My friend Work Girl sent me this gem today. She wrote it awhile back and was generous enough to share it with us. I hope it will lift your spirits like it did mine.
"the soul" by Work Girl
There are some very simple things to understand about the soul. It is the one thing that never perishes, it does not run along the same course as the body but has the freedom to grow younger and lighter as the body gets older. Its spirits can rise even as physical form is assaulted, beaten down. It is not fettered to common sense, physicality, fatigue, time. The soul actually maneuvers, lives, breathes, acts outside of time.
Talk about a miracle.
Conversely, the soul can wither and fade even at a person's peak of physical health. It can crack as the body gets stronger, break as the mind learns more and ages experientially. The soul can be the transient opposite to any situation.
The soul proves God more than anything in nature ever will because it proves His image outside of time, space, culture, matter, tangible forces, scientific absolutes. And yet it is an absolute and can be proved everytime someone smiles peacefully and contentedly as they lay dying of cancer or as an Olympic athlete fights depression and inadequacy after winning a gold medal. There is nothing scientific to prove about that. It is simply labeled something aloof and indeterminable like 'the human condition' and set aside as a silent component of life not to understand but certainly to marvel at abstractedly upon hearing a story of someone gaining hope as they begin to starve stranded in an imploded mine.
The soul lies completely unseen, intangible, and yet its form is known and felt every moment as though it were a ponderous giant sitting on our head, filling a room... or as though it were a panther, strong and stealthy, stalking the situation with intentional force. Sometimes the soul behaves as a fairy fluttering through the forest shedding rainbow glitters, dusting everything with evanescent brilliance.
But here, we have to give visual, physical image to the soul in order to communicate it. Because the actual soul is unseen.
But it is not unknown.
Even though neither the strongest microscope nor largest telescope could distinguish it under the most focused scrutiny. Could you imagine if a scientist one day expounded the startling declaration that he had captured a soul and taken a picture of it? How much do you think that image would sell for?
A soul is beautiful without being seen.
What a fabulous essay. That Work Girl is such a Beautiful writer! Figuratively and literally. Smooches for all of you!
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