"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
Blessed be, dear friends. Can you imagine your soul as Life breathing in a delicate, interconnected Oneness, a mutual dance of Wholeness with ALL that is? Who can answer the invitation to beome conscious of our soul's interbeing, interweaving, with the World Soul? In egvery moment, how we live, think, pray and act awakens our soul or allows our soul to sleep. A Great Awakener, activate our souls that we may embrace and answer our own unique divine Call. May gratitude become our soul-song!
I think God for waking me up. Every day when I wake up, it's like God is giving my soul a new chance to be good.
Like justness in a judge's decision, or beauty in a painting, soul is a quality of absoluteness in something relative. Understood profoundly, people are connected to the holiness of the world in such a way that they reveal a dimension of holiness in themselves, a dimension of depth that is absolute.
The soul fills the body,
as God fills the world.
The soul bears the body,
as God bears the world.
The soul outlasts the body,
as God outlasts the world.
The soul is one in the body,
as God is One in the world.
The soul sees and is not seen,
as God is seen and is not seen.
The sould is pure in the body,
as God is pure in the world.
In 2000, while I was in the hospital for by-pass surgery, an old man called out for help each night. All the prayers for his comfort and quiet seemed to float away. One night I found myself saying,
"Old man, you are not going to be miserable this night. My soul is coming over and our souls are going out dancing!"
I don't have a rational explantion, I only know he was quiet that night, my soul uplifted. I believe our souls danced that night. The next day the old man died. Such is the power of Spirit in our lives.
Each of us is a soul. We have been told that we "have" a soul, but that's not the same thing. To have a soul would indicate that we are primarily an ego or a personality that in some way "possesses" a soul. Our essence IS the soul and all aspects of ego and personality flow from that essence. At its core the soul is pure, but habits, tendencies, and imbalances often obscure some of that inner light. Our spiritual work is to correct whatever shortcomings may be preventing the light of our sould from shining through.
The soul is the greening life force of the flesh, for the body grows and prospers through her, just as the earth becomes fruitful when it is moistened. The soul humidifies the body so it does not dry out, just like the rain which soaks into the earth.
When Magdalena entered the room the next time, Inigo asked her for paper and ink. He had found the formula and did not want it to slip from his mind.
"In those who proceed from good to better, the good spirit touches such a soul gently and softly as when water drops upon a sponge, and the evil spirit strikes it sharply and noisily, causing disquiet as when water drops upon a stone."
I shall pray to seek You
with my whole heart ...
I dwell in Your Presence
even when my thoughts becfome devious.
It is too much to bear alone
when my eyes turn from You,
You are in my soul to stay,
my home is in Your Presence.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like god in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of the soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others -- both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
Each of us is a separate and sacred being, a being made most real when it weaves itself into the pattern of all Being. The harmony of all Being includes each of us within it, and its health requires our individual effort. So we live; each of us a needed part of the Universal Soul -- each in all, and all in each, one pattern, one truth, one body.
When the prayer makers thought of the soul as a garden, they liked to picture in it the Creator setting a breeze into motion and the flowers of the soul to dancing. On a gray morning or a dark night, in late autumn or in barren years as much as in brighter times, the imagination of such dancing signals that divine activity is all around us, only waiting to be recognized. May the prayer and the dreams that goodness might displace everything that is flawed in the soul come to be realized for another dancing day.
Our soul makes constant noise, but it has a silent place we never hear. When the silence of God enters us, pierces our soul, and joins its silent sacred palce, then God is our treasure and our heart. And space opens before us like a fruit that breaks in two. Then we see the universe from a point beyond space.
My soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neithr sleeps, nor dreams, but watches,
its eyes wide open, sees
far-off things, and listens
at the shore of the great silence.
Soul is not in the universe,
on the contrary,
the universe is in Soul.