Poem: Follow Your Soul

The Poetry of Rian Adams: Follow Your Soul

Each time I ponder the idea of the human Soul I’m not able to escape the spiritual context because to recognize soul is to admit something beyond the brain.

In Christian spirituality, the concept of original sin has permeated western thought for centuries. The oversimplified version says that a literal Adam sinned, in a literal garden, thus every human born after Adam is infected with sin. This idea goes further and says that God will judge every human born based on their sinfulness. This sinfulness is inherent in their nature.

For more see the Catholic Encyclopedia on the subject.

The Soul, not sin, is our guide.

This poem expresses my disagreement with this idea. The deepest spiritual desires of a person is where one finds the soul. Thomas Moore says, “It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed.”

Perhaps the perfect poet, Rumi, said it best: “Our wounds are the places where light can enter.”

I’m convinced the awakened heart/soul can serve as our guide because it speaks to our current context. While we can appreciate ancient moralities and sacred writings, I believe the best guide is God’s presence inside of us. Jesus said we should follow two, and only two rules: Love God and love those around you. I think this is enough because it opens the door to hearing all the depths of the self-accepting self and others as they are.

I’ll conclude with some inspiration from J. Phillip Newel. He writes that original sin “teaches that what is deepest in us is opposed to God rather than of God. It means that we are essentially ignorant rather than bearers of light, that we are essentially ugly rather than made in the image of love. . . It is a doctrine that disempowers us. . . The consequences, both individually and collectively, have been disastrous.”