1. Most churches talk about what they are going to do or what God will do if you do something. Rarely is the talk characterized by what God has done and is doing regardless of anything else.

2. In our present culture you can criticize Capitalism and tweet or update your fb status about your excitement over your brand name shoes. And no one even notices.

3. I have a long way to go to get to a peaceful soul.

4. Young evangelicals like to see the spark of faith when unbelieving artists use words like “grace,” “mercy” and “love” but will not look for it in those whose theology they disagree with.

5. My son whines about going to t-ball and then whines when it is over.

6. Just got my car fixed and looking forward to a month of not having to get it fixed.

7. Pizza has mystical healing properties.

8. So does the voice of Billie Holiday.

9. If it is not enough that your church administers the sacraments, prays together, preaches the word faithfully and spends time in fellowship together then it is not a church you are looking for.

10. There is no bacon. – saying of a sad Zen Master

A soul is an immaterial thing. It is a principle of activity, it is an “act,” a “form,” an energizing principle. It is the life of the body, and it must also have a life of its own. But the life of the soul does not inhere in any physical, material subject. So to compare a soul without grace to a corpse without life is only a metaphor. But it is very true. – Thomas Merton, The Seven-Storey Mountain, 109

Parker sat for a long time on the ground in the alley behind the pool hall, examining his soul. He saw it as a spider web of facts and lies that was not at all important to him but which appeared to be necessary in spite of his opinion. The eyes that were now forever on his back were eyes to be obeyed. – Flannery O’Connor, Parker’s Back

You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. – C.S. Lewis

Soul is a feeling, feeling deep within
Soul is not the colour of your skin
Soul is the essence, essence from within
It is where everything begins
– Van Morrison, Soul, from the Album ‘Keep it Simple’

… a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body – St. Augustine

…the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life; the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe; a person’s total self – Merriam- Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th Ed.)

For the Jew, the soul (nep̱eš) was understood as ‘the vital force or the seat of the mind or spirit.’ In the New Testament ‘soul’ (nep̱eš) seems at times to be indistinguishable from ‘life’ and ‘spirit’ and at other times to be altogether different. All the definitions and discussions I can find in a short time of searching seem to at once be ideas I agree with and yet always leave me wanting. What the heck does ‘seat of the mind’ mean anyway?

So in my quest for a peaceful soul, I find myself in a strange but statisfying place. I cannot help but think (feel?) that the word/idea/concept of a soul is a meaningful one for which no real meaning satisfies. Maybe it’s like the love between a man and a woman for which poems and songs and novels must be written to express it.

All the definitions and descriptions are good and helpful and true. But not really enough. I read them and want to say “yes” but “more…give me more.” “Yes! That is true and it helps make sense of this which we call the soul. But I need more.”

And it makes perfect sense. For you can see the soul everywhere and yet it cannot be seen.

I admit it. I like it this way. For some reason, this satisfies me on a deeper level than any definition. Because we know what it is even if we cannot really get our heads around it and nail it down with words. Maybe we need poems and songs and stories so we can get at the soul and get some understanding in a way definitions cannot.

What do you think? Got any definitions or quotes on the soul that are helpful?

The whole result of this diet was to teach me this trivial amusement, this cult of foods that I imagined to be bland and healthful. It made me think about myself. It was a game, a hobby, something like psychoanalysis had been. I even sometimes fell into the discussion of foods and their values and qualities in relation to health, as if I were an authority on the subject. And for the rest, I went around with my mind in my stomach and ate quarts and quarts of ice-cream.

Now my life was dominated by something I had never really known before: fear. Was it something altogether new? No, for fear is inseparable from pride and lust. They may hide it for a time: but it is the reverse of the coin. The coin had turned over and I was looking at the other side: the eagle that was to eat out my insides for a year or so, cheap Prometheus that I had become! It was humiliating, this strange wariness that accompanied all my actions, this self-conscious watchfulness. It was humiliation I had deserved more than I knew. There was more justice in it than I could understand.

I had refused to pay attention to the moral laws upon which all our vitality and sanity depend: and so now I was reduced to the condition of a silly old woman, worrying about a lot of imaginary rules of health, standards of food-value, and a thousand minute details of conduct that were in themselves completely ridiculous and stupid, and yet which haunted me with vague and terrific sanctions. If I eat this, I may go out of my mind. If I do not eat that, I may die in the night.

I had at last become a child of the modern world, completely tangled up in petty and useless concerns with myself, and almost incapable of even considering or understanding anything that was really important to my own true interests.

If you have not noticed, I am talking about the soul – particularly my desire for a peaceful one – here on the ol’ blog. And the soul is at the center of so much of Van’s Music. Maybe all of it. If all you know of Van is Brown Eyed Girl, you really need to sit down with an album of his.

Where should you start? The following are some safe bets:

Moondance
Astral Weeks
Into the Music
Hymns To The Silence
A Night in San Francisco
Magic Time
Keep It Simple

The following is a homemade video of people talking about his music and their love for it. It is homemade and nothing slick, but very enjoyable if you are already a fan.

And below is easily one of my favorite songs by Van. The first time I heard it my eyes filled with tears and then I played it again and again and again. True story.