Earlier today, I was remembering a story I heard last summer from a mother/grandmother/sister/friend/lifelong Sunday school teacher. The story when something like this:
"I was with my 5 year old grandson the other day and he asked, 'Grandma, what's a soul?' I looked at him and said, 'You and your daddy are both boys, right? Are you and your daddy the same?' He laughed and said, 'No, Grandma! That's silly!' So I said, 'Well, you and your sister are both kids. Are you and your sister the same?' He said, 'No!' I said, 'Well, what about you and me? We are both people. And we're family, so are we the same?' He said, 'No.' 'Your soul,' I said, 'is what makes you you. So even though you are a person, like me. And even though you are a kid like your sister. And even though you are a boy like your daddy, you aren't me or your sister or your daddy. You are you.'"
I don't think a lot about my soul, but it seems to me that my soul is the invisible, intangible fingerprint of my me. My soul doesn't speak to me with words or leave sticky notes on my mirror, but somehow it motivates me. It pushes me in one direction or another. Sometimes, my soul speaks in music notes and chords. Sometimes my soul speaks through colors. Sometimes my soul speaks with weather. Oftentimes, my soul speaks stomach ache.
I read this article called "Soul Man" Monday on the bus ride to New Orleans. The article summarizes an interview with Paul Giamatti about the new movie "Cold Souls." The movie turns the souls of people into physical representations. Giamatti says of his own soul, “I’m seeing a hand-painted ceramic toad,” Giamatti said. “A nice one, though. Not a crappy Chia Pet one. Something decorative for the yard. It doesn’t pull the room together or anything, but it’s out there, and occasionally you notice it and you say, ‘Oh, I kind of like that thing, that—what is it?—that toad thing.’ ”
Other souls he represents with a doorknob, humming bird, or roasted ear of corn. It's hard to imagine what my soul might be if it took on physical form. An old three-legged chair with no arms? With a definite tendency to fall over. But used and overused nonetheless. Or maybe an old spiral bound notebook with lots of blurry pencil notes throughout its pages. I might be aging myself. I suppose it could be a half glass of water in perpetual motion. Or an old shag carpet in a faded green or orange.
What does your soul look like? What language does it speak? What makes you different from the other 6.7 billion breathing, speaking, living people in the world?
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