Most of us were raised to keep the deepest part of us private. It's that secret secluded place we've learned to slink into whenever we're scared, hurt, confused, or just plain embarrassed. We do it so instinctively in western culture that we usually don't even see it happening. But here we are packing up our bags (or unpacking them) and moving towards a shared life. And that means we're probably bringing our private, vulnerable, but well-guarded souls into a community. That could be scary, and it might even tempt us to begin constructing even more sophisticated retreat routes into our private souls.
I wanted to begin the formation of our community by reading Keith Miller's The Secret Life of the Soul together in hopes that we would not only understand our own souls better, (and the stuff we've surrounded them with), but so that we would understand each other's souls better. Not just so that we would know and be known, but so that we might learn how to fight for each other's souls so that we never have to retreat or fight alone. So as you read, read with that ultimate aim in mind. Here are some other questions we're asking ourselves from the 1st 3 chapters:
What has been your understanding of the soul?
What works against your soul?
What does the broken, disillusioned soul of a child instinctively begin to do very early on in life?
How does that instinct play out in your life?
How could that instinct play out in our community?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
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1 comment:
Thanks for this Christiana. Great fit for the Soul book we're reading. Glad you guys are going through the book with else, albeit remotely. Can't wait for you guys to get down here.
— Jon
p.s. thanks for posting to the blog. Great to see some activity here!
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