3.3 Handmade, homemade soul
In my childhood church, I learned that my soul was…
Invisible, immaterial, insubstantial, and incorporeal.
Which are…
Adjectives of nothingness.
At the same time my soul was supposed to be a divine presence, because God shot it into my body at birth from his dwelling place in the heavens above, out there beyond the clouds, beyond the stratosphere where the airplanes travel. No wonder it felt cold. Outer–space cold.
In common parlance, the word soul is used to mean many things…
Essential self, transcendent spirit, deepest calling, driving passion, anchoring force, what makes you you, that something that survives death.
But I use it to mean just one thing…
My soul is my deeply personal, daily practice of moral decision-making.
My soul is not imported, it’s not divine…
It’s mine.
It’s…
A handmade, homemade soul.
I made it myself and I keep making it through my daily decisions. So it’s not a fixed or frozen thing. It grows, it matures. Which means…
My soul is developmental.
And I love this, because day by day as I wrestle with moral decisions—with decisions about people and about love—I become a deeper, richer person.
And I’m so thankful that I’m on my own journey and did not remain within the confines of my childhood church.
I am so thankful that…
I will never threaten a little child with the eternal torture of hell.
And that…
I will never force a little child to sacrifice her very self to the church or any institution.
And that…
I will never smother, in the name of righteousness, the love a little child naturally has for herself.
My soul, my personal soul, this soul I’ve made for myself, would not ever let me do such things.
Upgrading love is not a tribal project, it’s…
A deeply personal project.
It works only if…
You become your own person with a soul of your own.
But if my soul is so personal to me, does that mean it’s too much about me, too self–centered? Not so, because…
It’s not solo and it’s not selfish.
It doesn’t have a restrictive boundary.
Instead, I have…
A social soul.
It’s not socially–determined, but it is social. Which makes sense, because…
My relationships with other people are at the center of my concerns.
And that means…
I’ve got a moral soul.
It’s focused on…
How I want people to treat each other.
And…
How I want us to pull together to upgrade love.
I’m very fond of the word soul, but there are some days when I have a flashback to childhood and suddenly feel allergic to it. Not a problem, though, because I’ve got alternatives. Actually I think of “soul” as a nickname for…
What’s deepest in my heart.
And this is not just another pretty phrase, because that deepest place is…
My place of moral labor.
And moral contentment.
It’s where the always–part of me and the twist of grace are most at home. And where they team up so that I get to fight for myself and then fight for others in equal measure.
But sometimes, as another alternative, I like to use the word character when I want to talk about soul. To me, character means that…
You have deeply felt and deeply incorporated moral values that show up consistently in how you treat people.
Which brings me to trust. Sometimes I hear people talk about trust as an act of faith, as in, “I’m going to make the decision to trust him and I hope I’m right in doing so.”
But there’s also trust that doesn’t require a hopeful leap, not even a little one. It sounds like this…
“I trust you, because day after day you show up true to your deepest values, which includes caring about me.”
And if you’ve got that kind of trust going with somebody and they have it with you, notice how that mutuality…
Enriches love.
There are spiritual teachers who talk about the virtues of the life force, the drive to survive which is built into all living creatures.
In our case, for us humans, the life force long ago took the form of tribal fundamentalism, which sustained us against the odds for millennia, but no more. In fact…
That original life force has now become a death force.
So in our current era, we need to…
Replace that ancient tribal force with a new moral force of our own making.
And we need to ground it in nurturance not allegiance.
And I’m talking about…
Mutual nurturance.
Where mutual means inclusive. Where it means…
Transcending divisive boundaries.
Which is about as opposite as you can get from the deadly exclusiveness of tribal fundamentalism.
Developing a soul of your own does not mean you become a rugged individualist. Because even if we’re working hard to oppose the tribal way of life, still, we’re social beings. We’re not stand–alones. We need each other. We need community.
As you do the work of making your own personal soul, you’re deepening yourself, which means you’ll have more to give to the people around you. And then…
You can be part of making a new togetherness.
Togetherness that is…
Species-centered instead of tribe-centered.
In the world of activism, there’s a popular belief that activists should sacrifice themselves for the cause, because to take care of themselves is “selfish.”
But if in the center of your soul you have a deep moral caring about other people, then putting yourself first is not in the least bit selfish, because…
Caring for yourself includes caring for your moral core which includes caring for others.
A sweet synergy.
And so I believe the best gift we can give this failing species of ours is a personal moral soul, which is self–determined, self–nurturing, and self–celebrating. And…
Passionately inclusive.
When you decide to take personal charge of your soul you’re upgrading your self–love.
When you choose to make your moral decisions based on what’s deepest in your heart instead of obeying the divine mandates of the tribal God or the divine mandates of tribal fundamentalism, you become your own person. And then you get to make your own decisions about what love is and what love isn’t.
And you get to decide for yourself…
How you want to upgrade love.
And from this profound shift in your decision–making comes a cascade of blessings.
