whether I would have to spend the day without a Soul! And what severe penalties would come my way if I died while my Soul had gone AWOL?

Above the mantelpiece in the dining room of my austere Scottish grandparent’s home hung a somber oil painting of moonlight reflecting off rolling ocean waves, which, for whatever reason, I thought was all about Souls and dying. I must have been a barrel of fun at birthday parties which may account for the fact that I was seldom invited to any.

After my grandfather died, from my place at the table, I used to sit and stare at the painting and wonder whether his Soul was now in heaven and whether he could see us all eating dinner, and if I didn’t eat everything on my plate, including the mushy green stuff, was he in a position to inflict retribution on me? Being about six years old at the time I was not greatly troubled by philosophical problems related to Soul language, but I ate everything, just in case!

From an early age I came to believe in my Soul.

Two nouns, seeped in mystery,
Soul
and
Spirit,
often keep close company with each other. Both point to a mystical part of our being and each refuses to be captured in words or defined in ideas that would strip them of their cherished cloak of inscrutability.

Despite their secretive nature they are, never the less, of fundamental importance when we engage the difficult task of understanding ourselves, and we reach out to engage something that lies beyond the muck and the mundane.

Almost like identical twins, which share the same looks and speak the same language, they have no difficulty standing in for each other, which they frequently do. In common speech we are so accustomed to having one serve as a synonym for the other, we hardly notice when 'Soul' and 'Spirit' have exchanged places in the course of a conversation or a written paragraph. When this happens it’s easy for us to follow the speaker’s train of thought for the original content remains the same no matter which noun is used. Furthermore, we don’t have to explain to anyone that we mean the same thing whether we use
Soul
or
Spirit
or use them interchangeably; we all seem to understand this.

Sometimes, however, instead of being merely synonyms, merely substitutions for each other, they exert their own personalities and work in a supportive role, the one helping to define and clarify the other.

Then, taking their uniqueness a step further, there are times and circumstances when they abandon their supportive roles and cease to be synonymous because something demands that they part company, for each, by their very nature, must choose a different path to truth.

Spirit is the great harmonizer and therefore, whenever possible, avoids conflict and disruptive disagreements. Spirit is well behaved and never interrupts our train of thought but patiently waits for us to recognize the Spirit’s presence. Spirit roots us in the traditions of prayer and quiet reflection. Spirit works to inspire and therefore is at home with silence and meditation. The language of hymns and poetry is the language of the Spirit. The Spirit’s gaze is firmly focused on the future, patiently waiting for a time that is yet to come. The Spirit loves all things of beauty, and aids us in recognizing what is beautiful.

The Spirit works tirelessly to gift us with inspiration (
breathe-in- spirit
) and makes possible the creative arts particularly music, art, liturgy, architecture and literature. The Spirit reminds us that everything is rooted in mystery, and out of the mystery the Spirit calls forth recognition of the hand of God.

Soul, on the other hand is a trouble maker!