Our soul is the deepest part of us where one encounters God and discovers their “true self.”
We are not bodies with a soul. We are souls with a body. The soul is not in our body. Our body is in our soul.
When all our possessions, accomplishments, and the constructs of our personality are gone, we are left with our soul.
When we enter our twilight years we may find that we are clumsy dance partners for our soul because we don’t really know our soul and have not nourished it.
So how do we “dance with our soul” gracefully?
Get to Know Your Soul
Spend time in silence. We have become so distracted by our TVs, phones, computers, and entertainment that we are unable to hear our soul speak.
In his book, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life, Parker Palmer writes, “The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, and yet shy. It lives in a very deep, hidden place, and it will only show itself to you if you are patient and quiet and tender enough to invite it out.”
When we invite our soul out through times of silence we may be dazzled by its beauty and dismayed by its wounds. Our soul’s beauty cannot be seen in a world of distraction. Our soul’s wounds cannot be healed until they are revealed.
“The ego gets what it wants with words. The soul finds what it needs in silence.”
Richard Rohr, A Spring Within Us
Silence is the music our soul dances to.
Feed Your Soul
Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash“>Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Make time for your soul. Our soul needs nourishment if it is to thrive. Sacred writings, poetry, music, time in nature, participation in a community of faith, contemplative prayer, and, journaling all feed our soul.
Our soul is like a garden. Garden’s need tending and watering to thrive.
“And although God is the artist, and each created being bears God’s mark, the work of the soul’s unfolding is a co-creative labor involving each person as a participant with God.”
Norvene Vest
Our phones have an app telling us how much screen time we have spent. Maybe someone should make an app to track our soul time.
If we make time for our souls in the twilight of life, when we step onto the dance floor of eternity, we will know how to boogie!