I have been rereading Soul Making by Alan Jones and finding it to be good for my soul. I decided that I would write about the soul for this edition following up on one that I wrote about a year ago. Seemed to be the right thing to do when I received a Daily Meditation for Richard Rohr which spoke about the soul:
The heart of Rumi’s teaching lies in the Sufi concept of tawhid (or “oneness”). This is a longing for mystical union with the Beloved, with the divine lover from whom one has been separated. In the opening lines of his most famous work, the Masnavi (his “flute songs”), Rumi portrays the soul as a reed cut from the damp reed-bed of God’s own heart. It yearns to return to its source, finding a transient joy in becoming a reed flute through which the divine breath of love’s fire passes. [1] Like a drunken fool, Rumi is smitten by love. He can think of nothing else. The core of discernment for him, therefore, isn’t a question of “What should I do?” or “What is expected of me?” It is rather “What do I love?
All was well and all manner of things were well, as Julien of Norwich might say, when I left the book on the Via train to Toronto on Thursday. So, this seemed to turn into a case of a lost soul. The question then was, what happens when you lose your soul? Is that possible or is it just mis-placed? Perhaps it is a case of a broken reed that needs mending, or a reed flute that is out of tune.
Well, my plans for this changed again when I was driving to a near-by town of Nairn Sunday morning to be the guest preacher. I left in what should have been lots of time only to find that the road was closed and there was a detour which took me to my destination by the long way around. I did manage to make it to the church on time but I was a bit rattled. The theme of detours seemed to fit well with my thoughts about the soul. So, I am now wondering about the detours that lead us from the path we are intended to be on in the journey of soul making in our lives?
I noted in my exploration of the soul a year ago that none of the books I have that deal with the soul, including Soul Making, actually have a definition of soul. I turned to a definition of soul in 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.
Turning back to the idea of detours in the soul-journey Richard Rohr again addressed this in one of his Daily Meditations while I was away in Toronto:
Falling down and moving up is the most counter-intuitive message in most of the world’s religions, including Christianity. We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. That just might be the central message of how spiritual growth happens, yet nothing in us wants to believe it. I actually think it’s the only workable meaning of any remaining notion of “original sin.” There seems to have been a fly in the ointment from the beginning, but the key is recognizing and dealing with the fly rather than throwing out the whole ointment! (Richard Rohr)
It is my natural inclination to avoid detours in my life and unexpected things that throw me off my planned journey. However, I have to acknowledge that the detours in life are a part of life and the falling down on that journey will lead to places, both physically and spiritually, that may be what I am intended to take. If not that, at least what will open new possibilities and new awareness of where the spirit is calling me. So, those detours and even dead ends can lead to unexpected places and in this case tow wrongs may make a right.
May you be blessed by those detours on your journey and who knows where they may take you.
