In November I did a service using some of Beethoven's music to illustrate the idea of Passion. I suggested that our "passions" are key to an understanding of who we are, but I did not mean passions in the normal sense in which they refer to our emotions. Instead, I wanted to use the idea of "passion" to refer to those enduring interests and activities of our lives-the points in life at which we are most fully engaged with the world. The words of our chalice lighting song this morning express that longing that many of us have to know-grasp the innermost essence of ourselves. And what I would like to do this morning is to share some thoughts about other ways in which the soul-or at least perhaps its progress in the world-becomes visible to us.
I owe my awareness of this quote to Bob McKee, who brought it to one of our early Men's Group meetings. (He found it in "Male Call," a newsletter dedicated to support of men's groups throughout congregations of the UUA.)
"The purpose of life is simply to grow a soul."
The first connection I want to make is between the notion of passion and the A. Powell Davies quote. I don't think that all passions necessarily contribute to the growth of our souls. I look at my own personal experience. As a boy and teenager, I was passionate in my devotion to the pursuit of a career in the Navy, and in my commitment to go to Annapolis as part of fulfilling that passion. It is clear to me in retrospect that my time pursuing that passion did not help me grow as a person. Yes, the chastening experiences I endured as a midshipman helped me to grow up and become an adult. But overall, I think that it actually impeded progress in the directions that I now identify as part of my spiritual growth-by which I mean simply my growth as a person.
This provides us an important question to ask ourselves: Do our passions help us to grow a soul? And, if they do not, where might we find, elsewhere within the fabric of our own lives, other seeds which might be nurtured in ways that engage us as fully as did the former, but maybe less spiritually nurturing passions?
The following notes that I want to share with you were originally written with this idea in mind: How would we know whether any being had a soul? They're suggested, not just signs of soul for human beings, but signs of soul, period. Or that is how I propose them-as a kind of "work in progress." I'll enumerate them fairly quickly, and then we can discuss them.
I apologize up front to the poets among us. As a philosopher, I am interested in articulating a clear concept of the soul that will be useful in dialogue and conversation. The tendency of the poet is to multiply meanings and to exploit ambiguities. For my task this morning, that is the exact opposite of what I want to accomplish-although in the long run I think both processes can, and must, run side by side with each other.
ONE: That element within the psyche (I'm using "psyche" to mean the entire matrix of intellect, emotion, feelings and personality) that assigns value to the search for the meaning of life-not just meaning, but the meaning of life. In terms of the A. Powell Davies quote, re: that our purpose in life is simply to "grow a soul," we might say that the richness of the soil for nurturing that growth is in some way proportional to the relative significance of this question in our life. That doesn't mean we spend all of our time thinking about it, but it would mean that giving serious thought to it has a high priority for us.
I can hear someone thinking: But what about whales, dolphins, chimpanzees-the higher mammals? They don't seem to reflect (at least not in any obvious way) on the meaning of life, and yet can we be sure that they don't have souls? And of course, I would agree: We cannot be sure of such a thing. So the point I'm making here, if it is valid, cuts positively, but not negatively. I'm suggesting that any being that thinks about the meaning or significance of life definitely has a soul, but I'm not suggesting that the absence of such reflection necessarily means that there is not a soul.
TWO: That element within the human psyche which can experience profound satisfaction and peace, even in the face of severe deprivation of other basic human physical and emotional needs;
Henry: What about the converse. Can your soul be troubled even when all of your material and emotional needs are covered?
Yes, I agree that the converse is possible. A sense of dissatisfaction or disturbance--even when all of a being's physiological and emotional needs are satisfied--would be evidence suggesting the possession of something like what we refer to when we say the word, "soul." At the risk of sounding too nit-picky here, though, I would say that being troubled, "even when all of your material and emotional needs are covered," is evidence that there IS a soul. I wouldn't necessarily say that it is the soul that is troubled.]
When we are troubled, I would rather say something like this: from the soul emanates a kind of directive, or value, which, if we act against it, we will feel troubled, or disturbed. But it is not the soul that is disturbed, but rather our ego, or affective self, which "knows better."
THREE: The ability to be in communication (whether verbal, "experiential," or otherwise) with whatever divine elements may exist within the cosmos--whether such elements be material or immaterial in nature.
Of course, how would we know whether a being, including ourselves, HAD the ability to be in communication with divine elements? How would we decide that there WERE divine elements? What would the evidence of them be? If there were, what would be evidence that we had been in communication with them?
These are the hard metaphysical questions. For the hardcore scientific, or materialist, types among us, I would suggest another idea to take the place of this one. Actually, I think it's a separate idea, although the two certainly complement each other: The ability, tendency, attempt (etc.) to think in the widest, broadest, most global, most cosmic perspective. The farther out one can make sense of the connection of one thing-including oneself-to other things, and to everything, the more opening there is for "soul-growing."
[We need to be careful about confusing thoughts and feelings. It's one thing to have thoughts about one's connections with the cosmos; it's quite another to feel, or experience, that one IS connected to the cosmos. I have had lots of such thoughts, but never any such feelings or experiences. I would say, further, that thoughts are a manifestation of the mind, not of the soul. I can observe and reflect on my own thoughts; I don't think I can do this with my own or anyone else's soul. One of the qualities of soul seems to be that it itself is in principle unobservable and unexperiencable. It may be the seat of a special sort of self-consciousness, but I don't think it can be directly conscious of, or aware of, itself.]
FOUR: The capacity to accept other beings unconditionally, and to act lovingly towards other beings, even in the absence of reciprocating acts, or, particularly, in the face of hostile acts, from them.
Henry: In your original message I thought I detected a movement towards viewing the soul in experiential, affective terms and not as something substantial (as in: look, see--there's the soul). In this latest email, I detect something of a movement in the opposite direction. Are either of these perceptions correct?
Yes, they both are. But with this qualification: I see "affective" and "experiential" as distinct from each other. I think affect and emotion are a breed of experience (a kind of experience), but I do not think that all experience is affective or emotional in nature. Love, for example, at its highest level, is not an emotion (I would say). We experience many emotions in conjunction with love, and we may call those emotions "love," but I don't think that love, in its purest form, is an emotion. (For example: I always love my mother, even though I am often not even thinking about her, much less experiencing any emotions with relation to her at those moments. Clearly when I do have emotions and thoughts about her, these are components of my experience of love for her, but they cannot comprise the whole picture, since I am "aware" of my love for her at moments when I am NOT having these thoughts and emotions. (You might say, of course, that this awareness is simply a recollection of the moments when I HAVE had such feelings, but I don't think that tells the whole picture, either.)
Henry: By the way, I could describe my love for chocolate in the same way that you describe your love for your mother. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
HAH! I think that the soul must be viewed in essentially experiential terms, but this does NOT mean that I think that the soul is most visible in our emotional lives. In fact, I would say that our emotional lives often directly interfere with the experience of our "true selves." (BTW, I would use this expression, "the true self," as a synonym for "soul.")
Henry: So, Peter, what do you mean by experience?
May the Lord bless and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you,
and be gracious unto you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you,
and give you peace, this day, and forever more.