{"id":33806,"date":"2025-02-11T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/?p=33806"},"modified":"2025-02-11T11:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T15:15:07","slug":"beautiful-souls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/beautiful-souls\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing the Soul: Love, Beauty, and the Mystery of Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"A
Somehow, I knew that my life had just been changed, although I could not have possibly known just in how many ways that would turn out to be true.\u00a0 | Image courtesy of congerdesign<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Beautiful Souls<\/h3>\n

Because I\u2019m a romantic at heart, I\u2019ll be posting two Valentine\u2019s Day-themed posts this week. It\u2019s my small contribution to pushing back against the disturbing news and events that threaten to overwhelm us every day. In the spirit of Valentine\u2019s Day, we might ask What makes a human being beautiful? What is it that we love when we love someone? These are questions that Marilynne Robinson explores in her 2020 novel Jack<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/em>through a very unlikely romance.\"\"<\/p>\n

Both Jack and Della are preacher\u2019s kids, but there the similarity ends. Jack is a classic \u201cblack sheep of the family,\u201d with years of wandering and vagrancy, including a few years in prison, in his past. Della is a grade school teacher. Jack is white, Della is black. In 1940s Missouri, their relationship was suspect and scandalous, and any possible marriage in the future would be illegal. Both have tried to break off this apparently doomed relationship on more than one occasion, but they keep coming back to each other.<\/p>\n

It Just Wouldn\u2019t Stay Ended<\/h3>\n

Toward the end of the book, Jack asks Della why she keeps coming back, despite her family\u2019s resistance to the relationship, and despite their agreement that it was over the last time they saw each other. \u201cI thought we ended this,\u201d Jack says. Della replies that \u201cWe did end it . . . It just wouldn\u2019t stay ended.\u201d As she tries to explain why, she asks Jack if he believes that everyone has a soul. Jack, who tries to be an atheist, grudgingly agrees for the sake of argument. Della continues:<\/p>\n

We know this, but just because it\u2019s a habit to believe it, not because it is really visible to us most of the time. But once in a lifetime, maybe, you look at a stranger and you see a soul, a glorious presence out of place in the world. And if you love God, every choice is made for you. There is no turning away. You\u2019ve seen the mystery\u2014you\u2019ve seen what life is about. What it\u2019s for. And a soul has no earthly qualities, no history among the things of this world, no guilt or injury or failure. No more than a flame would have. There is nothing to be said about it except that it is a holy human soul. And it is a miracle when you recognize it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Uncertainty In Just About Every Area Of My Life<\/h3>\n

This gives me chills and puts tears in my eyes, not just because of the beautiful writing. It transports me back thirty-five years to Thanksgiving Day at my parents\u2019 condominium in Jackson, Wyoming. Fresh off a divorce six months earlier, I was there with my sons, ages eight and six, at a time of transition and uncertainty in just about every area of my life.<\/p>\n

Also visiting my folks for Thanksgiving was a friend of my parents\u2019 who was finishing her Masters\u2019 degree in Santa Fe. I had heard them talk about her before, but we had met for the first time in person the previous evening. I had been exhausted from the 500-mile drive to Jackson that night with little kids in the back seat, so she hadn\u2019t made much of an impression.<\/p>\n

A Glorious Presence<\/h3>\n

\"\"But as I watched her chatting with my mother in my parents\u2019 tiny condo kitchen that Thanksgiving as I sat on the living room couch, I saw beauty. Not primarily physical beauty\u2014although that was certainly there\u2014but a beautiful soul such as I\u2019d never encountered before. Exactly what Della is describing to Jack in the passage from the novel. Somehow, I knew that my life had just been changed, although I could not have possibly known just in how many ways that would turn out to be true. Jeanne and I treat the day before Thanksgiving as our real anniversary, but it was the next day that I first saw her for what she really was and is: A glorious presence, and a holy human soul.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Enough to Believe<\/h3>\n

Jeanne is special and unique, of course, but so is every human being. There is a divine beauty about each of us; it is sad that we truly \u201csee\u201d it so seldom. But when you do see it, in another person or\u2014even more rarely, perhaps\u2014in yourself, there is no longer any doubt that the soul is real. The soul is not a \u201cthing,\u201d nor is it an idea or assumption to turn into doctrinal or dogmatic commitments and agendas. It is enough, for me at least, to believe that the soul is real, a mark of the ineffable and transcendent in each of us. It is the truth.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beautiful Souls Because I\u2019m a romantic at heart, I\u2019ll be posting two Valentine\u2019s Day-themed posts this week. It\u2019s my small contribution to pushing back against the disturbing news and events that threaten to overwhelm us every day. In the spirit of Valentine\u2019s Day, we might ask What makes a human being beautiful? What is it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2938,"featured_media":33830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14,40,48,56,63,1283],"tags":[141,242,269,287,1004],"class_list":["post-33806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty","category-books","category-god","category-human-nature","category-jeanne","category-love","category-soul","tag-beauty","tag-god","tag-human-nature","tag-jeanne","tag-soul"],"yoast_head":"\nSeeing the Soul: Love, Beauty, and the Mystery of Connection<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Once in a lifetime, maybe, you look at a stranger and you see a soul, a glorious presence out of place in the world. And if you love God, every choice is made for you. There is no turning away. 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