Skip to main content

Real Soul Making

Some books I continue to return to in order to get a spiritual reminder or a spiritual boost.  One of those books is my friend Alan Jones’ book, Soul Making.  I find reading Jones a challenge, but always rewarding.  However, I also know that when I assign that book in one of my spirituality classes, the students seldom like it!  That usually makes me a little sad.  It is as if the students reject a little part of me.            

I think Jones’ book is so important to me because it came at a time when I was in a significant spiritual growth phase.  Simultaneously, I was also trying to figure out whether I could teach spirituality and, if so, how I would do it.  The idea of “soul making" was an eye-opener for me.  Growing up in a fairly rural Quaker meeting (church), I had only heard that language that affirmed people “had” souls.  Of course, at death the soul left the body and for many folks, the soul is what went to heaven.            

I never thought much about that.  When you hear stuff like that as a kid, you usually take it at face value.  At least I did.  So I assumed I “had” a soul.  But then in college I was asked to read classic authors and to learn to think, analyze and make up my own mind.  I still see that as a very healthy process.  I know religious fundamentalists do not see it as healthy; in fact, that is a threat.  But I am not a religious fundamentalist, so I am ok with thinking, analyzing and still making up my own mind.          

So I read Alan Jones and others who suggested that we “are” souls.  I began to see my soul more as an animating spirit.  I learned the language of soul is closely related to the idea of spirit.  Spirit is like wind or breath.  It was easy to connect soul to breath.  If I quite breathing, I “lose” my soul.  That does not necessarily mean my soul “dies.”  But it does mean when I quit breathing, my soul (my spirit) transforms---that is, it takes on another form.  When I die, I no longer will be an embodied soul, as I am now.         

But I do not want to talk about death.  Instead I want to talk about love and life and how those connect to soul.  It is here that I latch onto one of my favorite lines from Jones’ book, Soul Making.  He says, “Love is a gift or it is nothing.  Insofar as we are able to reject strategies of possessiveness and manipulation, the conditions are already set for the development of real soul making, real loving.”  I find sentences like that riveting.  It speaks of a truth deeper than I think I have yet known, but to which I am drawn.          

For a long time, I have been convinced that life and love go together---real life at least.  I am sure you can live without love, but it is not real life.  And as much as it chagrins me, I am confident that Jones is correct: love is a gift.  For some of us, this is fearful.  It causes us to fear because we are afraid we won’t be given the gift.  And if we happen to have been given the gift of love, we are tempted to hoard it out of fear that we will never be given any more.  We see love as a scarce commodity.          

But it’s not like that.  Love is a gift and the Giver offers it lavishly.  The Holy One deals with an abundance strategy, not a scarcity model.  But some of us find this hard to believe---that is, we have little faith.  So we are tempted to manipulate our situations to create or compel love.  Jones is quite right to advise us to reject such strategies of manipulation and coercion.  I really can’t compel you to love me.  I can try and you may have to fake it.  But genuine love is a gift.  I can only receive and say “thanks.”          

I like how Jones links real soul making and real loving.  Again that seems deeply true to me in ways I probably cannot articulate.  And I can add that real soul making and real loving amount to real living.  That is what the whole spiritual journey is about as far as I am concerned.  I am on that journey.  I am very content to call it soul making.            

I am happy to call this soul making cardiac development.  Of course, I am playing around with the word for “heart.”  Soul making is nothing more than the development of my heart---its enlargement, softening and deepening.  A heart developing in this fashion not only becomes more and more a loving heart.  It becomes a compassionate heart.  When this happens, we rightly begin to talk about that person as a person “with a heart for the world.”  That is a big heart!          

I am sure that a big-hearted person is a deeply soulful person.  This kind of person would be so soulful that it would be evident when you come into the presence of that person.  Their being would exude soulfulness.  They would reek of the Spirit’s scent.  Just being with them makes you feel better and more well.            

That kind of person models the soul making process.  Somehow they have done real soul making.  I am sure it is coming to know the gift of love, accepting it and incarnating it in such a way they become ambassadors of the Spirit in our world.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I-Thou Relationships

Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber.   I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s.   It was already a famous book by then.   I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it.   It has been a while since I looked at the book.             Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks?   I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece.   I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation.   I wish more people read him and took him seriously.           ...

Spiritual Commitment

I was reading along in a very nice little book and hit these lines about commitment.   The author, Mitch Albom, uses the voice of one of the main characters of his nonfiction book about faith to reflect on commitment.   The voice belongs to Albom’s old rabbi of the Jewish synagogue where he went until his college days.   The old rabbi, Albert Lewis, says “the word ‘commitment’ has lost its meaning.”    The rabbi continues in a way that surely would have many people saying, “Amen!”   About commitment he says, “I’m old enough when it used to be a positive.   A committed person was someone to be admired.   He was loyal and steady.   Now a commitment is something you avoid.   You don’t want to tie yourself down.”   I also think I am old enough to know that commitment was usually a positive word.   I can think of a range of situations in which commitment would have been seen to be positive.   For example, growing up was f...

Inward Journey and Outward Pilgrimage

There are so many different ways to think about the spiritual life.   And of course, in our country there are so many different variations of religious experiences.   There are liberals and conservatives.   There are fundamentalists and Pentecostals.   Besides the dizzying variety of Christian traditions, there are many different non-Christian traditions.   There are the major traditions, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on.   There are the slightly more obscure traditions, such as Sikhism, Jainism, etc.   And then there are more fringe groups and, even, pseudo-religions.   There are defining doctrines and religious practices.   Some of these are specific to a particular tradition or a few traditions, such as the koan , which is used in Zen Buddhism for example.   Other defining doctrines or practices are common across the religious board.   Something like meditation would be a good example.   Christians meditate;...