Welcome to my blog called Living With Soul.
I have spent much of my life seeking to be more than I think I am. When I was younger, I felt I had to excel to be acceptable to myself. As I aged, this drive to be exceptional shifted. I wanted to make the world a better place, particularly for those who were damaged by cultural attitudes and structures. Since I was raised in a religious family, these yearnings were strongly affected by my Lutheran upbringing. I saw myself as striving to please God. My question, “Am I more than I think I am,” was really the question, “What can I do to raise myself from my imperfect state?” “How can I measure up to the heavy demands of God to live like Jesus lived?”
In later years, pleasing God did not fill the bill. In fact, my whole image of God sort of evaporated. Yet the life and teachings of Jesus continued to motivate me. Somehow this man was in touch with a spark of life that I found very attractive. I yearned to live my life with the courage and abandon that I saw in him. I wanted to live out my potential as completely as possible. The question, “Am I more than I think I am,” had changed. It became, “How can I grow into my Charles Pfeifer potential?” I no longer yearned to be like Jesus or Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted grow into the real Charles Pfeifer.
Here is where “living with soul” comes in. Ray Charles, credited with the musical sound we call soul, once said, “Soul is like electricity – we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light up a room.” Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (1945-61) said, “Until you know that life is interesting – and find it so - you haven't found your soul.”
I want to engage the source of this electricity? I want to experience life as so interesting that I just have to live it. Looking at it this way, the question, “Am I more than I think I am?” becomes, “Is my potential as a human being more than I had ever imagined?” If this is so, life is not primarily about achieving. Life is about engaging soul.
This is what I want to explore in this blog site. I invite you to join me.
1 comment:
Good Evening,
It is March 9, 2011 and I am listening to you on WPR for the replay of the program Here on Earth. I am so touched by your concepts......I feel like you are touching the way I have become over a very long life. In another life I was a nurse working with mentally ill persons and senior citizens. I raised a large family....who are all scattered and raising their own families now. We have 13 grandchildren all ages, several races and 3 of them are French. A long lifetime full of experiences has changed how I see everyone and I continue . like you, to find Jesus' way of seeing "others" so much clearer and understandable than the "christianity" we learned as children and the organized church. I too am an "out of the box" but former Methodist lady . It is so refreshing to hear others who have found a new way to live life.....I can't believe how similar your profile is to mine. Wish I could attend you seminar.....Madison is just to far away for me now. I am new to "blogging"....learning these new skills are difficult but I use the internet to stay intouch with our family and to try to understand the world. Hope this is makes sense and I have "posted" it correctly. Thank you for sharing you thoughts on WPR. Valerie L Allen
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