Musing #2:  Soul Searching

Last Sunday I was listening to the news on the radio.  A reporter was talking to a man in Derna, Libya, where the catastrophic flooding took place – as I write it is known to have taken 11,000 lives.  The man had travelled to Derna with a group of his friends.  They were taking a boat out to sea, diving and looking for bodies.  They were bringing the bodies back one by one.  The reporter asked how he was coping with what he was doing.  He talked about his spirit being broken but he added: There’s something inside that keeps us going.

I’m not totally sure what I understand the human soul to be.  It is not a physical organ and, as far as I am aware, it is not something that psychologists have named as such.  What I notice is that there is this ‘something’ inside us as human beings.  And if you’re listening, and noticing, you start to see it and hear it: you start to become aware of a whole world that is going on at a different level – a deeper level.

I love words, and the word soul is one to look out for and savour.  If you are someone who reads the Bible look out for the word soul.  Consider how it is used; what it is meaning.  But you don’t have to open a sacred text to find soul: soul-mate; soul music; soul food.  When I hear the word soul I find it is good to ponder why it is being used – what is it getting at.  There is, of course, a dictionary definition but I’m not sure that really helps us feel what soul is about.  As we ponder its use I think we edge around it – gradually closing in on it; we add layers to its meaning and give it its intrinsic depth; and we feel it in our own souls.  Our souls echo back that understanding.

Yesterday I was cleaning, and I spotted a spiders web.  Not the pretty kind – the kind that hang around like an elongated piece of dust.  Once I’d removed it I spotted another, and another… I’d tuned into spider webs and suddenly I saw them everywhere!  I think we can do the same with soul.  Noticing it in one place will help us to observe it in other places.  And observing it ‘out there’ in other human beings will encourage our own soul: in some intangible way that eternal part of our self will know it is seen and cherished.  Which speaks of our connection, as human beings and creatures, at a soul level…

Is it something you feel?  I’d love to know!

 

PS Had to go and listen to this wonderful song by Labi Siffre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B-4Lsrx8IA