Being at one with our soul
Arriving at the least tangible part of who we are—our soul…
It contains the essence of who we are, yet we don’t know what it looks like.
Its beginning predates our birth, and its end is potentially infinite. Something our minds struggle to grasp.
The ultimate unknowing, which is also the ultimate being.
And in our materialistic, finite world where we are used to measuring and judging, it’s no wonder we may be less comfortable considering our souls.
I don’t know the answers either...
But I know it is a crucial dimension of our being and connects us at the deepest level.
Soul friends—anam cara—are what we long for yet are often afraid to cultivate because they require us to open up and be vulnerable at a level that feels scary and beyond our control.
So, we need safe spaces to explore our souls. And containers that honour our being and our unknowing, including the sense that we are intrinsically part of something much bigger than ourselves.
This is sacred space.
Pause. See differently. Re-story…
This week
Walking through the week and exploring elements of who we are: our eyes and sight, our ears and mouth, our silence, our mind, our heart, and now our soul.
A few good words
This week was also the anniversary of the death of Francis of Assisi in 1226. His simple rule of life was passionate devotion to God and people, humility, and love for the whole of creation. It endures in his Canticle of the Sun, other writings and the Franciscan order. It was captured in contemporary language in the well-known prayer written in the early 20th century:
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PEACE PRAYER OF ST FRANCIS
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offence, let me bring pardon.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that I receive,
it is in self-forgetting that I find,
it is in pardoning that I am pardoned,
and in dying that I am raised to eternal life.
+ Anonymous, first published in French in ‘La Clochette’ (The Little Bell), a small spiritual magazine, in 1912