fine & pure self-reflection
Perhaps it is a reflection of the individualism in current philosophies that the phrase ‘care of the soul’ is sometimes taken to mean work on one’s individual psyche or personality. Older philosophies recognize that the soul has individual, social, and cosmic dimensions, and so we can speak of a person’s soul, a nation’s soul, and the soul of the world. History has demonstrated how difficult it is to tend both one’s own agendas and the other’s well-being. The stories of our past show only fleeting moments of ‘the sweet communion of life.’ The work is so difficult that it is tempting to find enemies everywhere we look, especially outside our own community. We often approach our goals with a false innocence, pretending that our national interest or religious convictions offer exclusive criteria for the morality of our behavior. Moral pollution weakens a society, but a people can restore itself through visible, tangible, honest reflection and repentance. The religions of the world unite in teaching us the importance of such rituals, and only a society that has forgotten the religious and spiritual roots of community could pollute itself without remorse…..Thomas Moore
returning to love is brave and stark…like the clear blue water reflected back into fate and beauty and soul-cleansing truth of the heart….where can this complex and fragile grasping of self release into a subtle shift of care for self and another?
We have considered the depth of the world and the depth of our souls. But we are only in a world through a community of men. And we can discover our souls only through the mirror of those who look at us. There is no depth of life without the depth of the common life…Paul Tillich
those bare-boned, soul roots & return-from-the-dead mantras……
Judgment is like an eclipse of the sun, which blocks its light. Spiritual light, it has often been said, is like the light of a thousand suns. We come from the light, and will return to the light, when light is all we choose to see. We will know that we are home in God when we are home in one another’s hearts. No one was ever born to hate…..Marianne Williamson
