Matter Of Taste Coffee Bar - Kitchener, ON
Greetings from downtown Kitchener on a drizzly, grey afternoon. I find myself at one of my favourite cafes, putting in time before meditation group starts later tonight. I hope you're doing well.
"The human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard." ~ Parker J. Palmer
Do you feel like your soul is being seen and heard? In this city there are so many people, walking down the street, catching a bus, sitting in cafes. I wonder how many of them feel like they are really seen and heard. I don't mean noticed, I mean really seen and heard. Do you have people in your life who truly see you and hear you? Have you cultivated the kind of deep friendships where you can bare your soul and still be accepted, no matter how messed up you feel? Even if you're an introvert I believe that we need even one or two people who we can check in with periodically and truly be real with.
"The human soul doesn't want to be fixed." Often when we get together with friends, we'll spill out our problems, and naturally these friends will often want to fix them. Perhaps we do the same thing with our friends. Part of this is natural, because we want to help, we care about them. But I agree with Parker Palmer; the human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard. It is not our job to mold anyone else into our image of what we think they should be. This is my problem with religious evangelism. I believe the soul is pure and knowledgeable all on its own; we can trust our soul. Religious evangelism, at least the fundamentalist Christian version, says that the soul is flawed and in need of saving. There are many well-intentioned religious people who think that they have the answers and they feel the need to share these answers with others. But the soul is wise, the soul is innocent, beneath any mire and muck that may be surrounding it. Wouldn't it be better if would-be evangelists learned to truly listen to others rather than attempt to sway them over to their point of view? Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I was an evangelist. I traveled with a team of people to a First Nations reserve with the goal of saving those who didn't have "the truth." How ignorant of me? What if I had simply listened to their stories and heard the truth of their souls instead?
I hope that you have friends in your life that truly see and hear you. I hope that you can trust your soul. I love you.
mark andrew
