A Week Later: Thinking about body and soul, preaching, and personal conversations

Six days ago I posted about having spent a week paying some attention to my inner life, and how that seemed to have restored a deep sense of sanity and peace.

This week, I have gotten run over a little more by concerns, work, and the whatever it is that wears us out even when life is going pretty well. So, here I am on Thursday morning. It has still been a good week, but I have not sustained my energy too well. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

It seems that I have not attended to the needs of my body very well. And, that tends to wear out the soul in time. So, last week I had this focus on the soul that seemed to sustain me body and soul. But, this week, I got all caught up in concerns of work and other concerns, failed to attend to the state of my body or soul very well, and I am worn out. But, I am not worn out too bad in my soul, more in my body. If I don't turn this around by attending to body, then it will wear down my soul as well. The state of my soul this Thursday morning is fairly positive, but a little off center. The state of my body is very tired, which I think causes the sense of being off-balance. I'll try to pay some attention today to body and soul, and see if I can regain the sense of peace and energy I had at the end of last week.

I am thinking of seeing how fasting might help restore the equilibrium in body and soul that brings peace and new energy. I think that by paying some attention each week to the state of body and soul, I can keep from sinking down too low. The soul can endure a lot, and when you have to exert yourself in trying circumstances in ways that would seem to wear your body out, if there is purpose in this exertion, it seems like the soul's energy just sustains the body. But, when you are exerting yourself a lot and don't have a sense of purpose, then the weariness of the body tears down the soul - that is, where there is no energy coming from the soul.

I have watched my mother and father endure overwhelming challenges with a sense of strength and sanity and good spirit even when these challenges would seem to have caused bodily or emotional collapse. Their key was that they acted in love for others. And, with both of them, there was just this deep sense of responsibility and toughness. These concrete memories of how they endured are active memories with me that inspire a similar perserverence and determination and almost pride in living on and living with deep purpose when challenges arise.

Well, back to the abstract.

Now, I know that it is a fiction to some extent talking about body and soul as if they are separate entities. Of course, they are united, and that is why I am finding out how attention to inner affects outer, and attention to outer affects inner. But, I still find the words "body" and "soul" helpful in trying to talk about and understand how I and other human beings are made up.

This talk may be too abstract to communicate very well. That's the reason it is good that we have the chance to communicate personally with each other about the real facts of a week. What I did in particular that wore me down, how I reacted positively or negatively to what someone else did. What I did that didn't make sense this week, and what I did that restored a sense of meaning this week. How others actions have affected me for good or evil. In these concrete details is the real message and meaning of the week. There are probably some I could tell without being too revealing, but most of the things that really matter day to day are pretty personal, I am beginning to think - whether they are thoughts or deeds.

This makes me think about preaching, and how it would be great on one hand to be able to let down all guards and just make sense of a scripture in terms of the real concrete struggles we are going through. Instead, in preaching, you have to figure out a way that speaks of things that are real enough to evoke reflection on real life in the hearers, but not so real or revealing as to evoke worry for or too much attention on the life of the preacher. Telling stories about things that have happened to others, or things you have observed can be helpful. For example, I could tell some stories of how I have seen my mother and father endure, and that would evoke a good reflection in others.

But, this post makes me think that there is really no substitute for deeply trusting, personal communication where you can really speak about the details of your experience and hear about someone else's thoughts and deeds and observations and compare and try to make sense of it all. I have been part of Bible Study at times when this has happened, but over the course of my life, it has almost always happened in informal conversations with one other person, or maybe two or three at a time where the communion was strong. We are all fairly quirky. When we share the real way we deal with life with others, they are bound to be amused and also touched, thinking: "well, that's almost as crazy as how I deal with life, but it does make a little sense . . . and it makes me feel a little less alone too."