Soul Mosaic

The following words are from my talk at this year’s Quad Cities Pride Fest, June 3, 2023

It is my humble delight to by this year’s spiritual speaker. Or as like I say, “soul speaker.” Because that’s what people like me do, we care for souls—both our own and others. We care for souls not by saving souls from whatever sin is! But we care for souls with openness, love, and compassion.

So let’s take a moment to care for our souls. Take a moment to feel the difference in temperature between the air around you and the temperature of your skin.

Notice the difference. Name the difference. Welcome the difference between you as a human being and the natural world’s air, breeze, wind.

So, before we go any further, let’s define together just what we think “soul” is? (And I say there is no right or wrong here). What is our soul? How do we define it?

Soul is something deep within us. Something that flows through our veins and our nervous systems. Soul connects us to our hearts, minds, and bodies. Soul joins us to every part of who we are and in doing so knows the fullness of our truths. Even the truths we have yet to discover about ourselves.

So, here’s why I think caring for souls is necessary and my two reasons are equally important:

• All souls deserve to be cared for.
• Cared for souls care for other souls.

Soul care happens in small and big ways, both micro and macro ways. Micro, small ways such as greeting a stranger with a smile or being polite to the person checking out your groceries or taking time to recenter ourselves when feeling stressed. These are small moments of soul nourishment.

Macro, well today, this festival, is a macro event of soul caring. And this event, this month, and the hard work of these times shifts and changes the organizational systems which want to oppress souls. Oppress the diversity of souls. Squeeze all souls into only two categories.

Which is so bizarre to me since in my spiritual tradition, God created the first soul on earth and called that soul “adam” which in ancient Hebrew means “human being!” 

And Eve, the next soul to be created, means life or source of life. So together these two words mean human being, source of life.

So everyone here knows that words have meaning and power. Yet this Judeo-Christian creation story has come to mean male and female and that’s it. Never do we hear that these two names might mean something broader, more encompassing, more undefinable such as human being, source of life!

This creation story in the way it has been historically told impacts and infects us all. So where did this narrowed view of creation begin. Well, I suspect in a lack of internal curiosity of who each of us is as a human being, source of life. In a lack of soul curiosity. Such wondering requires us to be curious about our emotions. And emotions, for some reason, seem to be scary.

So here’s a question for you: How many emotions do you think you experience?

Researchers disagree a bit about our diversity of emotional experience. But most agree that we experience far more emotions than we can name. If fact, Brené Brown says we experience around 87 different emotions. In her research she found that most people can only name 3 emotions. 3! What about the other 84?

Do you know what the three most nameable emotions are?

• Happy
• Sad
• Mad

That’s rights–happy, sad, and mad!

So, let’s take a few minutes right now, to tend to our souls again. This time I want you to go inside yourself, inside your body. And be curious about what you are feeling right now. Ask yourself:

“Hey body! How are you feeling today?”

If you are struggling to put a name on what you are internally experiencing, turn to your neighbor (if you feel comfortable) for some assistance.

Once you can name how your body is feeling on the inside, share it on the outside. Share it with someone you know but I also support you in sharing with someone you do not know.

Okay. Let’s find out how many emotions are happening right here, right now. Start shouting out emotions to me. Let’s see if we can get way past 3!

My friends, diversity begins within before it flows out. It begins when we connect to our souls, claim our souls, care for our souls so that we can name and claim the myriad of emotions we experience each and every day. True soul care asks us for this recognition of our own beloved internal diversity. And diversity continues as our cared-for souls care for other souls. And our community’s souls, our nation’s souls, and our world’s souls.

When we do this deep work of soul care, we create the true mosaic of who we all are as human beings, sources of life!

So, my friends, I leave you today with this soul blessing:

May all of creation bless you. May all of creation claim you as beloved. May all of creation shine in your soul. Blessed, claimed, and shining, may you do the same for every soul you meet.

Thank you for sharing your souls with me today!

Pride Image by Robert Jones from Pixabay.