Keeping the Sacred Flame

Honesty is important.  But how and why one is honest is also important.  One can use honesty as a weapon or as a way to make communication work better between people.  When honesty is a weapon, it’s being used incorrectly.

“I’m just being honest” “I’m a straight-shooter” “I’m just saying it like it is” – these are all words we use when honesty is our weapon.  They’re ways of saying “yes, these things are awful, but they’re true so you have to live with it”.  It’s using honesty to hurt people, and that’s a misuse of honesty.

Communication is powerful.  The same discussion can be loving or hurtful, depending on how it’s done.  The same truth can be used as a weapon or as a place of deepening conversation between people.

We have to ask ourselves sometimes, why are we telling someone this?  Is it because we care, or is it because we want to hurt someone?  Are we being truthful because it’s the right thing to do or because we cannot be blamed for it later?

Honesty is important.  When we are honest, we can deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other, and grow as people.  But when honesty is used as a weapon, it shrinks us and lessens the truth and the person delivering it.

Questions:
How do you use honesty?  Why?
How can honesty make you grow as a person?
How can honesty make you shrink?

So, it is good to be great-souled.  But how does one do that?

It’s hard work.  It’s a matter of choice, and a matter of effort.  Our souls grow by caring for those around us.  And that does not mean caring only for those we like.  It is easy to care for those we already love, for those we rely on, and for those that rely on us.  It is much harder to care for strangers, for people in power over you that use that power in ways you disagree with, and other such people.

When I say care, I don’t mean we have to approve of everything they do.  I care for people when I disagree with their choices.  But because I care, I cannot lie about how I feel about those choices.  I can refuse to answer – but when we truly care, we do not protect ourselves with lies.  We are lovingly honest – not honest to be cruel.  Cruelty shrinks the soul.  Caring honesty, honesty not for your own sake but truly for the sake of the person you’re speaking to, can make it grow.

And there are times when there is nothing we can do.  At those times, we should be quiet, and loving, and with the person that needs us.  We are all interconnected, and we grow and deepen when we love those around us honestly.

Questions:
How do you love honestly?  How do you care for those around you?
Why must you be honest if you care for the people around you?  How are you honest?
How do show your caring for people around you that are not your family or friends?  How do you care more generally?

What a bizarre word for death.  “Lost”.  Like they’re wandering around somewhere, if we could only find them again.

And yet, there’s truth to that.  There is no absolute death, no complete ending.  We leave this world, and that is horrible to those left behind.  But we are still in the universe.  Our breath still teases the wind, our voice lingers in the quiet of the night.  There is no ending.  There is a loss for those left behind, but there is no absolute ending.

Cold comfort, of course, for those left behind.  We cannot touch, cannot hold one that is gone.  Hearing a whisper on the wind reminds us of our pain, not the everlasting life of the soul.  But there comes a time when we can remember the good, not just the pain.  There comes a time when the voice on the wind is a comfort and not a trial.  There comes a time when we find it in ourselves to believe again in hope and life moves forwards.

Grief hurts.  There is no shame in missing the one we love, for we want them with us and not out in the Universe, scattered throughout the cosmos.  But grief is not eternal.  We are eternal and of the Divine, and when we lose our bodies, we gain the universe.

We are not lost.  We are not forgotten.  And our souls will shine again in the eyes of children to come.

When do people get souls?  At conception?  Quickening?  Birth?  Some completely different point?

I do not believe that souls are given and done.  We are not given a quantity of soul to never again change.  Souls grow, accrete, change.  We can grow our souls, if we are willing.

How does a soul grow?  Through opening ourselves to other people and loving them.  It shrinks when we close ourselves off and refuse to care for others.  To love, to be open, is to open ourselves to pain.  It is a risk, and a risk that is bound to cause pain at some point.  There is no love without pain.  But there is also no growth without love, regardless of the cost.

What good is a great soul, if it leads to pain?  It can also lead to joy.  When we close ourselves off so our soul cannot grow, we block off enjoyment of other people.  We stop growing, stop caring.  And we starve ourselves and the Divine.

When we grow our soul, we grow the Universe.  We grow each other, and growth leads to growth.  If we can grow our souls great enough, we can change the world.

Questions:
What does it mean to have a great soul?  What does it cost?
Do you allow your soul to grow?  Or do you try to keep it safe?
How can a great soul change the world?