This morning I was tired, angry, confused. I thought to myself about the soul and its obligations. I drank strong coffee under a birch tree and considered how I am kind to others and seldom kind to myself. I am a western man. I am weak in the soulful warrens of self-kindness. Some mornings, exhausted from dreams and worrying in the green language of stars and all the psyche’s shipwrecks I can’t find a way to be kind to myself. I have to wonder if this is genetic.
My paternal grandfather was a Finnish Lutheran minister. I have some of his sermons preserved, their quaint, 19th century Finnish almost unrecognizable compared with the language of 21st century Suomi. One of the sermons is entitled: “What Does God Demand of You Now?” I hear that voice early, around sunrise, the coffee steaming in my cup. I feel the bifurcation of soul that so many insecure Christians know–I have not lived and loved with my whole heart; I have not been a good disciple; and in turn this is how I browbeat myself. The implicit and never ending demand is that I must become good. I am not good now.
Of the soul I can say that it lives or manifests itself in a whirl of exile. One is lonely with a soul. The damned thing needs connection but Eros won’t suffice. Wealth can’t fix it. Buying and selling can’t do the job. Building a tower won’t help. The soul feels time in its measure and moves inside us like the sea. It has the secret gold of creation. It cannot love us. In effect, the soul can only reflect or absorb divine love and the energies of creation. We carry it. The fuel for this flame is our very lives. This is the bifurcation I mentioned above: I am not good now; there’s something inside me that moves like wings over the sea…
These are simply my thoughts over morning coffee. Kindness to the living man or woman is an opportunity for the soul to call upon divine strength. The scouring and scourging of the phrase: “I have not loved you with my whole heart” is devastating to human beings who do not understand that you or “thou” (which is stronger I think) means that we have not been aware of the gifts God has given us. Become aware of the gifts. Do not despair of the treasures of consciousness and of dreams. Pass along self-forgiveness. That is the work of the New Testament.
So I was up early. Angry. Hard on myself. Its taken me all day to work this simple purification.
The mysterious and intangible waves of the soul wash over us, work in us, when we are kindest to the poor men and women we find ourselves to be.
Morning coffee. A blue jay in a near maple shouts about the thread of life…
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
In my neck of the woods, it’s the geese who shout from the lawn of a nearby high school campus.
Me, I got up too early and have worked worked worked. Now taking a quick break before more of the same. Drive myself harder and I will get more done, then maybe I can feel OK about myself.
Beautiful post. Just what I needed to hear on this day.
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