Reflective Reading: Soul

I find myself craving less noise, and more quiet right now. Less pontificating and more wisdom. Maybe you can relate? As I write this I’m listening to Carrie Newcomer (she has been the soundtrack of my spring 2020) Her song Cedar Rapids 10AM is playing, and these words just caught my attention: “Take away all the white noise. It’s getting hard to hear. Souls stretched as thin as tissue paper. Edged with cuts and tears.” Exactly the right words for the moment. (I hope you’ll take a moment to listen to her sing.) As a reader and collector of words, all I can offer in these confusing times are a few gentle, thoughtful ideas that are helping me. Perhaps you too can find some nourishment, challenge, or encouragement. Reflective Reading asks us to slow down, savor the words, the meaning, the emotions and learn any small (or large) lesson that we might gather from the wisdom and experience of others. I like to ask myself three questions when I find passages that seem to be shimmering with something more than meets the eye. What word or phrase stands out? How does this passage make me feel? Is there an invitation for me to think, act, or be different? I made a downloadable document with these passages. Get out your pens, markers, and pencils and circle, highlight, draw on the page. (It’s free, don’t let the “cart” scare you!) Download the passages here: “The call of soul is a call to belonging, descent, and grounding.  Soul penetrates the particularities of our life.  It invites us to learn what the lessons of triumph and achievement never can teach us.  Only suffering and struggle, and all the dark experiences that come with them, will grow a soul big enough to hold our life.  This happens when we ground ourselves in the blood, sweat, and tears of ordinary life.  Rather than rising above these things, soul calls us to find life and meaning in the midst of them.” David G. Benner, PhD. Soulful Spirituality: Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human “When we catch sight of the soul, we can become healers in a wounded world-in the family, in the neighborhood, in the workplace, and in political life-as we are called back to our “hidden wholeness” amid the violence of the storm.”  Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward and Undivided Life “Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are but, more often than not, God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.” Frederick Buechner  Whistling in the Dark If you like these questions, please consider SUBSCRIBING to The Art of Powering Down; Questions to Recharge Your Soul… Every week there is a question that will gently challenge you, encourage you, or help you live your life with more intention, grace, and purpose. (Sharing these reflections and questions with friends is the greatest compliment!)

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