In Defense Of The Wolf

Last night I read the age old story The Boy Who Cried Wolf to my 4 year old. He was mostly asleep by the end of the story but I was enjoying watching how beautiful he is as he goes to sleep and, at the same time lost in thought about the story. You might wonder how someone could be lost in thought over such a simple story but it's a gift I posses to over-think things, sometimes one that doesn't work in my favor, to look at many angles at once or, to at least consider them eventually. As I read through the story for what seemed like the 50th time, this was one that I considered eventually.

After telling this story to 3 kids over the years I started considering the wolf in this story, and even the child. The story is written to teach a lesson about lying and credibility, one that actually is important to us for one of our children that struggles in the area of telling big fish stories. As with all stories that are written myopically, they leave the whole of reality out in the effort to prove a particular point. Point in case here, lying will eventually cause your credibility to fall.

In the case of the boy in the story, the point here was he had no credibility in the end for telling a particular lie so many times. The point of this age old story is to teach that lying is bad because no one believed him anymore. As I thought about this point though, it wasn't completely true as someone did trust him enough to let him continue watching the sheep. He had just lost credibility in the area of lying about the wolf however he obviously could be credible to watch the innocent sheep and keep them safe unless the owner(s) were just trying to get him out of town at the expense of a few sheep.

This idea about overgeneralizing stood out to me because it is very typical human behavior for most of us, we tend to generalize our thoughts about a person, an idea or even an event instead of just looking at at the grey areas in between the black and white, or just considering that we may have just a fragment of information about the subject in question. How many times I have looked at someone differently after hearing someone's observation or critique, almost looking for evidence that this is true. It could be something as small as someone telling you "they are very greedy," all of a sudden you are looking for evidence of greed in that persons life. Once you think you see something that aligns with what you heard, say that person asks you to grab lunch or you notice a particular behavior that might look greedy, now you have all the evidence you need to confirm "yes, this person is greedy", and "yep they were right, she certainly is greedy." Now the whole of that person is greedy and everything they do is motivated by greed somehow. The mind now filters that person as a greedy person, and you begin to see them through this filter, almost everything they do can seem like it's motivated by greed. Even when they appear to do something that looks giving or unselfish we may suspect something else as even their motivations are scrutinized.

One of the best stories I have ever read about this particular process, one that I try to remember often to practice the idea of being present, is the story about a man loosing a hammer. It goes something like this.

A boy liked to come over to his neighbors house often to visit. The two were friends and the older man liked the boy. One day the man was out at his garage making repairs to his gutter with his shiny new hammer. He became thirsty and went in for a drink, when he came back out he found his hammer was gone. The man looked across the fence and there was the boy next door out playing in his yard. The man went to get another hammer but made keen note of the fact that the boy didn't come over all afternoon. As a matter of fact, he didn't even look the old mans way that day.

The old man became very disappointed as he noticed the boy did not come over the next 2 days to visit. This was obviously guilty behavior and the old man became sure the boy stole his hammer. On the third day the boy did come over and the man observed that he wasn't saying as much as usual, and seemed to be behaving erratically. He even saw the boy avoiding eye contact.

A few days later, the man was out at his garage on a windy day and noticed that there was something metallic shining through the leaves. He walked over and found that the hammer was exactly where he had put it a few days ago, on the ground, but covered up by the leaves of fall which he had not raked up yet.

Notice how the mans filter was turned on the moment he allowed the idea that the boy could be guilty penetrate his thoughts. Notice how he was looking for evidence to support that judgment every time he looked at the boy after that. The old adage, "we see what we seek" comes to mind here. This story makes me think that's it's important to ask myself "what am I seeking?" What is it we are looking for in others, based on preconceived notions? What is it I am looking for in myself, to prove things others have said about me, or even generalizations I have pronounced on myself?

Looking back at the boy in the Boy Who Cried Wolf story, I see a boy who could have been pronounced untrustworthy by many in the town, however there was at least one farmer who trusted him to take his sheep. In other words he wasn't a bad boy necessary even though many in the town may have considered him untrustworthy altogether.

How about our antagonist in the story - the dreaded wolf? Wolves throughout history have been portrayed as big, bad, ugly, mean and yes, sly. Why villainize the wolf? These ideas reach far back into the very survival instinct of man, the predator trying to steal what is innocent. What is more innocent and helpless as a sheep? These images are supported by age old stories from ancient parables, stories and even biblical text. We could very easily just say "wolves are bad and deserve our judgment" which would certainly be reinforced by enough stories to make you feel justified but isn't that what we do with entire cultures or races of people?

Isn't the wolf just trying to sustain it's life? The wolf is an animal that's very nature requires it to hunt to live; It must find, track down and kill to sustain life. Are we so different? Sure we go to the grocery store to find our packaged meat in a modern day system that removes us very far from the idea that something had to die for you to live. The wolf doesn't have this same process to sustain it's life so he must hunt. Some studies have recently shown that just giving food to animals who have been hunting their food down for thousands of years creates anxiety and a loss of motivation. Many zoo's have taken action on this information and begun to put food out in containers that lions have to tear open in order to eat. Animals that could be observed sitting listlessly, laying around in groups before, can now be seen playfully ripping into containers filled with hay and meat with a renewed vigor.

So what's the point of all this? I have none. Some ideas may be that many stories and parables are designed to make a point, but by making one point we are automatically denying someone's reality or experience. Maybe another idea is that you while your trying to tell a story about someone, something or some idea, you may be narrowly trying to prove some point or value you have while objectifying certain ideas or people in the process. Sounds like something to consider anyway. Mostly I just thought the wolf got a bad rap for just being a wolf.

Something else the story made me think of is the observation that as I get older I have less of a desire to make a point. When I was younger my whole existence screamed to make a point, and oddly enough most of them where wrong even though I would have bet my very life, and yours, on the notion that I was as right as rain. As I get older I spend much of my time trying to unlearn all that I thought was so solid and along the way have less a desire to make a point.

Walking in the Spirit - Nothing To Do With Walking At All

How many times have we heard the expression "walking in the Spirit" or "walk in the Spirit"? It's a common expression that I think Christians use quite often in normal discussion about their walk with God. It is derived from the new testament where Paul mentions walking in the Spirit as something that believers need to do so they won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. Sounds like some mandatory stuff to me.

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."

"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

So the big question becomes how do we do this walking in the Spirit?

Intuitively it seems that there is some sort of cognitive action and focus we would need to have to enact a walk in the Spirit. Sounds right. Walking of course involves action and will, you must decide to get up and move your feet to walk. So putting an action involving the temporal body, "walking", with a term that sounds very other-worldly "spirit", sounds like mixing your physical chocolate with my existential peanut butter.

So walking in the Spirit sounds like trying to bring your life in line with the Spirit. It stands to reason then that there would be an assumption that you have some way of walking in this life that would be a form of walking in the Spirit right? It sounds like a godly way of walking in this world, a way of letting the Spirit walk through you perhaps - but ah this is where the rub is my friends. This is where you start measuring and comparing how you are walking in the Spirit verses how you were yesterday, how your mind thinks you ought to be walking and how others are walking in it compared to you. This leads to nothing but bondage of the most selfish creation. I know, trust me, I gave walking in the Spirit my best efforts for years only to find that it was exhausting trying to keep up with what that was supposed to look and feel like. Not to mention the mental exhaustion of comparing yourself to everyone else and how they were walking.

If you examine the scriptures a little more closely we can find a key to greater happiness in the Lord and a more fulfilling life by learning that our original assumptions about what walking in the Spirit were off, way off.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1

"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:3

Here is the wonderful truth that, if embraced fully, will set you free in your mind from the law of sin and death. YOU couldn't walk in the Spirit no matter how hard you tried so Jesus did it for you. Walking in the Spirit is something that you do by nature not because you try to do it. Walking in the Spirit is Christ living through you because of what He did on the cross and His resurrection, not because you are living a godly life.

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" Romans 8:2

There is one requirement for you to walk in the Spirit, and guess what, it isn't that you read, pray, fast and walk in holiness - whatever your mind has conceived that to be. The one requirement is here:

"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Romans 8:9

You walk in the spirit, have your being in the Spirit and live in the Spirit because the Spirit dwells in you by faith. It has nothing to do with your efforts, your striving or your trials, it's all because of Him.

In galations 3:2 Paul says

"This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?"

Your answer?


There is no more condemnation isn't just a statement of faith that we must confess, hoping that it's true for us even when we feel sinful, it is a truth of infinite value. There is no more condemnation because you are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit.

A Toltec Prayer

I love this prayer and I think it's a good one to use each day or each time I can remember it.

I hope it finds room in your heart.

This is the prayer from the book The Four Agreements.

Today, Creator of the Universe, we ask that you come to us and share with us a
strong communion of love. We know that your real name is Love, that to
have a communion with you mean to share the same vibration, the same frequency
that you are, because you are the only thing that exists in the
universe.

Today, help us to be like you are to love life, to be life, to be
love. Help us to love the way you love with no conditions, no
expectations, no obligations without any judgment. Help us to love and
accept ourselves without any judgment, because when we judge ourselves, we find
ourselves guilty and we need to be punished.

Help us to love everything you create unconditionally, especially other human beings, especially those who live around us –all our relatives and people whom we try so hard to love. Because when we reject them we reject ourselves. And when we reject ourselves, we reject you.

Help us to Love others just the way they are with no conditions. Help us to accept them the way they are, without judgment.
Because if we judge them we find them guilty, we blame them and we have the need to punish them.

Today, clean our hearts of any emotional poisons that we have, free our minds from any judgment so that we can live in complete peace
and complete love.

Today is a very special day, Today we open our hearts to love again so that we can tell each other “I love you.” Without any fear, and really mean it. Today, we offer ourselves to you. Come to us, use our voices, use our eyes, use our hands, and use our hearts to share ourselves in a communion of love with everyone. Today, Creator, help us to be just like you are. Thank you for everything that we receive this day,

especially for the freedom to be who we really are. AMEN

Dark Night of the Soul--Part 2

This is the second of a two-part entry

Just because the dark night happens for all of us, and it's not necessarily a fun time; it doesn't mean it has to be completely morose and somber. In fact, it can serve as a great opportunity to develop your ironic sense of humor. Now of course there's humor that's just plain bitter or mean that can be borne from suffering, but there's also a healthy humor that comes from looking at the absurdity in your situation and can be very therapeutic in the dark night. I'll go back to my dad as an example of this. Years before he was diagnosed, he bought a cancer insurance policy. This policy paid you the cost of each procedure performed on you. Since his regular health insurance covered the treatments and procedures, he would get a check from his cancer insurance after every procedure and that was just extra money. He told me with a grin that while cancer wasn't a barrel of laughs, on the upside it was a pretty lucrative part-time job. We'd also go over to my Grandparents' home frequently on Friday nights and play cards. And if you were playing Spades with my Dad and trumped one of his good cards you can bet you'd hear something along the lines of, "oh, sure pick on the guy with the brain tumor." By him turning a humorous eye to the situation we all were able to find humor in the situation. We were so fortunate to be with him when he died. It was such a powerful, worshipful, sad, gut-wretching, unifying, real soulful experience to be there to send him off to the next chapter. And as we were standing around him waiting for him to go, my dad's not quite petite daughter crawled up on his frail little body and somebody said, "hmm. Look's like Jill's gonna help him along a little bit here." And even in that setting we found cause for laughter. A personal example is when Ronda and I were going through infertility treatment (which, as anyone who has been through it can attest, is about as much fun as ripping your own arm off and beating yourself with it) and I turned it into a stand-up comedy routine. It certainly helped me to laugh at it along the way through that dark night; and of course in retrospect that particular dark night could not have turned out any more perfect for me so I'm hard pressed to label it as "bad." I had to go through that time to get where I am today, so why not laugh some along the way?

While it can be very helpful to find laughter in the darkness we need more than humor to get through the rough spots. Every night when we put the girls to bed we say prayers. It's pretty informal. Sometimes mom or dad says one and the kid say one. Sometimes just the kid, sometimes just the parent; whatever. Abby has always liked to pray but Molly's been more hesitant. Well earlier this year Molly had a nightmare that completely rocked her world. She was literally terrified following this dream. The night after this dream she spent at her Grandma's house and she was still shaken; so Grandma Nancy did two things to help, 1) she slept in the bed with Molly, and 2) she prayed with her. Something about this grandma prayer helped Molly literally fall in love with talking to God. Now she has to say a prayer every night, and I have to say one with her. She told me recently that it made her feel good to pray because even though she was still scared of falling asleep (and she is, we still have to leave the lamp and the night light on) it was nice to know that God was with her. Jesus tells us in the bible that he will not leave us comfortless. Experience shows us that praying will not always immediately change our circumstances, but we are promised companionship, even in the midst of our dark nights.

Molly even filled out a prayer card at church regarding her nightmare and it was shared with the congregation. She then got a phone call from a concerned couple that wanted to pray with her. They said, "we're so glad Molly filled out that card, otherwise we never would have known this was an issue for her." It made me realize that when we're in the midst of a dark night we have to reach out to others for support. And it reminded me of the quote that goes, "we are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly by embracing each other." There is support to be found in prayerful union directly with God. But God uses people too, and they can't comfort us if they don't know there's an issue.

I want to end with one of my favorite anecdotes. The story goes that after WWII there was a poem found on the wall of a room where some Jews had hidden from the Nazi's. It read:

I believe in the sun even when it does not shine.

I believe in love even when it is not shown.

I believe in God even when he does not speak.

Part of the price of admission for living on this planet is going through times when the sun isn't shining, when love seems absent, and when God is silent. But it's often during these times that new wisdom and gifts reveal themselves and its often under these conditions that our souls grow and transform. Accept that dark nights are a part of life. Look for opportunities to laugh along the way. And find the courage to lean on God and each other. And, as Molly will tell you, even if you still have to leave the lights on at night; that's okay.

Dark Night of the Soul--Part 1

The following is the first installment of a two-part entry:

The mysterious "soul" has dominated my spiritual musings over the last several years. I find its slippery nature and ability to elude definition absolutely fascinating. And as I've discussed aspects of the soul with various people, this idea of the "dark night of the soul" seems to pique the most interest. I think that's because the loneliness, pain, and redemption of the dark night resonates with nearly everyone. Most people have been through at least one dark night of the soul, and maybe many. And if you have, then you know the agony, the feelings of solitude and hopelessness that accompany the dark night. But, maybe, hopefully, you can also attest to the growth that comes during the shadow times. In my previous "soul" entries, I kind of skirted around the issue of really defining the soul, but I suggested that the soul happens at the intersection of human and the divine. It's where the most temporal, fragile, non-permanent parts of ourselves meet up with the most divine part of us, which is God. So at this intersection we have our practical self, the part of us that lives each day here; and we've got our divine self, the very breath of God mentioned in Genesis. And we've got our evolving self: that part of us that is becoming whatever it is we choose to be during our time here on this planet.

And just like each day on this planet is marked by both light and darkness; each life on this planet is marked by both comforting times and shadow times. And for better or worse we often learn more about ourselves from the periods of pain. So what exactly is a dark night? Well we're dealing with the soul here so definitions become a bit slippery and don't tend to stay inside the walls we make for them. But essentially, a dark night is a time when we may feel alone and perhaps neglected by God. This can be brought on by any number of circumstances: a failing marriage, illness, children in trouble, work trouble, financial trouble, spiritual seeking that seems to go nowhere, and the list goes on.

There is one distinction I want to make, and it is a subtle one. I'm not necessarily talking about clinical depression here. Depression is a sickness that needs some form of treatment to regulate or hopefully heal. A dark night is often a doorway to a spiritual ordeal. It is a meaningful event. It's not something to be "healed" from as much as it is an opportunity for enrichment. It's a chance to wait on God and see what wisdom and gifts might present themselves. It's a chance to practice patience and maybe live a little smaller than we're used to. Clinical depression may very well be a dark night of the soul; but while waiting on God, some form of treatment should be sought. As with all things "soul," definitions are slippery here and hard and fast rules often only confuse.

Now the darkness I refer to isn't necessarily something sinister. It just means that especially during these times there are things happening to us that aren't readily seen. That the soul is changing in ways that may not come to light for some time. There are some things that can't be learned in the full light of the day. About a year ago I was putting my youngest daughter, Abby, to bed. I turned out the light, went over and sat on her bed, and as I bent down to give her a kiss and tell her how much I loved her something caught my eye. I looked up and noticed a whole row of glow-in-the-dark stickers Abby had put on the wallpaper in her room. So I reached up to peel the first one off, and it started to tear the wall paper. Long story short, a year later the stickers are still there, and that evening I sent Abby into her own dark night of the soul (just kidding!). The point is that just like those glow-in-the-dark stickers there is wisdom and understanding that can only be illuminated under cover of darkness. And while that is true, it's also a lot easier to say than it is to deal with. So what are we to do with these times?

Matthew 26:36-44

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me." And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt." And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? "Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done." And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more....

Here we have Jesus, God incarnate, facing his own dark night and one of the lessons he gives us is to accept it. He is terrified nearly to the point of death, and he asks God to take it away, but ultimately he embraces God's will. A more contemporary example is Nelson Mandela, who fought against the apartheid government in South Africa and spent 27 years in prison. Certainly that could be considered a dark night, yet rather than grow bitter he embraced his time and used it to become a courageous and compassionate leader who, upon his release, changed the government of his country and inspired the world. An example that hits closer to home to me is my own father. He died from cancer several years ago. But before he died from cancer, he lived with it for 11 years. Shortly before he died, he told me about the weight of the illness hitting him especially hard one day. He had come home from a business trip in the middle of the afternoon, it was raining outside and he was all alone. He said he laid on the couch and cried, feeling alone, abandoned, sad, and angry. And even while the tears and fears were quite real, he worked hard and eventually found a way to give back: counseling many people who were dealing with their own cancers. He used to say that, "God may not have given me this time with cancer but he sure is helping me use it." He also used to say that although he hadn't been cured of his cancer, he had been healed. He became more compassionate and less dogmatic. His "religiousness" gave way to a beautiful spirituality and he experienced God in many new and different ways. That healing took place by embracing his situation, looking for the blessings and sharing those. And he became a wounded healer himself, helping others along their own path to healing.

Jesus' garden, Mandela's prison cell, and my father's empty living room were all cocoons of sorts. They were the environments in which the soul grows and experiences a new birth.

In the next entry I'll explore some ways to deal with the dark nights

What is the Soul? Part 2

This is the second of a two-part entry.

When my wife and I were going through the process to adopt, we were told the Chinese story of the red thread. Basically it says that we are connected by an invisible red thread to everyone were supposed to come in contact with. Now how a thread can be both invisible and red they didn't explain. But the idea is that the connection between your child and you has always existed, even when you were half-way around the world apart from each other. And in this connection with each other we find another place where the soul reveals itself and blooms; that's at the intersection of you and me. The Apostle Paul tells us we are all part of the same body, the body of Christ. And if we are all part of the same body then surely we are all connected at the soul level. And let's face it, humans are pack animals and we need connection with others. For example, if you eat at a restaurant next to Abby she will undoubtedly end up on your lap or wallowing next to you. The kid has this incredible desire to feel physically connected all the time. Several years ago, Molly was missing an aunt of hers who had died and I told her that if she just thought about her, she could always feel Aunt Marie in her heart. Molly considered that for a moment, saying nothing. Then she looked at me and said, "Daddy I think that's where heaven is, I think it's in our hearts." Boy, the truth of that statement hit me hard. If we're all connected to God at the soul level and we're all connected to each other at the soul level than why wouldn't heaven actually be in the heart of each and every one of us? And sometimes when we embrace that need for connection and don't hold so tightly to our own identity, we can have some incredibly soulful experiences.

I was in grad school during the first Gulf War, and in the tutoring center where I worked there was some tension. Not only did we help the international students with their speaking and writing skills, but we had one international student on staff. His name was Ahmed, he was Muslim, and he was from Sudan in Africa. So the only differences Ahmed had from the rest of us in the tutoring center were his color, culture, race, and religion. Unfortunately he became a target for some of the other staff members fear of all things Muslim. This really bothered me, so I decided to try and befriend him. We talked about why he was in America and what he wanted to accomplish when he went back to Sudan. We talked about the similarities in his beliefs and mine. We talked about our families: mine two hours away by car, and his half-way round the world. And we found out that we weren't that different. The semester came to a close and we said our good-byes and that was that. Except it wasn't. The next day I was walking in a rain storm back to my apartment from campus just getting drenched, and thinking some of those words that Billy Ray Cyrus Jesus used to get mad at me about. As I was walking I heard a horn honking. As I turned to see who it was the window rolled down and Ahmed said "get in, get in." He was headed out of town and to the airport to go back to Sudan. So I got in, and he took me to my driveway. Before I got out, he grabbed my hand, and said, "my friend it is so good see you." And at that point something beautiful happened and our souls made a real connection. We sat there, holding hands, both of us with tears streaming down our faces. And in that moment all labels fell away, American, African, Muslim, Christian, none of it mattered. At that moment our souls sat in a quiet contentment as if we'd known each other for all eternity. And I believe on the soul level we have.

There is a sanskrit word: Namaste, and it means that the divine in me blesses and honors the divine in you. It's typically said as a greeting. That is what happened that day for me and Ahmed. We sat next to each other in his burgundy little Honda experiencing Namaste. There is a beautiful poem that expresses this perfectly. It was written by Rumi, who was a Sufi mystic, and it goes like this:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.

What is the soul? I don't know how to define it. But I believe the soul happens at the point where human meets divine. I believe it blossoms when the smallest, most vindictive, poutiest part of you is fully embraced, loved, and accepted by the most divine part of you. And I believe it takes flight when you and I acknowledge our connection and accept each other just as we are. Namaste.

What is the Soul?

The following is the first installment of a two-part entry:

If you want the short answer to the question, "what is the soul?" it's this: I don't know. But if you have time, read on and I'll attempt a deeper dive into the question. In his book Consilience, E. O. Wilson noted that sociology has identified belief in a soul as one of the universal human cultural elements. Every culture has some type of belief in the soul, and yet no one has really been able to concretely define it. For some reason the ability of "soul" to stand outside the gates of a strict definition is part of what makes it so appealing to me. Turning to the "wisdom" of childhood I asked my six-year-old, Abby, "what is the soul?" And she said, "oh you mean like after you sell something." No help there (but even though she got the word wrong, I was kind of impressed that she got the tense right). Then I went to ask the eight-year-old and she said, "um, yeah, I think it's like when you . . . actually I have no idea." And she went back to watching tv. So much for the "mouths of babes."

But then I don't know what I expected. Children think in concrete terms, and as I mentioned earlier, the soul is far too fluid to be confined to a concrete definition. When I was a child I had the concrete faith of a child. I knew who God was, I knew who Jesus was. I knew where they lived--up there in heaven somewhere. I knew what they looked like. God looked kind of like a bright white star, and Jesus looked kind of like Billy Ray Cyrus. Only he frowned at me a lot because I'd get mad at people and think bad words in my head. Well as I've grown, I've found it harder and harder to grasp exactly what God is . . . I just can't seem to construct a definition whose walls God is content to stay inside. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, "I can't define pornography but I know it when I see it." Well I feel much the same way about the soul. I can't define it, but I know it when I feel it. So rather than trying to define what the soul is I want to discuss the relationships in which the soul blossoms and reveals itself.

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”—Genesis 2:7 To me this scripture gives us the first relationship that reveals the soul and that's the relationship of human and divine. Here we have this beautiful explanation of how we are made from the physical stuff of this earth, but that we also have the unseen breath of God in us. It means there is more to us than meets the eye; and boy am I thrilled about that. When I was in college my sister, Jill, had a new friend over to the house who had never met me in person and she saw a picture of Jill and me on the mantel over the fireplace and said, "Oh, is this your brother? I'm so sorry, I didn't know he was mentally challenged." Let me tell you, I for one am glad that there is more to me than meets the eye. Each person is a unique aspect of God. That thought used to be for me, like a millstone around my neck because I could never live up to these expectations I'd made for myself as someone who supposedly had Christ within me. That goes back to Billy Ray Cyrus Jesus I mentioned earlier that scowled at me a lot because I couldn't live up to how I thought he wanted me to be. But the soul is the synthesis of the spiritual and the physical, the perfect and the imperfect, the strong and the weak. It lives at the intersection of the human and divine. This world is full of people who are focused purely on the physical, and that typically leads to hard times. But there are others who try to shun everything in this physical world and deny themselves every physical desire and we can find plenty of examples of that not working out so well, either. Personally, I'm inspired by people who seem able to embrace both aspects of themselves.

If you've read the books or seen "The Lord of the Rings" movies you're familiar with the wizard Gandalf. It's certainly not a stretch to say that his character is a Christ metaphor. The author of "The Lord of the Rings," JRR Tolkien, was a self-professed Christian and great personal friends with Christian author CS Lewis. As the story begins, Gandalf is known as Gandalf the Grey and he's a bit dingy and mysterious and almost scary. In the first third of the trilogy he dies, but later re-emerges in the story. He's back to life and all cleaned up. He's no longer dingy, but now brilliant. And the "new" Gandalf is no longer as mysterious or scary as he is awe-inspiring. Finally, and perhaps not suprisingly his name has changed from Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White. And at this point in the story I always get a little sad. I love Gandalf the Grey, but Gandalf the White seems unapproachable to me; somehow not real. In popular culture the word soul tends to be equated with the word "real." Soul music is real music, that touches you at your core. I want my heroes, I want my savior, to be righteous and concerned for others, but I also want them to be comfortable slipping out behind the building to share a dirty joke with the smokers. I want my heroes to be soulful/real, to be a mix of the human and the divine. And to me, it's at this crossroads of the spiritual and temporal that soul really begins to reveal itself.

In the next entry I'll explore another way the soul reveals itself.