Opening Words:

From John O’Donohue: Once you awaken to your soul, you know that you are no longer alone; nor are you at the mercy of your own frailty and limitations. Awakening to your soul, you begin to learn another way of being in the world. The old barriers no longer confine you, the old wounds no longer name you, and the old fears no longer claim you.

Sermon Text:

“I’m Familiar with the Works of Pablo Neruda”: The Care and Keeping of Your Soul

INTO: “I’m familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.”—Bart sells his soul.

Good morning! It is a pleasure to be with you today. This service title comes from what is perhaps an unlikely place: an episode of “The Simpsons.” If you’re like me, and you’ve grown up watching “The Simpsons” for the last thirty-two years, then it’s likely you’ve heard someone use the expression: “I’m familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.” And when the person says this, what they mean is, yes, it’s obvious. Or, yes, everyone knows that—because that is the way Bart means this when he says this to his sister Lisa in the episode wherein Bart sells his soul for five dollars.

Bart sells his soul to his best friend for five dollars, believing that there is no such thing as a soul—and believing that he has a greater need in the short-term for a bit of cash. To prove to everyone that he’s right, Bart takes a piece of paper, writes: “BART SIMPSON’S SOUL” on it, and sells it, confident that he has outwitted his friend and made a handy profit. But, almost immediately, curious things begin to happen to him....More on this a bit later.

THROUGH: Is there a soul?

I suspect this episode resonates with so many people because many of us have asked the same questions Bart does. We’ve wondered if the soul is real. Perhaps we have even dismissed it, or asked it to take a “back seat” to our own financial needs or our needs for security in the physical world. So, what is the soul, anyway?

For our purposes today, it may be helpful to think of ourselves as having three aspects to ourselves simultaneously: there’s the ego, the spirit, and the soul. And we move back and forth through these parts of ourselves many times a day. Simply put, there’s the ego, that manages our identity and works hard to keep us safe in the physical world and keeps track of our history; there’s our spirit (our “self”) that helps to keep us aware of how we’re feeling and experiencing things in the present

1 moment; and then there’s our soul—the even deeper part of us that connects us to eternity.

For example, the ego might ask: “What do I need?” The spirit or self might ask, “What do I want?” And the soul asks, “To what am I being called?” or “For what reason was I born?” “What is my purpose?”

And, although we may have questions about the role of the soul in our lives, we instinctively know that the soul is there. Popular culture knows this. Many of you are likely familiar with the recent Pixar film Soul or remember the countless references to “soul” in literature and music.

What the Soul Needs to Thrive

Our culture tends not to talk much about the soul, and that is unfortunate because the soul has its own vocabulary. And the first step toward caring for one’s soul is acknowledging that we do indeed have a soul. Next, it helps to recognize that the soul has its own vocabulary. The soul asks the deep and awe-inspiring—and sometimes frightening—questions. (For what reason was I born?) The soul asks questions that set change and transformation in motion.

Because we have so many questions, we often depend on others—poets or writers, perhaps—to tell us about our own souls, and while contemplation and exploration are important, these are most effective when we give ourselves permission to talk openly in safe settings about how we experience our soul communicating with us so that we gradually become more familiar with the soul that abides with us.

The soul also thrives on truth, and we tend to feel “at one” with our soul when we feel “at one” with ourselves, when our mind and heart are in alignment with each other. And, perhaps surprisingly, the soul thrives in an atmosphere of quiet.

What Gets In the Way of Our Relationship with Our Soul?

To better understand how this, now let’s consider the opposite. A person will have a harder time establishing a relationship with the soul in an environment that is filled with distractions. Literal or metaphorical “noise” can drown out the “still, small voice.” If we’re having a difficult time facing a truth about ourselves or our lives, we may even nurture distractions to keep from hearing what our soul is trying to tell us.

If this goes on too long, or if our soul is left unattended for some time, we may begin to feel “soul sick.” Not long after Bart sells his soul, for example, he begins to feel a kind of emptiness, a loneliness he can’t quite define. His own dog and cat become frightened of him. Automatic doors stop opening for him. The things that used to bring him joy—like spitting from an overpass—no longer do.

2 I suspect many of us suffer from varying degrees of feeling “soul sick,” without even knowing that that’s what it is because we don’t talk about it enough. We haven’t given adequate time to develop our “soul vocabulary” and we don’t give ourselves enough time and space for quiet. True “soul companions,” those friends who can be trusted to bear witness to the deepest parts of our lives, can be difficult to find. We may feel disconnected from things we once loved. We may sense that doors are no longer opening for us. What, then, can be done?

Selling Our Soul

Although we may laugh at Bart’s decision to sell his soul for five dollars, the truth is that “selling your soul” is a common expression because we recognize places in our lives where we ourselves or others have done this. Regret often comes after we have compromised when we—or our soul—“knew better” or when we negotiated something precious to us for safety or security or for the sake of a relationship to another person. I’ve heard it said that if you’re miserable in your job, but you stay in it anyway, look at your pay stub because it will tell you the exact price you’ve placed on your own soul.

Recovering Our Soul

The good news is that our soul abides with us, whether we choose to be aware of it or not—and things usually go better if we do. Just as we would care for any living thing we love, there are some things we can do to maintain or recover a relationship with our soul. These include, but are not limited to:

• Have a daily (spiritual) practice. Start small. Even five minutes per day is more than enough time to set transformation in motion. I recommend making time for silence and time for listening to your still, small voice. If you’re comfortable doing so, consider adding journaling, reading sacred text, meditating, or praying. (Many verbs ending in “-ing” will work!) • Seek truth and practice honesty with yourself and others. (We would be one.) • Align your head with your heart. • Seek out moments of awe. • Consider getting yourself a spiritual director—someone who is trained to help you recognize and validate your own spiritual experiences and growth. This is sometimes called, “taking a long, loving look at the real.” • Seek out “soul companions” and make time for meaningful conversations. We all need safe and inspiring people to bear witness to our lives. • Reduce or eliminate distractions • Choose faith over fear

3 What Do We Follow?

A good question to ask ourselves is: what do we follow? And here’s another way to think of the different parts of ourselves. Think for a moment about social media. Our ego might care very much about how many “followers” we have, but our soul could not care less. The soul asks instead, what do YOU follow? Do you follow others’ approval? Do you follow fear, or do you follow faith? Do you follow the still, small voice of the soul that subtly but constantly calls you toward peace and purpose?

Helping Ourselves and Others to Heal

In addition to calling us toward destiny, our soul calls us toward the actions we need to take to heal ourselves, and while it may seem like everyone wants to heal, we human beings are the only creatures capable of blocking our own healing. Sometimes, healing can be intimidating because it requires us to change in ways we find frightening, or sometimes healing requires an act of forgiveness that may be difficult. “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.”

Because the soul is connected to eternity, it has a inherent quality of patience, and its signals tend to be more subtle—and also more persistent. If we make time for quiet and for contemplative conversation, we will hear what our soul has to say. The challenge is, in part, to listen when we might otherwise be tempted to give in to our distractions.

It’s worth noting, too, that just as often, we can be the ones to help someone else to heal and to recover their soul. Think back to a time when someone reminded you of who you really are, or reminded you of the deepest desires of your heart, or said something that allowed you to “come home to yourself.” We can almost always find a way to do this for another person, and often it’s easier to do this for someone else when we’re first starting out on the spiritual journey. Think of the Anne Murray song, and the lyrics, “I sold my soul. You bought it back for me.”

If we’ve lost our connection to our own soul—or perhaps we have not yet cultivated a relationship even for the first time—once again, we can learn from Bart Simpson. Gradually, after becoming more and more miserable, he realizes that he has indeed sold more than a piece of paper, and he wants his soul back, so he sets out to find the paper—but to no avail. Finally, in an ultimate act of surrender, he drops to his knees and prays. He forms his own connection with the spiritual realm, saying: “I sure could use some of that good stuff right now.” Not long after this prayer, he discovers that his own sister had bought it back for him—just as we can do for one another. She gives him back his piece of paper and his soul.

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The Soul Is the Voice of Yes

Our soul is all that “good stuff.” While our interior fear will tell us no, what we can’t do, why it’s not possible, or why we should be afraid, the soul is the voice of “Yes.” Think about a time when you’ve been at a crossroads, and you wanted to make a decision. You might hear your soul whisper to you, “Why don’t you start by...?” or “You know you’ve always wanted to....” Next, your ego delivers on your fears and reminds you of your past experiences. But your soul, ever patient, holds out the bigger picture. And your “self,” who has to make the decision in present time will likely either act or distract. (Candy Crush is a great way to “buy time” and drown out the voice of your soul.) If you’re able to say yes to the soul, what you’ll find is that, although the soul requires us to face our fears and act with courage, our soul is the voice of YES. (Think of Joyce’s Molly Bloom or Sally from When Harry Met Sally.)

Learning to follow the voice of yes is learning to follow the path of destiny for ourselves and for others. And it requires having the faith that “this rose will open.”

BEYOND: The Path to Destiny

So, what does this have to do with us, and why is it important? The soul is our companion on the path to realizing our destiny and the surest place not only to develop a lasting relationship with that deep, eternal part of us that helps us to triumph in trying times, but also to hear the subtle whispers of the voice that calls us toward all that brings us joy and fulfillment, toward all that we are meant to become. When we give attention to the care and keeping of our soul, we open ourselves up to the possibility of “yes” and the kind of awakening that poetss like John O’Donohue write about.

Ultimately, whatever destiny looks like for each one of us, the path to purpose is the path to wholeness and to holiness. The phrase “We Would Be One” means to reclaim the fragments of ourselves, and we do this in part by “pledging ourselves anew to that high cause of greater understanding of who we are and what in us is true.” And we can be sure that, if we listen, the soul will always tell us what that is and what we need to do to heal ourselves.

By searching for that meaning, and helping others to do the same, we can build a nobler world than we have known today—the kind that binds our hearts and points us on our way.

It takes time and dedication—and a spiritual practice—to reach the kind of awakening and freedom that John O’Donohue speaks about and to cultivate a soul with courage and stamina. So start small. Acknowledge your soul. Build a relationship with what has always abided with you. Listen to you soul and to the souls of others. If you do this, even just the littlest bit every day, I can promise you’ll accelerate your own healing, the quality of your relationships will improve, and

5 you’ll feel at one with yourself, as though you are coming back to the home you never really left, like Dorothy after Oz.

Then, when someone asks you if your soul is real, you can say with confidence: “Yes. I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.” Blessed be.

Centering Prayer:

Now is the moment in our service when we dedicate time for silence and for listening to the “still, small voice” of the soul inside us. Please join us in a brief period of silent meditation.

Closing Words:

And so we come now to the end of our service, grateful for those “soul companions who accompany us on our life’s journey. As a new week unfolds before us, bright with the promise of a new beginning, may we listen to the still, small voice inside us and build a nobler world than we have known today, one choice, one action, one step at a time. Blessed be

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