Soul Care: Exploring What Matters Most Today

Considering a 'whole and other' way to live is the answer today!

Photo by Sandra-Beatrice Molnar on Unsplash

Soul Care is not an add-on to our already over crowded and fast paced life.  When I explain what soul care is—I often get feedback that goes like this, “Steve, the life you are describing sounds wonderful—if not delicious, but… it seems like you’re asking us to add “soul care” onto our crowded plates, along with every thing else we have to “do” to get on with your lives?

When properly understood, soul care is not an add-on. Soul Care is not an elective that you might consider, if you had the time and energy. 

No, caring for your soul is a whole-other way to life.  It is a life described, modeled and lived out by Jesus; taught by Desert Mothers and Fathers; neglected by the reformers of the church; ignored in the Church growth movement of the 70’s-90’s and is being rediscovered now by desperate women and men who are tired, worn out and burned out on a religion of hustle and bustle. There really is another way to live. 

I find it amazing that the early followers of Jesus, were not called ‘Christians’ for a long, long time. They were called, “Followers of the way.” That term is mentioned, no less than five times by Luke, an early follower of Jesus who journaled the detailed  life of Jesus and the account of the birth of the church.  Here’s the deal. We’ve lost the way. We have exchanged the way of Jesus for the business of the church. We’ve managed in America to build alot of churches, but are we building lives of resiliency; souls that are satisfied and human beings who are content? I think the evidence is clearly in and most of the evidence I see ifs dark and dismal.

Not ony have we lost our way, we are confused about the truth. Given this, how could it even be possible that we could live a life that is marked by resiliency; filled with purpose and teeming with passion?

Eugene Peterson has siad it best and most succintly for us when he said, “The Jesus Way combined with the Jesus Truth will yield the Jesus Life.”

What if we could re-discover this “way” and actually begin to live it—this is the promise of soul care; this is the hope that soul care offers.

We are going to need to cut through the religious paraphernalia and daily clutter of our lives.

We have become spiritual hoarders listening to faddish social influencers rather than returning to ancient ways of caring for our souls and caring for the souls of others. The answer is not more; it is less.  Return to a more simple way of doing your life. The answer is not in doing more or even in knowing more. It is learning to live life in a way that is sustainable and one marked by an inner thriving rather than feeling depleted.

Kristen Powers, a writer and reporter recently posted: “The more we acquire, the more we achieve, the less happy we are. Only now, you also have the problem of cratering mental health and often some sort of chronic illness. We are not designed to live this way, and our bodies are here to remind us of this fact. (If you doubt this, I highly recommend Gabor Mate's latest book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing In A Toxic Culture)

Eventually, all your "hustle and grinding" leads you to the land of "self-care."

Self-care is late-stage capitalism’s solution to the problem it created. How convenient that after turning your neck into a tangle of knots or creating pathological levels of anxiety and exhaustion, the "solution" is for you to spend money you don't have so you can just feel normal.

A whole industry has sprung up to patch up your broken body, mind, and soul just enough for you to keep playing this sick game where you never get to rest, have a hobby or spend unscheduled time with friends or family, or just live an everyday life.

Self-care does not fundamentally change anything; it is a band-aid. A bath bomb, essential oils, a meditation app or a Thai massage will not fix your problems. This is not to say that they can't bring temporary relief. But as

Pooja Lakshmin MD says, “You can’t meditate your way out of a 40-hour-workweek with no childcare.”

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Here’s the problem, “self-care” as Powers describes it and “soul care” as I describe it is not a band-aid at all.  It is not the latest fad in our ‘late stage capitalism’s solution to the problem it created.”  Soul Care is not an effort to patch us up to survive. It is the antidote to a culture where exhaustion is the norm; loneliness is the standard way we describe our heart ailments;

Soul Care is living with the soul is mind. It is heeding Solomon’s proverb: “Above all else, guard your heart for from flows everything (Proverbs 4:23).”

“Above all else”—is correctly translated in modern day English, as: The most important thing a human can do, is to take care of their inner life!  If we are null and void inside; if we are numb and burned out, then how in the world is this a life that is worthy to be called a life.

The exhausted life is not the abundant life. 

Say that three times and click your heels and believe it, because it is true. The possibility and threat of running on empty is at the core of the entire teaching of Jesus.  Born into an occupied country and shaped by thousands of religious prohibitions, Jesus arrived on the scene teaching us a whole other way of living and a radically different paradigm to re-imaging our image of God which was shaped by Jewish prophets who got some things right and some things wrong. 

Seeing God as far off, removed, distant and demanding and angry was a common way of belief for many then and today.  Yet, Jesus came calling God—the most adoring of all terms, “Daddy”—an intimate term of affection and experience.  His model of life included a rhythm of life that was sustainable, enjoyable and doable.

Put simply, the way to live taught by Jesus involved a basic rhythm of engaging with our work then learning to  dis-engage with work to enjoy; to spend time with friends; to eat together and share deeply from the heart.

What happened, it seems that the model proposed by Jesus was mis-understood by broken men, who were themselves, on their own journey of trying to get “it” right but somehow never really got the power and control lessons down and brought a model of hierarchy  and patriarchy into the New Testament church that Jesus never envisioned or described at all. When I look at the 2^nd century images of church leaders and see, hats, caps and cloaks—along with staffs and rods symbolizing power, it becomes obvious that human beings seem to always have issues with whose the most powerful—more than how to be the most loving—which is the core of the teachings of Jesus.

Church historian Alfred Losiy wrote, “Jesus came preaching the kingdom of heaven. What he got was the church.”  Jesus elaborated by plainly telling us that the “kingdom is within” us. Within us—is the address of our soul. Within us is what we must guard and nourish. Within us—is where life resides. And it is “within us” that we must return to, to find our way back out.

The church of the 21^st century is in trouble and we have dumbed down the message intended by Jesus to promote Christian nationalism and in many places male superiority and authority. We’ve gotten a lot wrong it seems. And what concerns me most, is not our doctrine or creeds. What concerns me most is that we, the church, are the living dead—too tired to resist a culture bent on shaping us to be machines and so accepting of everyone and everything thing that we ignore our plight of being soul sick and so dis-eased, that we really do not know what the antidote is to all our soul sickness.

The antidote to our maddening world is not more rest.

It is learning to live with more heart—more soul.

Living with the soul in mind requires a paradigm shift of first—learning what the soul really is. After all, we just won’t take care of what we do not understand.  From an early age, we are “educated” to study to be something. But this is quickly replaced by the manta to not “be something” but to “do” something.

Do. Do. Do.  We live with the false cadence of the tyranny of the urgent and this oppressive way of living is combined not in the 2020’s by the existential plight of mental health revealed in our depression, anxiety riddled culture and suicide.  The after effects of COVID are now being seen in, not only how our education of our children failed during this time, but the dire amounts of loneliness, dis-connection and friendliness now being experienced across age demographics.

Understanding the soul reveals how fearfully and wonderfully made we all are. The soul gives dignity, worth and value to the child in Gaza, as well as the child in the Kibbutz in Israel. We all have have worth. We all are created as image-bearors of a loving God who had us in mind from the beginning—all of us; all races; all tribes; all people are the Children of God. The soul is the real me. It is all of me: my body, my past, my passions, my wounds, my history and every sinew making up my body—the address of my soul. My soul is the real me—a mixture of both glory and ruin.

For many of us, we get the “ruin” part. But, we have not adequately explored our glory. It is marvelous to see another person for who she really is—an image of the Creator—a bearor of that same nature. That thrill of hope makes the soul that is weary, feel hope.

Living with the soul in mind means, not living in isolation. I recently asked a business acquaintance in my new hometown about his friendships. I asked, “How often do you see you friends?” He replied, “Normally, once a month if I’m lucky.”  But living with the soul in mind means a “shared life” of table meals with lingering conversation and talking below the water line and exploring ideas and helping one another with their burdens. A shared life is a life of many lights shining their own glory around your own. It is a shared life of famiy; of friendship; or brotherhood and sisterhood. It is a life we see on the news when we hear of another tragedy and we say, “It could have been me. It could have been me.” It is the link that binds us all to one another as soulful beings on this small, blue planet called home.

The old Quakers and Shakers knew something when they penned:

‘Tis a gift to be simple.

‘Tis a gift to be free.

‘Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.

And when we find ourselves in a place just right,

Twill be in a valley of love and delight.

We want the valley of love and delight. But here’s the problem: We buy valleys and build our homes there and aattempt to reset our lives. But, we do not look within and realize in our packing and unpacking of all our stuff, that the real problem lies within.

Just like Jesus said, we need to look within—to start there. How can we fix a broken world, when we are so broken? ONe of the problems I have with modern day mission movements, is this: They send people out to share a message without having first looked within themselves to see and heal what is broken. Doesn’t it make sense to have wounded healers help us than people who won’t admit their issues or be healed from what is causing their issues?

How Do We Begin?

Start with decluttering who you listen to; how you listen and explore what you listen or read certain people or news outlets. Become curious on your intake. Because once you connect your intake with your output, you may begin to see a connection.  Like my medical doctors reminds me, “Eat to live. Don’t live to eat.” It requires a choice. How you live your life daily will soon be how you’re living your life. Look at the DNA of your church, if it’s unhealthy and toxic, find a place that is healthy and life giving.

Soul care requires a choice. Given our plethora of options, we must learn to choose healthy ways to be and healthy ways to live along with healthy ways to worship and “do” church.    As we contemplate a new year coming, begin with the choice to live with your soul in mind and heart.

Take an honest assessment of the life you’ve lived this past year. Consider using “The Great Annual Examen”. It’s a series of questions about five of the major categories of yoru soul and how you think you “did” this past year in each of the categroies.

Consider reading my book, “The Jesus Life: Eight Ways to Recover Authentic Christianity.”  Start a book club or read it in a small group or choose one friend. If you have read it, then consider reading it again.  I am finding more and more that people assume that they learned “soul care” through a course, seminar or retreat. But actually understanding soul care properly really requires and acceptance that caring for our soul happens at a cellular level and requires a very, very long time to get the message.

It takes lots of practice and lots of beginning again and massive amounts of being gentle with yourself. We are just so steeped in  our patterns, ways and left-brain ways of thinking that we ignore the power of repetition and what is called, soul memory—or as we call it “muscle memory.”  Practicing the care of the soul is training yourself to do what brings you life. The language of the soul is life-giving and is contagious. Why? Because so many of us are “done” and feel done with much of what we’ve done so far in our lives. We notice people who are life giving. We want to be around them. We want to be with them.

Thirdly, consider practicing an ancient spiritual discipline called, “The Daily Examen.” The individual who set this up for us nearly 500 years ago said, if you practice the daily Examen for three months, you’re life will be changed forever. I believe this and it is my own personal experience. It’s all about becoming more aware of your heart and soul. Exploring what is really going on inside of out and what this all may mean. The podcast where I explore the Daily Examen remains our most listened to podcast of all times! (Here’s the link)

After devoting my life to caring for the soul, I can tell you plainly and simply, It’s where anyone interested in living well, leading well and being well should begin and plant themselves. There are no regrets. But, let me also add in closing, it has been my job to listen to people live with regrets— relational regrets; spiritual toxicity and emotional abuse in all forms, and when they learn about caring for their souls, they receive this message for what it is: Water for the thirsty. Bread for the hungry and life for the dying!