The Starved Soul On The Ash Heap

I turned 64 two days ago and yesterday returned to my routine of meeting with 18-year old’s to urge them toward life.  There is a parable there.  One of my favorite stories is that of the Prodigal Son.  Although not the best line in the story I often teach on the line, “and when he came to his senses.”  In many ways this is the cause of so much of the unbelief that enslaves so many today; the None’s as they have come to be known.  That title itself is telling.  We all are prodigals in one sense or another and some of us, myself included, do walk ourselves into the proverbial pig stye.  In large part, it is because we have starved our senses to gorge our appetites.  The greatest role of our senses is to open us to the beauty of life’s experiences, the smells of chocolate chip cookies baking, the sight of blue skies just peeking out behind the grey skies that spread to the horizon, the warmth of your lover as you lay your cold hand upon her in the middle of the night, the sound of birds in the dark of dawn or the faint sound of Three Dog Night as you return to your studio, the taste of really good coffee when you awake to a long day.  We each have hundreds of thousands of senses received glories each day.  We are drowning in the glories of sights and sounds, smells and feelings as they wash over us like warm water on sore souls—

Souls we have now tossed on the ash heap of humanity, traded in for appetites gorged on sweets and giggles served up on numbing devices that leave us wonderless, the last clinging of the soul we tossed away.