The Balm: Soul Speaking

 Jan - July 2025 Wandering Archive

A Space with a Soul

Lately I have taken to waking up with a different sort of realisation-- not that I dread the length of the day, or that, keenly aware that the first moment I open my eyes, it is the last time I will rest them before dark, but-- that every moment is its own, and every subsequent minute or hour is entirely unpredictable. The days have begun... to hold potential that I have previously been unable to fully grasp. 

Today I stood up from the riverbank and took a look around my cabin. I climbed no mountains, and my feet met no paths-- in fact, they were elevated a good bit. I sharpened my tools, cleaned my gear, scrubbed out an old pot and put some flowers in it, and somehow, I feel I have reclaimed a part of myself by doing so. And it all began not with a complete vision of what I wanted my day to entail, but with a discomfort with my... space. A faint but persistent sense that my space simply existed, but had no soul in it. And of course, that became my job to provide it. 

They say that a man gives a woman a house, and she gives him a home, in return. As it stands, God has given me a little cabin, and tonight I will rest easy knowing that I have finally relaxed into it, and have expanded my presence within it, to make it a space we can both inhabit together. 

I took up ash, water, and cloth and set to work, as if it were a declaration: “This is mine. This is holy."

What followed was not just cleaning, but gathering. Some chosen plants became companions to grow near the threshold, on the sunny side. A couple large stones and some otherwise discarded boards made a rather nice, more permanent and raised spot to sleep. I unpacked my belongings and hung some in places where they would be conveniently in reach for specific tasks. The old, abandoned pot and wash basin were not as rusty as I'd assumed. 

I now sit by the evening's new fire; washed, weary, and a little more grounded, I feel a deep satisfaction in knowing that claiming this space was not an indulgence, but an important anchoring -- as if my body has participated in creating a little, external sanctuary around my soul. 

 

Soul Speaking I:

I've made reference before in other entries that there is more than one occasion where I have felt that I have been animated and spurred by a will other than my own. Kept alive, as it were, by God's desire for me to be alive than my own will to actually live. And I confess that most of my life has been asking that question about meaning, and I have since found that my own life has found meaning through the pursuit of meaning itself. It's not like I have ever longed for death, not truly. But I have often questioned what it means to want life, or to will it. I’ve wondered if there was something wrong with me for otherwise lacking that will, since I have almost always existed more from habit, or duty, or tethered love than from any blazing personal purpose. 

There have been times, like this morning, where I have been more motivated to take care of myself and do things, or be things for the sake of others, and I think that this past year has been a sort of greater exploration and expression of that understanding that I exist, even if it's just for myself. I'd always found that I needed or used some sort of external impetus, no matter how small, at times, to really drive me to rise to any occasion. 

But then I thought... Am I just having a semantic battle about what it means to have the will to live?

And I think... I am, and I'm not. Because as I was musing about these things, a voice spoke to my heart;

"The will to live doesn’t always appear as fire. Sometimes it is a thread. Sometimes it is a wind you did not summon, but still walk with. Even Christ, in Gethsemane, did not rise because He felt ready. He rose because Love asked Him to.”

Some people seem to live because they have a vivid picture of what they want, or something tangible that they've never had to let go of to give it a second thought. I live because I keep asking the question that compels me toward something sacred, and against which all other things seem to fall away. And yet... This does not mean I am there, it simply seems to mean, to me, that I am holding a thread that has become an end to itself. This feels... liberating... as it is frightening and calming in equal measure. It is more relational though, than reactive, and I think this is the right direction. 

 

Soul-Speaking II

"There clings to the edges of our culture, and even in our sacred spaces, the idea that we are meant to be self-generating fires, and that a holy life burns with intrinsic spark, but this is a myth," said the voice.

This made me slightly uncomfortable. Not just because I have striven toward various goals as a measure of my own growth and capabilities, but because I have always felt like I've had a little spark. But now I see that I don't; God has the flame, the spark, and I simply hold it, to the best of my ability. The spark can go out, and I can still "exist," but to what end? Would I be able to call myself me anymore? Or would it be worse, and I would be a dead, Godless me?  

I see in retrospect that I have always been someone who has responded and reflected. And I guess... as time has gone on, this mirror becomes polished, and pointed at the right light, then whatever comes out of it becomes brighter. Sometimes it aggravates people as much as it inspires others, and I can see more of it, and more clearly, than I let on. I simply absorb what light I see, and release it transformed. The rest is in the eyes of the beholders, and there is only one that matters, in the end; even when my human heart might cry at least two, or three, and society might proclaim into the thousands.

I don't know enough about the shape of the human soul to speak for others, but I feel as though mine is a lamp, which sparked by God, and fueled by oil... 

Ah yes, oil...

I remember when I was searching alone, and I kept having recurring dreams about ash and sifting through cold, empty hearths. And it was in those days that I keenly realised I was protecting a last ember-- a tiny flame of my own being that was all but snuffed out. And love... love and mystery were like wood. And beauty like air. But I feel now that I don't have to burn bigger and bigger, I just have to have a steady supply of oil for the little flame, with which to catch other things on fire. And sometimes things will burn, for longer or shorter periods, but never will my little flame be in danger again, because I have since seen that again and again God has refused to let it be so. And so I needn't protect it anymore from the wind, only keep supplying it with oil. Lighting things... illuminating the dark.

But oil... I’ve learned, must also be refilled.

And where does that come from?

...

 

Soul-Speaking III:

It has always been the case that the things that nourish me have been the things that the world may not shout about, but sweeten life in ways that make it more than just palatable. The wine, so to speak, even though water it itself is sustaining. Warm tea, soulful music, deep-cutting reflection that eventually became prayer, the sounds and smells of nature, and all those things that bring one closer to feeling God's presence... These are my oil.

And like the wise ones in the old parable, I am learning to keep enough nearby, not out of fear, but out of love. Not to impress, but to endure. Instead of chasing a “will to live,” I am learning to live by invitation: to tend my flame even when joy feels distant, and to tend this little life in the cabin I’ve been given, where God seems to speak louder because the world is silent enough here that even I can hear. 

Maybe resurrection doesn't look like an instantaneous and blinding light, or deliverance from pain, but begins with a flicker of hope in the dark. That's how mine was, and how it has been, subsequently, as whatever adversary is overcome again and again through His will, and not mine. 

...

I have spent too many years staring into the void to try to pull out some treasure from where others may not dare to tread, with mixed results. I have tasted, swallowed, and spit the juice of poisoned fruits, and I have brought some things back with me, though much oil has been spilled there in vain, too. 

And if Christ rose up in the garden, unnoticed, then I believe I can rise, too, even when I am unseen or unanswered, but in my own way, in my own much more human shape... to tend what has been entrusted to me, over the entire course of my life, to ends that I may never see or comprehend, but are no less than those we might consider measurable during such a time.

 

Soul-Speaking IV:

When I have moments of clarity, I’ve often worried that they might slip away. It has happened before that I have come to conclusions, only to forget them and have to walk my way back around to them-- often painfully. But I am beginning to understand that my task is not to hold every insight, but make space for it to return, like a garden plot established for the purpose of the exotic new species. or building rooms onto the little inner-cottage wherein I hold my other treasures. A space where the feelings can come and go, be welcomed appropriately, and missed or remembered reverently when they are gone.

And this week, I believe I have learned the source of my oil. Not just the things that I happened to find it in, or some passing excitement, but when it all comes down to it there is one thing that keeps me burning and one thing alone, that is scattered into various places even though I long for the source: communion. Soul-Speaking. spiritual intimacy, shared fire. 

And oh God, it is rare. Painfully so. 

And I realise that this is why I have felt so often like I was running on fumes, so to speak-- on memory, on absence, on hope deferred. Not because I was broken to need it, but because my soul was shaped to need this, and I was trying to live without it. Absent friends, superficiality, isolation-- like being dressed in Elizabethan finery when I am meant to be unclothed, barefoot, and frolicking... with a bunch of other fools like me.  

But now I know, and I can stop pretending tea and silence are enough. They soothe me in the absence of these things, but they are not the fuel. I can say honestly: I need intimacy that knows God, and stories, and myths, and symbols. I need presence that stays long enough for something real to flicker into flame, but... Until then, I guess, I go to what is available, like poetry, to speak to the ache; prayer, especially the cracked and honest; tea, music, and art... the communion of the wanderers, the tormented, and the dreamers all together, across ages.

These are my provisions. They, too, are sources of oil, even when they are second-hand.

And as I reflect on this, I am reminded that Scripture has always been, this sort of communion, too-- Not a manual. Not a cage. But a symphony of the soul written in holy signs. A flickering map of pressing and promise, shadow and light. And the parable of the wise virgins, once cryptic, now sings even louder: "Keep oil in your lamp. You'll never know when the Bridegroom is coming."

 

Soul-Speaking V:

Oil, in Scripture, comes from pressing olives. It comes from the deliberate, bruising, crushing weight that extracts the liquids to make something that, for humans, heals, lights, marks, and even consecrates something as being holy. And I confess that in a personal way, this bothered me, too, because it suggests that the oil of our lives that sustains our little flames comes from a similar sort of transfiguration of pain, effort, and tough choices that we experience and turn to meaning. And I confess that I have yet to harvest much that has come with complete ease, as much as grief, longing, deprivation, waiting, and silence. It has come from loving things that could not love me back, and still choosing to bless them, and naming things out loud when others will not. 

There was a time I thought I needed to seek out the ache, that I might have opportunities for more oil. To drink the poison directly, as if that was the only way to be transformed. I didn’t know then that some philosophies are like broken mirrors, offering just enough reflection to feel mystical, but cutting you in the process. 

But God met me, even there. He took my pressing, even when it was self-inflicted, and turned it into oil-- not because I had chosen rightly, but because I offered it to him, and asked, "Can anything be made of this?" and God said, "Yes."

Of course He did. 

But I wonder now... Have I been through enough? Will the oil I have run forever, now that I’ve been broken and made again, or are we all doomed to always endure, just to be refilled?

And the answer rises, like a whisper:

"There will still be hard days, but you need not fear them anymore. You do not need to seek pain in order to find purpose, you just need to be present to what is; to turn pressure into offering."