Soul Scribe

The etymology (fancy name for where a word comes from) of the word vocation takes it back to the word voice.  I love the idea of that relationship.

My vocation is my voice in the world.  It’s what I’m charged to do every day.  My voice is my vocation.

As a writer, voice is that all-important, yet unexplainable thing that makes great literature.  It’s all about the voice.  No one can slap a real definition on what voice actually IS, but they sure try – sorta like God.

We try to define God, but we really only capture the smallest essence.  That’s part of the evolution of faith – we understand a bit more each day of what God has revealed to us.  But try as we might to define God – God will never be contained by us.

God is so much more than we can imagine.  It’s the greatest mystery of all time.  Keep up the sleuthing and we’ll be rewarded with a glimpse of the truth.

I’m settling into my vocation.  It can be difficult to throw thoughts out there into the world, because it contains my voice – my soul is in everything I do.

So despite my trepidations, I’m sharing my vocation/voice/soul with the world.  Maybe one day, I’ll hear back from you about it.

We get so caught up in the nitty gritty of rules and judgments that we forget.

 It’s not about the rules.

It’s about how you treat people.  It’s about finding that person in the corner and finding out who they are.  It’s walking the talk and how you live each day.  What kind of good did you do today?

You can be the most conscientious follower of religious practices and still not be who God wants you to be.

Don’t get me wrong.  Religion is important, but it’s not for show or the motions.  You’ve got to live it, not just attend it.

Religion is making our path to a relationship with God, as individuals and also community.  Everyday religion requires commitment that less and less people have time for nowadays.

We marginalize people for many reasons – they look different; they act different; they live different; they don’t look, act or live how we want them to live.  We forget that some people are even there.

Open your eyes and see all those around you as God does.  God sees each of us.  He really sees – not just the surface, but deep down into the soul.

If we really look at one another and see, we can make a difference.

Faith is like a river, ever flowing towards God.  As the water, we must quench our desire to change course.  To grow faith and strengthen it, we must water the seed within us.

Learning about God and our beliefs is crucial to keeping our faith healthy – without this, it is easy for our faith to fall by the wayside or to leave us when times get tough.  If you open yourself to growing your faith – that strength will stay with you through the darkest of nights.

Remember to see God and learn about him in your daily life.  He is there, not in the obvious, but in the smallest moment.  You must be open to his call.  It makes the darkness bright.

 It’s a question that we all ask ourselves in one way or another.

Theology is for those really holy people who can understand it, right?

Nope, wrong-o.  Theology is for everyone.  It’s not for monks wearing brown robes holed up in stone caves.  It’s for every living, breathing human.  Theology isn’t the same for everyone.  There’s book-smart theology for those real scholarly types.  There’s common-sense theology for those sweet gentle souls.  And for those of us in between, there’s a nice theology mixture.

Theology is about the journey to God.  It’s about growing and expanding our knowledge of faith.

And that’s the purpose for this blog.  I’m one of the in-betweens, so you’ll find a balance here of common sense and book smarts.