The Spirit

To lose touch with one's spiritual nature is a dangerous thing. Yet, I fear that we, as a race, have done exactly that heretical and blasphemous thing. We have forgotten the slight yearnings of the soul that prompt us to pause under the stars, to feel the wind wrap our bodies, to hear the trees whisper to each other. We have forgotten the Song, the Music, and the Composer. We have forgotten our part in the endless harmonies that stretch out across eternity, forming the life we live in the flesh. We have forgotten the veil that hides this world and the next, the curtain that ties every spiritual moment into the tangible. We have forgotten so much. I have forgotten so much.

It has been raining in Fort Worth for what seems like a month. Every day has been gray, gloomy, cloudy, misty, foggy, and wet. The temperatures dropped below the customary 80's into the lower 60's, igniting within me a yearning for Christmas. Christmas is one of the very rare times where the physical world and the spiritual seems to converge, juxtapose themselves, and then depart without a single word of farewell. The reds, greens, silvers, blues, and whites of Christmas explode across homes. Lights twinkle and flash as if the stars themselves could not remain behind the cloudy veil that separates their world from ours. The smells of cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin pie, and apple cider all twist and coalesce in a beauty that cannot be explained or described. And within the heart of the observer arises a yearning, a desiring for something more, something real, something true.

The yearning of the heart is the characteristic element of the spiritual nature. The yearning for the reality, the Truth, the World-Beyond-the-Veil. However, man, in his physical nature, cannot enter that World. We are lost in our selves, our modern terminologies, technologies, and traded lives. We have lost the ability to sit in silent communion with the Composer of it all, listening to our soul sing in exultation and adoration to the One. We have lost sight of our joy, our source, our future.

Eventually, I want to live in a place where there are real seasons, all four of them. Growing up in southern Mississippi, I became accustomed to four seasons, although they were not the real ones. They were Summer, Real Summer, Still Summer, and I Wish It Were Winter. However, I learned in school that there were actually four different seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. To think, I could see the leaves on the trees actually be a different color than green and brown! It was an amazing thought. Then, when I was in college, some friends of mine and I drove to Chicago for fall break. On the way home, we drove through St. Louis. Never in my life had I been as speechless about color. Oranges, yellows, reds, greens, and every shade therein was vibrantly visible down the interstate. The trees were changing colors, collecting the chlorophyll and going to sleep for the winter. In my heart, I pit formed that drew me into a deep reflection on my own soul and nature. I encountered the joy of it, the silence of it. I will never forget it.

The yearning of the soul is not foreign to us, but it is unfamiliar. It happens so rarely these days, yet when we read the writings of men and women from a little over a century ago and beyond, we find a joy and familiarity with their souls that we have never known. Yet, our culture longs for it, fills it with every new thing. And in doing so, we mute the Voice of the One, reveling in our distractions. Oh, deplorable race that we are! Is there no hope?

There is hope for us. We can never forget that there is hope. There must be.