Soulless

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

― Rumi

“Or Not”

--- Stephen

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I am speechless today

I know that seems impossible to most of you

but I am simply speechless

too many odd encounters with people

oozing fear and anger

to many headlines that grab my heart

and tear it

it is not so much the views

that rend my soul

nor even the behaviors

of people political

and not political

that assail the fabric of my being

it is the spirituality of fear

and anger

and ultimately hate

that shocks me to my soul

the fruits of true spirituality

should be joy, and peace, and love

and yet we see anger and discord and hate

often in the name of freedom

all too often in the name of God

there is something wrong

deep down

in our souls

when we spend our time and energy

hoarding,

minimizing the poor

trusting violence and guns rather than God

making money the centerpiece of our faith (even churches are doing this)

I was driven this morning back to the prophets

and found them speaking to me

again

out of the years of human wandering

again

It seems we have never left

That place of darkness

never learned

from the hideous mistakes of people past

we are still the people to whom the prophets speak

and their challenges echo strangely here, thousands of years later

it is quite honestly

as if

Christ had never come

deliver us O Lord

from our fears

from our hate

from all those things

that drive us spiritually

into the abyss

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Isa 58:6-11

6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.