When you can't find your soul

A move-and-pray way

Do you feel as though you have misplaced your soul somewhere?

Not totally lost it. But your soul feels distant, almost in hiding. The soul is our inmost self, and it knows to take care of and protect itself. When you are too busy or overwhelmed, angry or full of grief, your soul tucks itself away.

Or you may simply be unpracticed at listening to your soul, and it has stayed hidden and quiet.

When you feel as though your prayers bounce off the ceiling or pile in the corner, it is that you have lost sight of your soul instead that God has lost sight of you.

I lose sight of my soul when I am too busy and stressed. Often at the end of a semester, I have to take intentional time to relocate my center in God.

So dear heart, take great patience with yourself. You are worried and burdened by many things. Jesus invites us to the place of rest, but it is often that we struggle to find our way there. The way back to the soul and self is to find your way to God through prayer. Contemplative prayer is soul language. It is a deep reflective listening to your being, to God, and to the gentle place of abiding between you and the Divine.

The end of the semester is here, and right on cue, my soul is tucked away somewhere, difficult to find. I am wading through essays and reflections, puzzling missing grades into the spreadsheet, getting the points in place, and reviewing an overly full season. I taught a course called Dynamics of Spiritual Growth this semester, and as much as my students learned (hopefully!), and as I reflect on it, my own soul is waking up as well.

We talked about prayer as the womb of spiritual growth. Our spiritual and physical selves are knit together in the depth of God, "for in Him we move and live and have our being.” When I was pregnant, this passage came alive to me, as the baby rippled through my being--distinct and yet inseparable from me. I wondered at how God carried us around as independent yet totally dependent beings.

I pray mostly while my body is moving. Walking the dog, emptying the dishwasher, traipsing around the house with an overflowing basket of clothes to stuff into drawers, or typing on a laptop. Driving the car, eyes following the road, heart following the Spirit in a running conversation with God about whatever feels urgent, heavy, or necessary at that moment. My walking commute is only a short stretch between front door to office door, but space enough to pray.

As spiritually amphibious creatures, we breathe humanity and eternality in each breath. Perhaps one of the best ways that we practice living in the union of two realms is while we pray and move together. This inner life is not our own achievement, made up of our human self-will of ingrained habits. Instead, the inner life is animated by the Source of Life that rolls through our beings as a mighty tide, flooding us with prayer and words that come from beyond our humanity. At other times, it is a gentle spring of life that rises from the interior of our heart that comes not from our mental intentionality, but from Life itself. We begin to learn that as we mature in God, our soul is infinitely connected to the Infinite Reality itself. Prayer is the language of the soul, an infinite conversation between God and the soul that is beyond our making.

Jesus teaches us that we can have an intimate relationship with the Living God. Somehow, in our flesh-and-blood reality, with our desperation and anguish, Jesus invites us to an actual interaction with the Supreme Being of the Universe. And that Supreme Being talks back to us. In fact, not only talks back, but the Being initiates with us. We somehow know how to pray, even if we have never been to church in our lives. “God, help me” may be the universal prayer of humanity. prayed one way or another in every language, culture, and nation.

But back to my students. As I am reading through essays on their "Rule of Life" (or personal spiritual formation plan), one thing emerges from their reflections and my own. A desire to "pray more" is peppered through their writings. These students (between the ages of 18-25) desire to pray. No one had to tell them, "To grow in God and become a spiritually mature person, you must set aside time to pray". Although we did talk about the significance of prayer in spiritual growth, this was not a new idea. Intuitively, they knew it. To become more whole and real in God meant to abide with God. In their spirituality, they simply knew that prayer is at the heart of the Christian experience. Like a baby knows in its nature that it needs milk, the human heart knows in its nature that it needs prayer.

It is the realization that we are made for God. We have eternal souls. We breathe both oxygen and Spirit. We experience and encounter Jesus through real relationship with Divinity.

The way we do it is through many ways—but a central one is the life of prayer.

To find your way back to your soul, I suggest you move-and-pray.

Some prefer to sit, but I believe that the movement of the body stills the mind and brings your emotions into regulation, giving safe harbor space for the soul to emerge.

Here’s a move-and-pray experiment of soul-finding for this week.

Take 7 minutes each day—as you are walking the dog, standing on your deck, driving the car, folding laundry, or walking with the baby in arms—and do this:

3 minutes of stream of consciousness prayer—anything that comes to mind that is of concern to you, and what you hold. Do not filter it, or attempt to make it sound prayerful. This is just what you are holding. Let it be what it is.

1 minute of telling yourself the Gospel: “I am my Beloved’s and He is Mine”. “Jesus loves me, this I know.” Or “God will never give up on me”. “God is with me.” “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

3 minutes of listening to God. If something else catches your attention, just turn it back to prayer and seek to focus your mind on God and on listening to His Voice. Keep practicing. Be gentle and patient with yourself. Ask God for help. Turn your focus again to God. Wait. This is the work of abiding in God. It will become more natural.

Whether you have been following Jesus for a lifetime, or are just beginning this journey in God, or are simply spiritually curious, the deeper life in God opens up this space to you to breathe the Breath of God.

“And with that he breathed on them and said,

“Receive the Holy Spirit”.

—John 20:22

Praying for you, Dear Reader, as you find your way back to your soul! God will guide you!