What if your soul isn’t a birthright but a creation? Drawing on Cynthia Bourgeault’s Practicing Living Presence and Kabir Helminski’s Living Presence, this post explores how essence, spirit, and presence weave together to forge the soul—not as something pre-packaged, but as the living image of your life.
Thank you so much as always. I think this helps me to understand why I was bothered by a bumper sticker recently. That said “not perfect, just forgiven”. Like you just snap your fingers and everything is groovy.
That bumper sticker gospel is cheap grace on four wheels. Forgiveness isn’t a hall pass to skip the work. It’s the doorway into transformation. If all we do is brag about being “just forgiven,” we’ve missed the whole point of becoming new.
Oh. My. This cracked opened a part of me I didn’t even know was there. A truth which, I think, has been within, but not yet given time too. “soul is not what you start with—it’s what your life creates”, god damn that feels real. I’m going to need to sit with this. And write about it. And process. Thank you for this share 🌹
That’s the best response a piece of writing can hope for, Lana. Not applause, not agreement. But a crack. A widening. The sense that something long buried finally wants to breathe. May your processing be messy, unhurried, and alive.
I have to agree how limited is the view that you get to heaven by not dirtying what has been given you, rather than developing a rich life of self-reflection and kindness.
Yes, exactly. If it was only about keeping something spotless, we’d all be better off sealed in glass cases. The journey is the point. The grit, the reflection, the kindness you carve out of chaos. That’s what makes a soul.
Stephanie, that’s the highest compliment. When a piece asks not for a quick read but a slow return. Let the words keep working on you in the background like roots splitting stone.
I’m interested and intrigued and I’ll sit with it for a bit, but also my thinking mind asks, “What of human dignity and being made in the image of God.” Not as a ticket to eternal life in the classical sense, but for, in Franciscan terms, “reverencing the unique dignity of each person.”
The “image of God” is the divine spark. Untouchable. Indestructible. What shifts is how much we allow it to shape us. Francis was right to call us to reverence, because each person carries that image already, no matter how obscured.
Beautiful to hear, Heron. Sometimes the soul doesn’t need more words. Just that click of recognition when the missing piece finally sits where it belongs.
Yes, this has poked my belief system about Souls. I have a few questions. With a deep bow to my Self intending, wanting to keep a Beginner’s Mind at this new stage of my life, I am being shown realms I never knew could exist. So this one matters a great deal to me, and I will attempt to articulate my questions! My history is best exemplified by my later career as an Executive Coach, Life Coach, certified in analyzing Emotional Intelligence in people in leadership positions in large organizations: the science was clear: EI was was a much better predictor of effective quality leadership than IQ. And EI can be learned. There are three measures: ability for self-reflection; ability to be empathetic, (and I forget #3!, maybe correctly perceiving emotions in others). This data, along with Employee surveys, were helpful for starting conversations about what improvement goals the client wanted to pursue. Important to our Soul conversation here: I came to see (believe) that every person on the planet has a Soul. I equated Soul with Self (authentic Self, vs. False Self), and with the image God had gifted each of us with of who we are uniquely designed to become. So, for me, my life journey was seeking who I was meant to become. I understood that we came to Earth with the spark of Spirit already in us, linked to God’s spirit. God, Spirit, always wanted what was best for us, would always create and build, never seek to harm or destroy. So when I sat across from you, I would intuitively get a sense of your inner being, your inner Self, your inner Spirit. As our conversations evolved, I could see that some people did not know there was a spark of God’s Spirit in them, or if they had once known it as a child…it had been deeply wounded, pounded out of them, covered over by coal-ash and they’d forgotten, now living with fears…abandonment, unworthiness, unlovable, unable to love, death, ridicule, shaming, humiliation…it was my heart work to ask questions that might slowly guide them to remembering glimpses of when then their Soul (Self, Authentic Self) was alive and ennobled and passionate. And overtime, with lots of prayer on my part, (“God you got me this far, don’t leave me now!) and we were “successful,” the client would write, on very rare beautifully grace-filled moments in the feedback forms, “Sandra saved my life, gave me my life back.” She weeps with unending gratitude. Now, I focus on adopting dogs and helping them to live their best lives.
OK. Enough about me. Question: if not present from the beginning at birth, when and how does our Soul magically appear? How would I recognize it? How would I trust from whence it came? Could it come from evil? Is the Soul’s function to give us feedback if we’re moving closer to, or away from, fully manifesting the life God has gifted us with? I remember meeting and reading Matthew Fox’s “Original Blessing” a very long time ago. I took away from that (perhaps erroneously) that we are all born good? Can there really be people who are “lost Souls?” My SoulMate was adamant that everyone has a God-given Soul! HELP!!! My basic question: are the distinctions CB delineates critical to our understanding, or are they several clicks down into the weeds that may not be essential understandings as I slowly take one step at a time, uncovering, revealing the mystery of my path forward that is me. If this is essential to knowing Mary Magdalene and Jesus, perhaps you could offer a picture-flow chart from life before we come to Earth to when we return home. Tough ask, but I’m very visual and like flow charts!!! I’m having way too much fun! Thank you for your wisdom. I am grateful for your presence. (BTW: my wedding ring is engraved in the inside: “I honor you with love, trust and presence.” May 5, 1979.)❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
Sandra, you’re not playing around. You want the cartography of mystery. A soul-flowchart. Let me try to sketch it, Virgin Monk Boy style.
First, some foundations.
What you call Soul most traditions split up into shards. Spirit. Breath. Heart-mind. Image of God. In Greek they said psyche and pneuma like they were cousins fighting over inheritance. The desert mothers whispered that the “true self” is hidden beneath the rubble of false habits. Buddhists said there’s no self at all—just the clear space where compassion arises. The Kabbalists drew diagrams with five layers of soul, like nested candles. No single map has the monopoly.
But here’s what I see.
Birth isn’t the arrival of a soul like UPS dropping off a package. Birth is the ignition of a project. You come with a spark, yes. But what we call Soul is more like the sculpture that emerges from stone. Chisel by chisel. Wound by wound. Grace by grace.
So:
Before Earth
—We are possibility. Divine spark. Not yet “you,” but the raw light that could become you.
At Birth
—The spark takes on flesh. Breath is the first sacrament. Still not a “soul,” just potential.
Life
—Every act, every heartbreak, every betrayal, every kindness: chiseling. Soul is being carved. It grows, collapses, reforms. It’s not static. It’s compost and bloom.
—Evil? That’s not where the soul comes from. That’s where the sculptor’s hand gets resisted. The soul can get disfigured, but it doesn’t originate in malice.
Recognition
—You don’t “see” the soul the way you see a chair. You sense it. In those moments where someone suddenly feels more alive in your presence. Or when the dog you rescued locks eyes with you and you both know you’re already healed.
Lost souls?
—Not lost like vanished. Lost like GPS in the woods, circling. The spark doesn’t die. It can be buried, denied, smothered. But not erased.
Death
—The chisel drops. What remains is the sculpture. Some traditions say you carry it home as treasure. Some say you melt back into the sea. Either way, the work was not wasted.
So if I drew it as a flow chart, it would look like this:
Completion (death: sculpture revealed, carried into the mystery)
That’s the picture. Mary Magdalene grasped this. She knew Jesus wasn’t handing out pre-packaged tickets to heaven. He was inviting people to become. That’s why her gospel has her saying, “Do not weep. His presence is within you. Become fully human.”
So maybe don’t worry if CB’s distinctions are weeds or essentials. The soul isn’t a theology exam. It’s a practice. A daily chiseling.
And if you want a mantra to hang on that wedding band:
“The soul isn’t something you have. It’s something you become.”
So I just wrote a very long response which traced my life experiences at becoming my sculpture to this point. It suddenly disappeared. You, Tim Miller, Beth, and others evoked so much from me…now I am saddened to not be able to print-out and put in my personal journal what I have noticed and recorded. So, I assume a Guardian Angel pulled the the plug on my reverie, mission accomplished by my acknowledgment of what all has been chiseled, and by my deep abiding gratitudes for every moment of my 78 years. I am humbled to sit at this table with all of you, as we each reveal one step at a time our own mysterious path slowly unfolding, to discover and celebrate the sculpture we are becoming. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! ❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
So, lots of reflections on your response. Even a dream. Also read your conversation with Tim Miller. Oh to be able to invite you and Tim and Mary and Jesus other friends who are
Teryl, none of us are curbside debris. We are compost. What looks wasted becomes soil for the soul’s growing. Even the scraps get folded back into the feast.
Fascinating take here! Definitely not how I've thought about 'soul' before, but certainly intriguing. It makes me think of 'soul music' and 'soul food,' expressions of a soulful presence that evolves and grows over a lifetime and over generations. Will be contemplating this for a while!
This is articulated with clarity and grace and one can say a radical reframing.
The shift from soul as a protected heirloom to soul as a lived creation, forged in the gentle fire of attention, it aligns with the inner ache, the “holy dissatisfaction” that truly marks the beginning of the path.
This is an interesting interweave of Helminski, Mouravieff, and Merton into a tapestry that feels both timeless and modern.
Every moment of presence, every gesture of fidelity, is not just personal improvement, it is participation in the eternal.
That ache you name, that holy dissatisfaction. Yes. It’s the engine under the altar. Without it, we’d just polish inherited relics and call that devotion. The soul is not handed down. It’s hammered out in the furnace of this one wild life, each strike both fragile and eternal.
Thank you so much as always. I think this helps me to understand why I was bothered by a bumper sticker recently. That said “not perfect, just forgiven”. Like you just snap your fingers and everything is groovy.
That bumper sticker gospel is cheap grace on four wheels. Forgiveness isn’t a hall pass to skip the work. It’s the doorway into transformation. If all we do is brag about being “just forgiven,” we’ve missed the whole point of becoming new.
Yessssss! Cheap, SMUG grace!
Right? Capitalist Christianity; the fast food version as a spiritual bypass.
Heartfelt thanks for your brilliant writing.✨🌞✨
I love what you wrote..."every scrap of attention is mortar." We are still being formed.
Oh. My. This cracked opened a part of me I didn’t even know was there. A truth which, I think, has been within, but not yet given time too. “soul is not what you start with—it’s what your life creates”, god damn that feels real. I’m going to need to sit with this. And write about it. And process. Thank you for this share 🌹
That’s the best response a piece of writing can hope for, Lana. Not applause, not agreement. But a crack. A widening. The sense that something long buried finally wants to breathe. May your processing be messy, unhurried, and alive.
Your teaching has certainly fed my soul this morning. Thank you, friend.
Ahhh. Wonderful food for the SOUL, as usual, VMB!
I have to agree how limited is the view that you get to heaven by not dirtying what has been given you, rather than developing a rich life of self-reflection and kindness.
Otherwise, why the journey?
Yes, exactly. If it was only about keeping something spotless, we’d all be better off sealed in glass cases. The journey is the point. The grit, the reflection, the kindness you carve out of chaos. That’s what makes a soul.
Ego as servant, mind blown. I'm saving this to read more slowly several more times, it was incredible.
Stephanie, that’s the highest compliment. When a piece asks not for a quick read but a slow return. Let the words keep working on you in the background like roots splitting stone.
I’m interested and intrigued and I’ll sit with it for a bit, but also my thinking mind asks, “What of human dignity and being made in the image of God.” Not as a ticket to eternal life in the classical sense, but for, in Franciscan terms, “reverencing the unique dignity of each person.”
The “image of God” is the divine spark. Untouchable. Indestructible. What shifts is how much we allow it to shape us. Francis was right to call us to reverence, because each person carries that image already, no matter how obscured.
I never understood the distinction between spirit and soul before reading this… thank you for enlightening me! ✨
Thank you thank you thank you. Speechless and present for this moment. Smiling at this piece falling into place so naturally inside of me. Wow.
Beautiful to hear, Heron. Sometimes the soul doesn’t need more words. Just that click of recognition when the missing piece finally sits where it belongs.
Love Cynthia Bourgeault’s work. Nurturing a soul that can meet the threshold of death is a life worth living.
Yes, this has poked my belief system about Souls. I have a few questions. With a deep bow to my Self intending, wanting to keep a Beginner’s Mind at this new stage of my life, I am being shown realms I never knew could exist. So this one matters a great deal to me, and I will attempt to articulate my questions! My history is best exemplified by my later career as an Executive Coach, Life Coach, certified in analyzing Emotional Intelligence in people in leadership positions in large organizations: the science was clear: EI was was a much better predictor of effective quality leadership than IQ. And EI can be learned. There are three measures: ability for self-reflection; ability to be empathetic, (and I forget #3!, maybe correctly perceiving emotions in others). This data, along with Employee surveys, were helpful for starting conversations about what improvement goals the client wanted to pursue. Important to our Soul conversation here: I came to see (believe) that every person on the planet has a Soul. I equated Soul with Self (authentic Self, vs. False Self), and with the image God had gifted each of us with of who we are uniquely designed to become. So, for me, my life journey was seeking who I was meant to become. I understood that we came to Earth with the spark of Spirit already in us, linked to God’s spirit. God, Spirit, always wanted what was best for us, would always create and build, never seek to harm or destroy. So when I sat across from you, I would intuitively get a sense of your inner being, your inner Self, your inner Spirit. As our conversations evolved, I could see that some people did not know there was a spark of God’s Spirit in them, or if they had once known it as a child…it had been deeply wounded, pounded out of them, covered over by coal-ash and they’d forgotten, now living with fears…abandonment, unworthiness, unlovable, unable to love, death, ridicule, shaming, humiliation…it was my heart work to ask questions that might slowly guide them to remembering glimpses of when then their Soul (Self, Authentic Self) was alive and ennobled and passionate. And overtime, with lots of prayer on my part, (“God you got me this far, don’t leave me now!) and we were “successful,” the client would write, on very rare beautifully grace-filled moments in the feedback forms, “Sandra saved my life, gave me my life back.” She weeps with unending gratitude. Now, I focus on adopting dogs and helping them to live their best lives.
OK. Enough about me. Question: if not present from the beginning at birth, when and how does our Soul magically appear? How would I recognize it? How would I trust from whence it came? Could it come from evil? Is the Soul’s function to give us feedback if we’re moving closer to, or away from, fully manifesting the life God has gifted us with? I remember meeting and reading Matthew Fox’s “Original Blessing” a very long time ago. I took away from that (perhaps erroneously) that we are all born good? Can there really be people who are “lost Souls?” My SoulMate was adamant that everyone has a God-given Soul! HELP!!! My basic question: are the distinctions CB delineates critical to our understanding, or are they several clicks down into the weeds that may not be essential understandings as I slowly take one step at a time, uncovering, revealing the mystery of my path forward that is me. If this is essential to knowing Mary Magdalene and Jesus, perhaps you could offer a picture-flow chart from life before we come to Earth to when we return home. Tough ask, but I’m very visual and like flow charts!!! I’m having way too much fun! Thank you for your wisdom. I am grateful for your presence. (BTW: my wedding ring is engraved in the inside: “I honor you with love, trust and presence.” May 5, 1979.)❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
Sandra, you’re not playing around. You want the cartography of mystery. A soul-flowchart. Let me try to sketch it, Virgin Monk Boy style.
First, some foundations.
What you call Soul most traditions split up into shards. Spirit. Breath. Heart-mind. Image of God. In Greek they said psyche and pneuma like they were cousins fighting over inheritance. The desert mothers whispered that the “true self” is hidden beneath the rubble of false habits. Buddhists said there’s no self at all—just the clear space where compassion arises. The Kabbalists drew diagrams with five layers of soul, like nested candles. No single map has the monopoly.
But here’s what I see.
Birth isn’t the arrival of a soul like UPS dropping off a package. Birth is the ignition of a project. You come with a spark, yes. But what we call Soul is more like the sculpture that emerges from stone. Chisel by chisel. Wound by wound. Grace by grace.
So:
Before Earth
—We are possibility. Divine spark. Not yet “you,” but the raw light that could become you.
At Birth
—The spark takes on flesh. Breath is the first sacrament. Still not a “soul,” just potential.
Life
—Every act, every heartbreak, every betrayal, every kindness: chiseling. Soul is being carved. It grows, collapses, reforms. It’s not static. It’s compost and bloom.
—Evil? That’s not where the soul comes from. That’s where the sculptor’s hand gets resisted. The soul can get disfigured, but it doesn’t originate in malice.
Recognition
—You don’t “see” the soul the way you see a chair. You sense it. In those moments where someone suddenly feels more alive in your presence. Or when the dog you rescued locks eyes with you and you both know you’re already healed.
Lost souls?
—Not lost like vanished. Lost like GPS in the woods, circling. The spark doesn’t die. It can be buried, denied, smothered. But not erased.
Death
—The chisel drops. What remains is the sculpture. Some traditions say you carry it home as treasure. Some say you melt back into the sea. Either way, the work was not wasted.
So if I drew it as a flow chart, it would look like this:
Raw Spark (pre-birth)
↓
Ignition (birth, breath, body)
↓
Formation (life: carving, remembering, forgetting, choosing)
↓
Soul Emerges (not a given, but a creation)
↓
Completion (death: sculpture revealed, carried into the mystery)
That’s the picture. Mary Magdalene grasped this. She knew Jesus wasn’t handing out pre-packaged tickets to heaven. He was inviting people to become. That’s why her gospel has her saying, “Do not weep. His presence is within you. Become fully human.”
So maybe don’t worry if CB’s distinctions are weeds or essentials. The soul isn’t a theology exam. It’s a practice. A daily chiseling.
And if you want a mantra to hang on that wedding band:
“The soul isn’t something you have. It’s something you become.”
So I just wrote a very long response which traced my life experiences at becoming my sculpture to this point. It suddenly disappeared. You, Tim Miller, Beth, and others evoked so much from me…now I am saddened to not be able to print-out and put in my personal journal what I have noticed and recorded. So, I assume a Guardian Angel pulled the the plug on my reverie, mission accomplished by my acknowledgment of what all has been chiseled, and by my deep abiding gratitudes for every moment of my 78 years. I am humbled to sit at this table with all of you, as we each reveal one step at a time our own mysterious path slowly unfolding, to discover and celebrate the sculpture we are becoming. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! ❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
So, lots of reflections on your response. Even a dream. Also read your conversation with Tim Miller. Oh to be able to invite you and Tim and Mary and Jesus other friends who are
Needed this today.
Glad it landed for you, Bob. Sometimes the right words show up like water in a desert—just enough to keep the next step possible.
Thank you! It’s a relief to know I’m not sitting on the curb waiting for the trash truck.
Teryl, none of us are curbside debris. We are compost. What looks wasted becomes soil for the soul’s growing. Even the scraps get folded back into the feast.
Beautifully said!
Fascinating take here! Definitely not how I've thought about 'soul' before, but certainly intriguing. It makes me think of 'soul music' and 'soul food,' expressions of a soulful presence that evolves and grows over a lifetime and over generations. Will be contemplating this for a while!
This is articulated with clarity and grace and one can say a radical reframing.
The shift from soul as a protected heirloom to soul as a lived creation, forged in the gentle fire of attention, it aligns with the inner ache, the “holy dissatisfaction” that truly marks the beginning of the path.
This is an interesting interweave of Helminski, Mouravieff, and Merton into a tapestry that feels both timeless and modern.
Every moment of presence, every gesture of fidelity, is not just personal improvement, it is participation in the eternal.
Thank you for this 🙏
That ache you name, that holy dissatisfaction. Yes. It’s the engine under the altar. Without it, we’d just polish inherited relics and call that devotion. The soul is not handed down. It’s hammered out in the furnace of this one wild life, each strike both fragile and eternal.
True .. 🙏🙏