I’m a Soul, Man; I’m a Soul-Man -part 2

On Saturday, I volunteered at the Parkhill Carnegie Gallery.  This is the former Parkhill Carnegie Library Gallery which was saved from a slow decline and demise by a group of volunteers - the Friends of the Carnegie Library.  It was renovated and turned into a gallery for local artists and a performance space.

In any case, I volunteered to hold down the fort – so to speak – as it was open to the public.  I have lots of time on my hands and was reading The School of Charity, a wonderful little meditation on the Christian Creed, by Evelyn Underhill.  Underhill was an engaging writer whose works include theology, spirituality, mysticism, and novels.  In addition, she was well known as a retreat leader and Spiritual Director.  In any case, I picked up this little book to pass the time at the Gallery and am very glad I did.  Perhaps it chose me rather than me choosing it. 

As I delved into the book, what grabbed my attention was the references to ‘soul’.  I had written about the soul last week and wasn’t planning to follow up with that but I took this to be a message and decided that I could see if I could get a handle on what Underhill says about the soul in this book. The first thing is that, although Underhill does refer to the soul quite a few times, she does not define it – at least in this work.  Even though she sees people as creatures of God, Underhill, quite rightly, sees people as being in great need of help.  God delivers us from “the imbecilities of religious self-love and self-assurance; and sink(s) our little souls in the great life of the race”.  Here, soul seems to be used as an essence of who we are.  This is followed up with a similar use when Underhill states, “Prayer is the give and take between the little souls of men and that three-fold Reality (God).” 

Although the soul of people is limited and small, Underhill holds that it can enlarge.  She opens her chapter entitled The World To Come with a quote from another author, Elizabeth Leseur, ‘I will ask of God such an enlargement of soul that I may love him with ardour, serve him with joy, and transmit his radiance to the world.”  For this to happen, the soul must be nourished.  Underhill recommends doing this through meditation on the Christian experience, “This is why meditation on the Christian mysteries, chewing the cud of the Gospels, is so nourishing to the soul, and so inexhaustible as a basis for prayer.”

Underhill’s belief in the importance of prayer in the soul’s growth is reinforced a little later and she notes that it is gradual and unseen to us, “This should make us realize how deeply hidden, how gradual and unseen by us, the soul’s growth in the life of prayer is likely to be.”  We will be supported in this effort by the Spirit of Divine Love, “our real situation as Christian souls – little spirits supported by the infinite Spirit of Divine Love”. 

In all this, the soul is calling out to us for connection with the Divine, “In the same way, the deep mysteries of the Being of God and the call of the soul cannot be seen by us, until they have passed through the human medium, a human life.” 

In all this, Underhill is agreeing with the understanding of the soul as an immortal part of our being which is seeking the Divine and through prayer may grow in relationship with the Source of our being.  It may be unseen and hidden; nevertheless, it is the reality of our existence and part of who we are. 

May you be blessed with souls that are nourished and grow on your journey.

I’m a Soul, Man; I’m a Soul-Man

 The idea of ‘soul’ comes up frequently in my experience.  There is the concept, theologically and psychologically, of the person being composed of four parts - body, mind, spirit, and soul. It appears frequently in hymns.  One source on-line gives a count of the number of times soul occurs in the bible – 754 in the Old Testament and 102 in the New Testament.  Beyond that, there is the use in today’s culture. We have soul music and soul brothers and soul sisters.  I doubt that there is an accurate count of how many hymns speak of the soul.  Here is one of my favourite old hymns:

It Is Well With My Soul

   

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.

 

Chorus

It is well (it is well)

With my soul (with my soul)

It is well, it is well with my soul.

 

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blessed assurance control;

That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate.

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

 

My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought,

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

 

From this hymn, we can see that if it is well with your soul, all is well with you.  However, if push comes to shove, do we have a firm foundation (to quote another hymn) what the soul actually is?

I have on my bookshelf, a few books that have references to ‘soul’ in the titles; Modern Man in Search of a Soul  by Carl Jung, Boundaries of the Soul by June Springer, Soul Making by Alan Jones.  It is interesting that , when I checked, none of them actually have a definition of soul.   Here is a sample of the quotes from the books which refer to the ‘soul’:

But spiritually the Western world is in a precarious situation-and the danger is greater the more we blind ourselves to the merciless truth and illusion about beauty of soul.  (Modern Man in Search of a Soul)

Besides, the task is not merely to restore what is lost.  In becoming  lost, the “soul” (I don’t know a better word for that central guiding aspect of the unconscious, the nature of which we have only a dim awareness) has ceased to be the connecting ribbon of a road between a man as he knows himself and the vast unknown and unknowable.  (Boundaries of the Soul)

The making of a soul is hard work, and yet it is also a free gift.  God’s wild card of unconditional love is secure and sure, but we are found or lost in our choosing.  (Soul Making)

I found it interesting that Soul Making had no entry for ‘soul’ in the index – an interesting oversight given the title (and theme) of the book.  I found a few quotes by Carl Jung which speak of soul (I’m sure there are many more).  Here is one that is revelatory of his view:

Being that has soul is a living being.  Soul is a living thing in man, that which lives of itself and causes life.  Therefore, God breathed into Adam a living breath, that he might live.  With her cunning play of illusions, the soul lures into life the intenseness of matter that does not want to live.  She makes us believe incredible things, that life may be lived.  She is full of snares and traps, in order that man should fall. Should reach the earth, entangle himself there, and stay caught, so that life should be lived;

Putting aside the non-inclusive language of these quotes , we can perhaps grasp that the meaning of soul is rather like water which is difficult to get hold of much less actually grasp.  It might be helpful to turn to an encyclopedic definition.  Here is one from The Encyclopedia Britannica which defines soul thus:

soul, in religion and philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and often is considered to survive the death of the body.

If I can attempt to summarize, soul is something which all people possess and which is essential to people and can be the part of us that guides us along the journey to becoming more fully human.  May you be blessed to be guided on that journey.

 

Myth and Metaphor

 Recently, I was watching a debate on-line between Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Richard Dawkins.   Sacks is the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, is what I would describe as the chief atheist and apologist.  The debate was a typical one on the topic science versus religion and does religion have any significance in the modern world – at least that is how I would sum up the focus of the debate.

One point in the discussion summed up for me the reductionist approach that Dawkins and other scientists of his ilk have in their approach to the world and their dismissal of many things religious.  Dawkins pressed Sacks on the story of the intention of Abraham to follow YHWH – God’s order to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  Dawkins pressed Sacks as to his belief on the literal nature of the story i.e. was there actually a person named Abraham who had the intention to sacrifice his son in response to the command.  For Dawkins, there had to be a concrete basis for the story for it to be meaningful.  Sacks responded that it was representative of the movement of the Israelite people away for the practice of child sacrifice which was common to the people in that part of the world at that time. 

There seemed to be a complete misunderstanding by Dawkins of the importance of story as metaphor for people throughout history and the importance of it today.  Theologian and author Marcus Borg notes in his book, The God We Never Knew, that all images of God are metaphors.  Though metaphors, he states:

are not literally true, they can nevertheless be true…Metaphors are evocative. Suggestive of more than one meaning, they are resonant; they have multiple associations and cannot be translated into a single equivalent literal statement.

Metaphors cannot be weighed or put under a microscope and viewed in a telescope but they are true nonetheless.  That is something that Dawkins apparently does not seem to comprehend.  Myths can be understood in the same light as metaphors - actually, myths might be seen as extended metaphors and have a Truth that has resonated with people throughout the ages when you understand them metaphorically. 

To elaborate on the distinction between the approach of Dawkins and that of Sacks, it is helpful to look at the distinction between a sign versus a symbol as denoted by Carl Jung – the founder of Jungian psychology.  Jung notes in Man and His Symbols, that signs, “do no more than denote the objects to which they are attached.”  In effect, they have a one-to-one correspondence i.e., a stop sign on the side of a road means that traffic on that side of the road should stop.   

A symbol, as Jung declares, “is a term, a name, or even a picture that may be familiar in daily life, yet that possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional and obvious meaning.”  Jung continues to elaborate, “It implies something vague, unknown, or hidden from us.” 

Religion, in its essence, is an attempt to understand the ineffable of life which cannot be reduced to a sign.  It is the undiscovered country which people are attempting to discover as best we can by exploring that which is hidden in an effort to see its truth.

May you be blessed to explore those hidden things which are revealed on your journey.

 

A Lenten Journey of Five Minutes a Day or More

 On the first Sunday in Lent.  I was preaching at the Mennonite Church in Nairn.  My theme was Lent as a time of testing – a time to test a call you have discerned that God is giving you.  Every journey, no matter how short or long, begins with the first step.  Here is one simple way of testing out a call to be more available to God (whatever you consider your ultimate concern).  It is a small step to make yourself fully available to God for five minutes as day – or longer if that is right for you.

“Here I am, Lord. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). Such was Isaiah’s response to God’s call. Today, try this simple “Here I Am” prayer from spiritual director and writer Teresa Blythe as a way to become available to God:

·        Resolve to be in prayer for at least five minutes. Do not answer the phone or allow yourself to be distracted from your goal.

·        Be seated and say to yourself, “Here I am seated, doing nothing. I will do nothing for five minutes” (or longer, depending on the time you set for yourself).

·        ​​​​​​​Begin noticing your own bodily presence—how your body feels next to the chair; how your feet feel against the floor. Relax your body. Notice what you feel inside.

·        Now notice the presence of all that is around you. Say to yourself, “Here I am in the presence of the room (garden, chapel, wherever you are).” Be aware of the furniture, walls, and any pets or people in the room. Just be present and silent in your environment. Relax even more.

·        Now say to yourself, “Here I am in the presence of God.” Repeat silently to God, “Here I am.” Bask in the presence of the Holy One until your time goal has been reached.

 I will close with a quote from Richard Rohr – a modern prophet, “Following Jesus is a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world.  To allow what God for some reason allows—and uses. And to suffer ever so slightly what God suffers eternally. Often, this has little to do with believing the right things about God—beyond the fact that God is love itself.”

Let us begin a blessed Lenten journey.

 

Acedia & me

Richard Rohr, is one of the modern prophets who I turn to for inspiration and support, had the theme of deserts for his daily meditations last week.   Here is a sampling of what was on offer:

Today’s wilderness can be found in bustling suburban and urban centers, on death row, in homeless shelters in the middle of the night, in the eyes of a hospice patient, and in the desperation of AIDS orphans in Africa and around the world. Perhaps these are the postmodern desert mothers and fathers.
—Barbara Holmes

 This brought to mind a book that I read about acedia which I read some years ago - Acedia & me, by Kathleen Norris. I wrote about this a few years ago and I think it is worth repeating here.   Acedia is a term which has fallen out of favour and is not in general use in the modern world.   I was vaguely aware of this concept but was introduced to it in the Spiritual Direction program I completed with the Haden institute and the Mt. Carmel Spiritual Centre in Niagara Falls.  Lorna found out about this book which was not on the reading list of the program (and should be) and purchased it used on-line.  

As I noted, I began to read it after Lorna recommended it and am finding acedia to be a concept and condition which appears to be very much something which is part of modern life and deserves more consideration.  Kathleen Norris delves into the concept of acedia drawing her life long experience with the condition.   As Norris notes, acedia is often considered to be another name for depression.  Norris notes that there are many similarities between the two conditions.  However, the two conditions are not synonymous.  Norris suggests that, “while depression is an illness treated by counselling and medication, acedia is a vice that is best countered by spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer.” (3)  Categorizing acedia as a vice is not done lightly by Norris.  She traces the early thoughts about acedia and notes that Evagrius, a 4^th century Christian monk and ascetic, classified it as “one of the eight bad thoughts that plagued a monk, whole John Cassian discerned in acedia a stubborn sadness that could lead a monk into a far worse state of distress”. (20)  The eight bad thoughts eventually became the seven deadly sins of Christianity.   The theologian dropped acedia from the list and conflated it with sadness. 

As I noted, it is often thought of as depression.  It is rather hard to get a definitive handle on just what the condition—or vice—entails and how it differs from depression.  The simplest way of thinking about it appears to be a state of generally not caring about the world and others.  Norris describes the condition—which she diagnoses as acedia—as one in which she would avoid life by obsessively reading anything and everything as a way of running away and “consuming books rather than reading them.”   With acedia the ‘not caring’ can take the form of sloth or laziness of body and mind.  But it can also take the form of escapism either in nostalgia about a golden past or fantasy about the grass being greener in the other places.  It can even take the form of being a rescuer who wants to obsessively help and rescue people. 

 However, the common factor in this is avoidance.  The sufferer is not able to engage the world around them.  They do not/cannot care about anything and do not take the effort to engage in anything.   I believe that acedia is what people in other times and places were addressing when they talked of ‘loss of soul’.  Norris notes that, “John Cassian and Thomas Aquinas recognized that acedia operates on the borders between the physical world and the spiritual life.” (35)  It is also interesting that Norris notes Aquinas recommended ‘a hot bath, a glass of wine, and a good night’s sleep’ as a remedy.   However tempting that may be, I suspect that someone who is in the thrall of acedia will not get a good night’s sleep.  Rather, they will be pursued by the demon of acedia.  Indeed, considering acedia in the realm of demons or evil spirits has some validity if we consider the world of the early monks who were very familiar with acedia as the demon of mid-day which brings lethargy. 

I think the understanding that we are dealing with a condition that allows temptations in the form of thoughts to take hold.  Norris notes that the demons “arouse evil thoughts by working on the memory and imagination.”  We may have difficulty believing in demons or evil spirits in today’s modern material world.  However, it can be useful to understand the thoughts that creep unaware into our consciousness that encourage us to avoid what we know is in our best interest in this way.  Indeed, after I had begun to be engaged by the book, I had the thought that I have done enough and deserve to play a computer game which I must confess I surrendered to quite willingly.  

Blessings on your journey and don’t let the demon of acedia or any others catch you unaware.