Your soul.

“Oh my mama told me 'Cause she say she learned the hard way
She say she wanna spare the children
She say don't give or sell your soul away
'Cause all that you have is your soul.

So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul.”-- Tracy Chapman

I have been a little troubled the last couple of days.

I see so many folks with troubled souls.

I guess this makes me a troubled soul in ways.

Souls troubled by a sense of unworthiness before God and self. Addictions to many substances: drugs, alcohol, sex, food, religion, pain, fear, doubt, etc. are all efforts to keep the soul alive; to feel or keep us from feeling. These are the shiny apples that tempt us but in the end are bitter fruit. These are not the problems to soul wounds but rather our solutions; solutions that eventually take us further away from our soul and only seem to deepen one’s sense of unworthiness.

Take addiction to religion. How many show up on Sunday hoping to “feel” something—searching for an experience, a high or a rush? We keep searching for our experience to deepen in order to feel, like heroin, eventually it we need more in order to get the same high. It is a solution that can and does function much like a drug. But it can mask our pain and oppress one even more. It can anesthetize the wound—for a while. If it does not return us to love and only deepens shame and guilt it may as well be heroin; for if we remove our addictions we are still left with the mending our souls.

The hunger for truth—the truth of who we are in the eyes and image of Love is what I think Jesus attempts to reveal to us. I don’t find his teachings to be shaming or used to induce guilt-- and he often spoke against those things that oppress people and shame folks, including religion, in an effort to return us to Love.

"Come to me all of you who are hiding, oppressed and are shamed; who carry the heavy burdens and wounds of life and religion. You don't have to give or sell your soul away. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light and in me you will find rest for your soul and through me I will return you to Love, for the Father has sent me to spare the children. And when you truly see me, you see the Father."

May your soul will find its rest in God alone.