Soul care

I'm reading a powerfully profound book by Rachel Naomi Remen called My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging. Remen is an MD who primarily counsels people with cancer. Her stories are short, usually two-three pages, but they pack a wallop. Reading them, I feel more grounded and more uplifted - at the same time.

Here are some quotes.

"The soul is not an idea or belief; it is an experience. It may awaken in us through dreams, music, art, or work or parenthood or sometimes for no reason at all. It overtakes us at times in the midst of daily life."

"Many times when we help we do not really serve. ... Seeing yourself as a fixer may cause you to see brokenness everywhere, to sit in judgment on life itself. When we fix others, we may not see their hidden wholeness or trust the integrity of the life in them. Fixers trust their own expertise. When we serve, we see the unborn wholeness in others; we collaborate with it and strengthen it. Others may then be able to see their wholeness for themselves for the first time."

"The process of turning pain into wisdom often looks like a sorting process. First we experience everything. Then one by one we let things go, the anger, the blame, the sense of injustice, and finally even the pain itself, until all we have left is a deeper sense of the value of life and a greater capacity to live it."