Devotions based on David Benner’s book, Soulful Spirituality

We are soul and we are spirit and both call us on a journey. Spirit is dynamic, energizing, and enriching. It gives us energy to live life to the full. Without Spirit we have no life. Spirit sustains us and gives us purpose and direction to life. It drives us towards fullness, wholeness, and integration. We might think of spirit as fire in our bellies and soul is like the container for this fire. Soul helps us contain our passions in a way that we can use their energy productively. It helps us hold our experiences of joys, disappointments, hopes, fears, suffering, etc in awareness and to integrate them. The call of the spirit is up and beyond ourselves to transcendence, and the call of the soul is to a place of groundedness  and belonging. These two should complement each other.  Soulful living is one of authenticity, love, and awareness of being anchored in reality. Our soul withers when we live in illusion or denial. An authentic life is a simple life that is integrated…what you see is what you get…no pretence but simple truth. Our authentic self will always be unique and is what we are. “Soulful living calls us to remember who we are and where we have come from.” It is a way of living out of the depth of our being.