The spirit within us

Last week I took a class on spiritual direction and, as always, learned something new. I had never thought about the difference between our spirit and our soul. I learned that spirit is the vital dynamic force of our being, given by God and that which brings our soul into living reality. And the soul is the very essence of our existence. The Biblical reference was Ps. 42:1 "As a hind (a deer) longs for the running streams, so do I long for thee, O God." God is the water of our spirit that nourishes our soul.

The longing is something that all of us feel and understand. We question the meaning of life, whether we will go to heaven, the knowledge that when we die, we do it alone, and much more about the human condition. God is the only answer to that longing. God loves every human being on earth, and gives each of us the strength to live through anything if we ask, and sometimes despite our failure to ask. When we ask for healing, God gives us a friend to talk to, or a doctor to address our physical ailments. When we ask for answers to problems, God gives us wisdom. When we are weak, God holds us. When we are fearful, God gives us courage.

The one thing God never is, is indifferent. Eli Weisel, an Auschwitz survivor and Noble Peace Prize winner, wrote in his memoir "Night": "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

To feed my soul, I must banish indifference from my spirit. A friend sent me one of those chain emails this morning, and my finger hovered over the delete button. The story was about a violinist who played in the metro station of Washington, D.C. on a cold winter day. The beautiful notes of Bach filled the air. But no one stopped to listen. A few dropped coins or bills, a total of $32. Only the children tried to stop an hear the music, until their parents dragged them on, all a rush. The musician was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world, and he was playing on a violin worth $3.5 million. Tickets to hear him were $200. The Washington Post arranged for him to play as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The writer asked what this says about us. Are we indifferent? Do we not recognize beauty or talent in an unexpected venue?

What else are we missing?

That longing I mentioned before must be how God feels too, longing for us to notice that beauty, that gift that he gives to us every day. We really don't want to miss that!