Listen To Your Soul

"The emotional complaints of our time, complaints we therapists hear every day in our practice, include

emptiness
meaninglessness
vague depression
disillustionment about marriage, family and relationships
a loss of values
yearning for personal fulfillment
a hunger for spirituality

All of these symptoms reflect a loss of soul and let us know what the soul craves. We yearn excessively for entertainment, power, intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and material things, and we think we can find these things if we discover the right relationship or job, the right church or therapy. But without soul, whatever we find will be unsatisfying, for what we truly long for is the soul in each of these areas. Lacking that soulfulness, we attempt to gather these alluring satisfactions to us in great masses, thinking apparently that quantity will make up for lack of quality."

Care Of The Soul, pg xvi, Thomas Moore

2012 Soular Flexus Regimen: Exercise 1

The 2012 Soular Flexus Regimen

Exercise 1.

Today's exercise was: yelling.

Me and Elise went to Blue Springs lake. 

And just yelled. 

At first, it was just "AUUGHHH" yelling, but eventually turned into words, and then we started yelling out Psalms about creation. It was pretty epic. Although we both agreed that even though our throats were sore and voices shakey, it still didn't get that easier or less stupid feeling to yell at the top of your lungs for no apparent reason. But maybe, it doesn't need to get any easier? Or maybe the exhilaration isn't immediate.  Or maybe we'll just need to keep doing it. Either way, I think the act of being loud stirs things in the spirit.

Sometimes I forget how beautiful Missouri is. This specific lake, when viewed from the right angle, looks like the scene from Harry Potter 3 when he rides the hippogriff over the lake. Hence, the inspiration to yell at THIS location. It was REAL cold and there was ice all up ons the water. Memories were definitely made.

Next Week: Exercise 2. Get Physical.

The 2012 Soular Flexus Regimen

After discussing my previous post with my BFF Elise Packingham over coffee this morning, something great has been born.

The 2012 Soular Flexus Regimen.

After I wrote yesterdays post, I was thinking about what an obese soul really needs. It needs exercise, of course. But more than that, it needs an EXERCISE REGIMEN. One to firm up the fat, whittle the middle, and boost the butt.  Anyone can exercise their body, but how does one go about exercising the soul?

By stretching, flexing and caring for the weak parts. I.e. the things you're afraid of, the areas you feel stupid, the areas you've never used.

Me and Elise collaborated and came up with a few well rounded exercises for the soul in need of some fat blasting.

1. Yell. In front of others or with others (not at others). This is especially for those who are generally quiet--there's something empowering in pulling a big, mighty voice deep from your diaphragm for no other reason than the fact that you can.
2. Get physical. Seriously, get moving. Preferably with, or in front of others. Whether it's jogging down the road or climbing a mountain, when your body moves, your soul moves. And when it moves with others, it moves even more.
3. Dance. Quit saying you don't like dancing and admit to yourself that you're just embarrassed that you're bad at it (because seriously, who doesn't like dancing? No one!)
4. Get up close and personal with the marginalized of your city. Talk to them. Not from a pedestal, but from mutuality. Learn from them.
5. Do something you're afraid of that you're afraid to admit to others. This isn't normal 'face your fears' stuff like, go do some public speaking (although that's valuable). This is about really asking yourself what you're avoiding due to fear that people will know you're afraid. Example: I say I don't like dancing. and parties. DA TRUF is, I love them, I'm just terrified of both, so I avoid them and give the excuse that I find them unenjoyable, and I'd rather sit at home by myself, sitting still. Not true. Secrets out.
6. Tell someone you like that you like them, especially if it's likely they won't return the feelings. This confession can be romantic or platonic. Remember Proverbs 27:5: "Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed." Refer to my previous post, 'The Power Of Voicing Love'.
7. 
8.
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12.

Me and Elise will be meeting for a weekly blubber-busting soul workout starting tomorrow.  I want to extend an invitation to you to join us on one, or all of the above exercises, and more that will be added to the list in the upcoming weeks. I will be documenting each of our exercises, so please follow along, either by reading, or joining us on an excursion.

Here's to finally getting that six pack.

I've Gotten Chubby (On The Inside)

Welp. I'm taking a trip. I've got it all planned out. The past few months, I've felt really good about this plan. I've felt in control. Accomplished. Like I'm headed somewhere.
I'm currently experiencing that phase of 'planning' when the plans actually start materializing, and all of that control, accomplishment and good direction crap gets thrown out the window. I don't leave for another three months, but...I'm kind of starting to freak out.

My current plan is (give or take a few cities):
Lausanne, Switzerland
to
Athens, Greece
to
Rome, Italy
to
Cairo, Egypt
to
Jerusalem, Israel
to
Tarsus, Turkey
to
Cork, Ireland.

GEEZE

I'm terrified. So many what ifs. But...I won't lie. I'm not scared enough to wimp out. I'm ready to get out of this rock I've been living under for the past few months.  I live a very narrow existence right now, working at a craft store in a Missouri 'burb, saving money. In 76 days, I'm going to be throwing myself into something big. Bigger than picture frames and glitter paint and crappy home decor. Thank God. Honestly. My soul feels like it needs exercise. Like it's been under-challenged working a minimum wage job, but also like it's been overfed during my downtime with thinking, analyzing and introspection. It has all the symptoms of the body of an obese person: tired, achey, difficult to motivate, always hungry for more than what it's being fed. It just needs to go for a jog, and get reminded that there is much more happening in the world. So many people, so much history, so much culture! So much new GOD STUFF to experience. I'm missing out on it. Gross. Time to get all Jillian Michaels on the ass of my soul. So, Soul--quit whining, quit being afraid of stupid crap, quit making excuses, quit enabling yourself to live small. LET'S GET RIPPED.

The Struggle to Actively Struggle

I think today I want to write about resisting struggle, but that may or may not be where this post ends up.

First and foremost--I need to learn to take my own advice. I can't tell you how many times I tell people that active struggle will produce for them a full life, one with a broad spectrum of awareness, emotion, joy, pain, love, and everything in between. I consistently voice against numbing pain and unpleasantness through entertainment, spending, food, or what have you. But man, lately...I've been succumbing to the demon Numbness in an extraordinary way. It's a daily battle (or should I say daily defeat? Because I usually give in before the battle even begins.) It's easy enough for someone to tell someone else who is struggling with something to not give up, to keep going, that light will come, and that the beauty of life is in struggling. But what do you say to someone who isn't struggling today, but every day? With the same stuff? At what point does active struggle in a situation like that become a waste of time?

And that's kind of where I'm at. Active struggle feels like a waste of time to me. I guess you could call that hopelessness. Which everyone says is the worst possible place to be in. Which makes me feel ashamed that I would even succumb to something like that. Which makes me want to actively engage in my pain, but for the wrong reasons--for obligatory reasons. And as we all know, that never ends well.

So, I guess my ultimate question is...what is this whole struggle/pain concept all about? To struggle, in order to build character, in order to...what? To what end does having character get us? A full life? A better world? But then what? Why does Christ want to sharpen our character on earth? In order that we can sharpen each other?  In order to build the character of the body of Christ? But again, to what end? A better world...but, a world that will eventually perish, right? So, then what? Is pain and struggle simply a product of The Fall of Man, something we just have to deal with while we're here, and just make the best of it until we reach heaven? If that's the case, then numbing myself out sounds justified!

When I think about things like this I always wonder what it would be like to have a secular point of view with these kinds of questions. What do secular philosophers say about struggle and pain, and what the point of it is? Is it reduced to biology? Is it unexplainable without some type of source inflicting the pain?



In one of Gregory Boyd's sermons I listened to recently, he spoke about how a lot of Christians are content to dismiss hard questions and say, 'Just accept the mysteries of God.' Gregory said that's simply a pious way of saying, "I don't care enough to think about it."