It occurred to me today that when I pray for a person’s spirit, it always seems to me that I’m praying for this small portion of a person. It seems to me that a person’s spirit should be a much larger part of a person when I think about them, if not the whole person. I’ve been thinking about people in terms of what their spirit can do for their bodies and souls… instead of what their body and soul can do for a person’s spirit. I think people should start addressing the spirit of a person as the main person and thinking of the body and soul as just existing to help the main person, which is the spirit. I think we are to talk to a person like they are spirit only and their body and soul are just a distant second and third, existing only to help the spirit. As appendages assist the body to move and our senses assist the soul to make decisions based on past input, the body and soul exist to assist the spirit to function. George MacDonald wrote, “Never tell a child you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body.” (Unless MacDonald was only writing about the separateness of body and our emotional soul only, and not making a differentiation between our soul and our eternal spirit.)
It occurred to me today that as we look at a vase of flowers sitting on a table, the vase represents the body of a person. It’s the part of the container that holds everything else. The water, fluid, liquid, moving, represents the ever-changing emotions of a person’s soul. The soil in the pot also shows the darkness, depth, and layers of a person’s soul. However, nobody seems to notice the spirit of a person – the flowers. How odd it would be to look at a floral arrangement and not even see the flowers! That should be the focus when looking at flowers. How they are arranged and what setting they are in should only serve to embellish the already stunning array. A person’s spirit should be the focus whenever talking to or thinking about anyone. I sometimes wonder, if the vase is really pretty, what must the flowers look like that are inside the vase? Maybe they are even more beautiful, or maybe there are just dead, moldy flowers and scummy, tepid water inside a really nice vase. To say a person has a soul, or is a soul, and has a body too, is missing the entire point. Yes, we are combined entities, but the real person is the flower, not the water, earth, or vase. The real person is the combination of their spirit, soul, and their body, with their spirit being the focus of who they are, not their outward appearance – not even their fluctuating mental and emotional torrent we call a soul, but who are they really? Eternally… That is what we need to be looking at. That is WHO we need to be concentrating on and finding out more about whenever we regard people, including ourselves.
It occurred to me today that as we look at a vase of flowers sitting on a table, the vase represents the body of a person. It’s the part of the container that holds everything else. The water, fluid, liquid, moving, represents the ever-changing emotions of a person’s soul. The soil in the pot also shows the darkness, depth, and layers of a person’s soul. However, nobody seems to notice the spirit of a person – the flowers. How odd it would be to look at a floral arrangement and not even see the flowers! That should be the focus when looking at flowers. How they are arranged and what setting they are in should only serve to embellish the already stunning array. A person’s spirit should be the focus whenever talking to or thinking about anyone. I sometimes wonder, if the vase is really pretty, what must the flowers look like that are inside the vase? Maybe they are even more beautiful, or maybe there are just dead, moldy flowers and scummy, tepid water inside a really nice vase. To say a person has a soul, or is a soul, and has a body too, is missing the entire point. Yes, we are combined entities, but the real person is the flower, not the water, earth, or vase. The real person is the combination of their spirit, soul, and their body, with their spirit being the focus of who they are, not their outward appearance – not even their fluctuating mental and emotional torrent we call a soul, but who are they really? Eternally… That is what we need to be looking at. That is WHO we need to be concentrating on and finding out more about whenever we regard people, including ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment