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.

1.  I feel sorry for those in the 2nd world. Nobody ever talks about their problems.

2. All it takes is a broken lock on the door of a bathroom in a crowded restaurant for dignity to disappear.

3. Opening Day.

4. Mumford and Sons is starting to really grow on me. And not in a fungus sort of way.

5. “In Lego Star Wars they break into little pieces but in real Star Wars they just die.” – Emma, 7

6. I, ummm, know a guy who may be kinda addicted to Angry Birds.

7.  My 5 year old son has taken quite a liking to bacon. I mean, I’m proud and all, but sharing bacon is not necessarily a virtue in this house.

8. Right now I’m reading 4 books. One by a Catholic Monk. A Presbyterian Preacher. One written by an Anglican single lady in the late 18th century. And another by a pastor in the Anabaptist tradition.

9. The three littlest Redmonds will be staying at the grandparents on Friday night. You know what that means? Lots of uninterrupted Angry Birds.

10. You’d think those with all the answers would be really comfortable with those with lots of questions. But you’d be wrong.

I’m tempted to say, “If you are not listening to Van Morrison, you are not listening.” But I won’t say it. I’ll just think it instead.

A friend once told me the thing which sets Van’s music apart from others was his quest for beauty. I’d never thought about such a quest before. And certainly not in relation to music. Music was about cool and awesome. But I remembered that sentiment. It stayed with me and grew to point of me laying down some hard-earned cash on a Van Morrison disc. I only knew a couple songs. But I grew to love them all. I listened to it for weeks. Then I bought another and another. And more and more.

I have over 40 of his albums. Some of them are rare bootlegs. All of them are ‘desert island discs.’ Jazz. Blues. Country. Soul. Celtic. R&B. Pop. It’s all there. And full of beauty. The kind of beauty that takes up residence inside you, puts its feet up and rests there for a lifetime.

I’m Irish. My family – the Redmonds – can be traced back to Wexford County. There is no end to the enjoyment of this fact for me. Among my forebears was a John Redmond, who as a Protestant member of Parliament defended the rights of his Catholic neighbors. Rarely a popular move.

My love for bands and singers from The Emerald Isle is merely accidental. Or genetic. Maybe the way destined lovers are brought together unbeknownst of the predestined link, I was drawn to so many Irish musicians. None of it was because I thought I should be listening to this music. It just happened because I had to like it. And that’s the only music worth listening to anyway.

I’ve been listening to The Chieftains for about 11 years now. I discovered them through Rich Mullins, I think. A lot of their songs are about lost love, drinking and murder. What is not to like about old men singing about lost love, drinking and murder? Sounds like the Old Testament to me…

Van the Man. I never get tired of Van Morrison. Ever. For even a moment. I wanted to name a child after him but my wife did not like ‘Van Morrison Redmond’. We settled on ‘Dylan.’ Watch this by the man from Belfast and you can just thank me later.

Can you remember the first time you heard Bono say, “Sing this with me, this is 40.” I was in my ’79 ‘vette. Chevette, that is. No reverse. Speakers sitting in the vinyl backseat and a cassette of Under A Blood Red Sky pushing them to the outer limits of respectability. I was driving toward the parkway on Esplanade. It was Summer and Scott Smith had given it to me to try out. If you can’t love this, you aren’t converted.

Twelve is just as good a time as any.

We are sitting on a bench. A stone bench. But it’s the kind of moment you would not… could not even notice how uncomfortable the bench is. Only the moon provides light reflecting on the water of the lake – the lake which now sits at the bottom of the mountain we live on. We are looking into the water. There is a lot of talk about “what we are.” I think I lied through my teeth. Anything to keep close. I picture my arm around her but that would be a stupid risk. And while I may be stupid enough to think I could keep this up, I am not so stupid to take any chances at this point. Also I’m not entirely sure she is all that glad to be with me.

Spring’s darkness is a distinct part of the memory. I remember standing out in front of O’Henry’s Coffee House. We had been inside earlier with some friends. We had not been on a date in over a month. She is standing there in the night under the lights of 18th Avenue. We are shuffling our feet behind her red car, a Mazda. I lean against it. Her arms are folded. She is not entirely happy with me. Not entirely mad. And in a moment of insanity, I think about how she is the kind of girl I want to marry. Not love…but close.

I’m in my roommate’s bedroom. I’ve no idea why. He’s not there and I’m lying on the floor next to a dusty ficus tree. But I’m on the phone begging her for one more date. This is no exaggeration. She was afraid. I finally had to tell her she can tell me ‘no’ but I will call her back tomorrow and ask again. It sounds pretty annoying. It was. But it worked.

Night sky again. The sky looms large. Bethany looks magical. The Shakespeare Festival’s lights cascade across the well-manicured grounds. We walk with hands worked together as natural as breathing. Other couples take advantage of the near silence and paradisal scenery. Carefully sculpted hedges. Reflecting pools. The noise of the theatre whispers in the background. Forever seems close. And If I close my eyes, the scene is before me.

It’s funny. She is moving into a new apartment. I’m helping. If I’m lifting anything heavy, it is only to impress. And I’m not sure where the idea came from. Curiosity? Calculation? Hope? The kind of hope that crowds out all rational thought making it impossible to make good decisions. “Sooo, how long is your lease?” While I thought I was being inconspicuous, she knew exactly why I wanted to know. But I remember us going to Johnny Ray’s after being finished and being very happy with the answer.

We have not spoken in 3 days. And the recollection of hearing how she did not want to be the wife of a pastor is ongoing. She is standing in front of me sad. Tearful but lovely. After not seeing her for more than a day, she looked altogether painfully stunning. We argued outside the church. She was going in to the worship service and I was leaving. We left together and I started scheming for forever that day.

Back at the lake again with stars above and laid out on the surface. She knew I was looking for a ring already. So I had to be as sly as possible. Disheveled and unshaven,  it was a bid to quell any expectations. I sat next to her on the bench. Firm seat and steely resolve. I told her we just could not afford to get engaged and start planning a wedding. Then I proceeded to get down on one knee. The rocky, root-strewn ground sloped into the water. Diamond out and held up to the moonlight, her voice glides across the water, “We’re engaged!” Anonymous congratulations resound from shadows on the other side.

She did not want me to see her before the ceremony. She moves into the room – 500 standing in honor of the beauty before them. Most see her innumerable moments before I do. Anxiously I wait, peeking around the crowd. Words simply are not nearly enough. It was the emotion of every great myth, the birth of every legendary act and the very pushing back of the Fall itself.

Halloween night at a retreat center in rural Alabama. The night air is cool – on the verge of cold. Sitting with our feet propped up on a fence, we had met only hours earlier. We began to know each other – both facing into the Alabama sky over the tops of pine trees up into the vast expanse full of pinpricks, the very guides of sailors into adventure, time out of mind.

Twenty-four hours later – the wedding is over – we are sitting in a Ruby Tuesday’s in Williamsburg, VA. Little did I know that every bite of every meal is wondrous on a honeymoon. I remember sitting there in a corner of the restaurant looking at her and thinking, “Here we are. We’re married.” I might have said something out loud. It was a more real moment than any previous. Hipster opinions be damned – I cannot pass a Ruby Tuesday’s without remembering that moment. Thankfully they are everywhere.

After a church softball game we are at a Mexican restaurant on Green Springs. The name escapes me. we are sitting there, in love. Happy to the hilt. You know the happiness. Playful. Laughing and smiling at everything. Every moment is an opportunity to celebrate. It has a rhythm to it. Two souls full of the joy of all that is in the moment, this moment. No wonder Edmond Dantès was so full of revenge. You cannot even imagine any other ‘courting’ couple could feel this way. Only a miracle could make it so.

My face hurts from smiling so much. We are standing in the receiving line. The glorious echo of ‘congratulations!” heard under the stars six months earlier is being repeated again and again and again. Hundreds upon hundreds of reverberations of that moment pushing against the walls of space and time. That echo from friends and family stretching across every season of life. Some echoes from voices not heard but in another life. And we stand there fixed in the movement of heavens. We stand there dressed in the “already and not yet” of which theologians across the centuries have written volumes.

One of the great things about teaching in a classical school is the tail does not always wag the dog. Sometimes the class discussion is dictated by what the class is discussing. I’m directing the discussion but I’m letting the students kick it around among them and in their own minds. So this morning when I asked, “OK, what does it look like for a 9th grader in Birmingham in 2011 to have “faith working through love?” I had no idea how they would answer. But once we thought about it, “gossip” became the subject.

We all agreed that a life of faith in the gospel of grace working itself out of our interior life into our exterior life (thank you Thomas Merton) would result in a love for others which would fight against the temptation to gossip.

Easier said than done.

Gossip is about acceptance and security. Those who already know they are accepted and are secure have no need for it. There is no need to degrade others, be malicious and tell the secret and not-so-secret failures of others if you are secure. And not insecure.

But we all had to admit, we are not always like this.

For far too many faith is flat. But it should not be. The object of our faith is full of contours to build faith – a faith working itself out in love. The acceptance we crave -whether you are a teenager or an adult pushing 40 – we already have in the contoured fact of being “in Christ Jesus.” We are accepted because of what Christ did for us on our behalf. And we are accepted by the Sovereign King of the Universe. This is no small thing. Actually it’s bigger than that. We are heirs, Christ is not ashamed to call us brother, we are sons and daughters of the King, God rejoices over us with singing and the banner over our lives is always ‘Love’.

It’s the kind of acceptance – when remembered and marinated in – that can cut away the desire to gossip.

But that’s not all. We are also secure.

I can remember the fist time my brother – nine years my senior – called me ‘insecure.’ Having no idea what such a designation meant at that young age, I protested and denied it making the point all the more. But he was right. So I know the feeling…the need to say something about someone else hoping others will agree and the slight euphoria that wells up from down below because you have grabbed a little security.

But this acceptance we have “in Christ” is secure. Nothing can separate us from it. Our abilities cannot do it. Neither can the opinions of others. Our failures are no match. Our sins cannot even do it. If we have been justified by faith in the gospel of grace…if we are in Christ Jesus, then this acceptance is secure. It is an immovable fact upon which all our hope can be fixed for this life and the next.

And so all this faith – trust in the acceptance and security we have in Christ – is unleashed upon the world in the form of love. A love which reflects the very grace we have received. Our tongues now tamed by the gospel of grace now function to extend the same grace to those we would be tempted to slander, demean, and lie about.

And here’s the cream –  the love. Now instead of rejoicing over the foibles and failures of others, we can now- empowered by our faith – realize they are also created in the image of God, sharing in the great problem of sin and needing the same cross.

We can now rejoice over them – echoing the reality of the loving Father rejoicing over us.

…and some Taylor Swift. I can’t help it, it’s stuck in my head and will most likely be in my head for a long time. My wife love her music. My kids loves her music. And it’s impossible to deny she has some serious talent.

My kids kept asking for this one over and over on the way to the library today. 6 times to be exact.

Now, what am I really listening to? The Wailin’ Jennys still. There is a lot of beautiful music in the world but not much that is more beautiful than that made by these three ladies. I’ve listened to them constantly over the past week…except for when I have to listen to Taylor Swift in my wife’s van…