Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
“All that you have is your soul”
This is a line from a great Tracy Chapman song. She says her mom taught her this truth and she has tried to live by it since. Listening to her on You Tube and reading the comments from thousands of listeners it’s clear that her followers know why she dropped out of the limelight. Most people just say that she refused to sell her soul and cave to the glamour of the floodlights and huge audiences. She wrote her poetry, set it to music, graced us with her signature voice, and left it at that. Today she lives quietly and privately.
All that you have is your soul. It’s taken me a long time to learn that and to live fully into it. I honestly think it’s the biggest lesson of the second half of my life. The first part was a lot about growing up confused by the addictive behaviors of my parents, then trying to break as many rules of my teenage world as I could, then get away from home late in my 16th year. I knew I was running, I just didn’t know towards what, exactly. My 20’s and 30’s were spent on the gifts of travel, hard work, and having children. Jackie and Ted are, as the African poem says, not my children, “they are the sons and the daughters of life’s longing for itself.” It’s been my privilege to help them along the way. I watch them from a distance as they live out their souls’ purpose. I think they would instantly understand what Tracy sings about.
Today’s meditation from Richard Rohr is about saving our collective environmental souls. “We have lost our connection to this deeper reality of things. Consequently, we now find ourselves on a devastated continent where nothing is holy, nothing is sacred.” This is an unusually sober comment from the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. It caught my eye and now sits in my consciousness. In my mind’s eye I envision all the ways in which we refuse to honor Mother Nature’s creatures and places – especially if they stand in the way of making as much money as possible.
My other custom in the morning is to read Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters From an American”. Today’s message was equally disturbing to me. It seems our political system is also a place where “nothing is holy, nothing is sacred.” One of our political parties has a titular head who faces immense legal and financial challenges. Yet, 45 is able to say he is not worried because he has a lot of money and he can do what he wants to do. Among his plans if he gets into office? Build concentration camps and deport millions of people, even foreign-born United States citizens. If they don’t look like him, they are disposable. The fact that 45 was triumphant on Super Tuesday, and Nikki Haley has conceded is terrifying to me.
I probably need to request some time with my Unity minister. I need her reminder that my soul’s purpose is to focus on the potential good in ALL, and that despite any contrary behavior, every human is divine. It appears that I have work to do, still, on the condition that my condition is in. As Tracy says, “So don’t be tempted by the shiny apple; Don’t you eat of a bitter fruit; Hunger only for a taste of justice; Hunger only a world of truth; ‘Cause all that you have is your soul”. Amen, Sister.