佩吉·伍德/Peggy Wood
Occasionally my mother used to announce that she was going to take time out from the day's activities “to rest”, she would say, “and to invite my soul.”She always put the phrase in quotes, in order, I expect, to divert the facetious remarks which might arise from the worldly or practical-minded folk within earshot or to disarm those who might feel“soul”was a Sunday word not to be used in everyday conversation.
But she meant to do exactly what she said “invite my soul”.
The pressure of the modern world is so great upon us today that we find little time for rest, physical rest, let alone leisure for spiritual reception. Thus, when we take the word “soul”out of its Sunday clothes it is unfamiliar to us, we don't know it very well. We may have different interpretations of the meaning of the word; to some it may mean “conscience”, to others that part of our being given us with life. I believe with Dr. Schweitzer in the sanctity of life, that the miracle called life, which cannot be manufactured by man, does come from a source which we call God, and that life and soul are the same. And yet when I am asked point-blank, “What do you believe?”I hedge and play for time in my confusion by saying, “Well, now, that's a pretty big question.”
It is not altogether the pressure of the modern world which has clouded our comprehension; “the simple faith of our fathers”got a nasty jolt when Copernicus propounded his theory that the sun and stars did not revolve around the earth and that therefore man was not the sole object of celestial concern. Darwin dealt another blow and Freud's search into the operations of our hidden selves shook our conviction that man could be made in the image of God.
It might be said that such matters affect only dogma and not belief, and yet the mounting complexities of man's discoveries about himself and the world he lives in increase so with the years it is little wonder man cries out for something simple and enduring in which to believe.