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.
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