Helen Jaeger died on the evening of July 3rd, 1999. Her apartment was located on the 23rd floor of an elderly high rise in St. Paul Minnesota. She wasn't much to look at – five foot four inches tall – squat in build – grey hair - a life-long United Methodist lay person. Yet this physical description hardly does her justice; for she was a woman who lived with Soul.
In the '50's, my wife Jean's mom spoke with youth about the dangers of drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. She carried her “Johnnie Smoker” into high schools demonstrating how tars from cigarette smoke collect in the lungs. She asked students in her youth group to sign a yearly abstinence pledge. Some of her church friends saw her as a bit strange and a kook.
During the '60's and '70's she joined the anti-war movement. She was one of those “little old ladies in tennis shoes” who marched on the pentagon to protest US involvement in Viet Nam. Although she had only a high school education, she invited university students and college professors into her home to explore their understanding of global politics and spirituality. For these activities she was branded a radical and a subversive.
During the '80's she became involved with meditation movements. She was particularly interested in the writings of Edgar Casey, the psychic and medical clairvoyant. She was fascinated by the possibility that we are reincarnating beings. Once again, her beliefs and actions put her outside the norms of her religious community.
Helen died from congestive heart failure. Yet, two days before her death she sat in her bed and welcomed friends who asked her to pray for them. She saw her dying as a transition into another life experience. Her last words were, “Wow!”
Helen's life was shaped by her spirituality. She didn't fit the definition of a United Methodist church lady. Nor did she fit the norm of a white, middle class homemaker. Helen lived outside the box. She lived with soul.
Siddartha Gautama (Buddha) also lived outside the box. He abandoned his wife and young child as he wandered beyond his father's royal compound on his search for enlightenment. He rejected a life of wealth and power and became an itinerant teacher, the founder of a major spiritual tradition. He lived with soul.
Jesus too lived outside the box. He violated the Sabbath law by working on this holy day. When challenged, he said that the Sabbath was made for humans and not humans for the Sabbath. He taught that the Human Being is lord even of the Sabbath. Yet according to an ancient text of Luke 6:4 (Codex Bezae) he couples this statement with a caution, saying to a man who was working on the Sabbath, “Man, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed; but if you don't know what you are doing, you are cursed and a transgressor of the law.”
Living with Soul - living outside the box - is a risky enterprise. Those who engage their deep humanity live with a kind of freedom and personal authority that may be interpreted as sacrilegious or even immoral. Yet our motivations are extremely important. It is possible to live outside the box in rebellion against the dominant culture or out of personal arrogance. This kind of living lacks Soul and ultimately proves counterproductive and destructive. Soulful living is living that is intimately connected to our deep humanity.
Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way in a sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on March 29th, 1959: “There are three groups of people in the world....(the) lawless people...who break laws,...(the) law-abiding people whose standards of conduct come from...the law written on the book, or the customs and mores of society...(and a) third group...who are committed to an inner law, those people who have an interior criteria of conduct...who are obedient to something that the law without could never demand...”
Helen Jaeger was part of this third group of people. She was guided by an inner criteria of conduct. She believed that it was her role to live the way of love, honoring people for who they were, even when they disagreed with her and thought her weird. Our culture needs more people who live with Soul.
