Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You - Hardcover

Ortberg, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0310275962 ISBN 13: 9780310275961

Publisher: Zondervan, 2014

Synopsis

When is the last time you thought about the state of your soul? Bestselling author John Ortberg guides you through practical steps to restoring your soul so you can finally experience a life of wholeness, balance, and hope.

In an age of materialism and consumerism where many people try to buy their way to happiness, many souls are starved and unhealthy, unsatisfied by false promises of status and wealth. We've neglected this eternal part of ourselves, focusing instead on the temporal concerns of the world--and not without consequence.

Including reflections from his decades-long relationship with his friend and mentor Dallas Willard, Ortberg presents another classic that will help you discover your soul--the most important connection to God there is--and find your way out of the spiritual shallow-lands to true divine depth.

Join Ortberg as he guides you through the three distinct aspects of Soul Keeping:

• Discovering what the soul is
• Learning what the soul needs
• Experiencing the joy of a restored soul

With his characteristic insight and an accessible, story-filled approach, Ortberg will help you connect more deeply every day with the God who gave you life to bring more meaning, hope, and abundance to that life.

Praise for Soul Keeping:

"This book will not only help you to realize that you have a soul, an interior life, and reveal its importance, but will also give you some tools and handles to grab as you develop that life. It will help you to get grounded again, or even for the first time, with the One who first breathed that life into you, and Who desires every day to breathe more and more life into every corner of your being."

--Dr. Henry Cloud, New York Times bestselling author of Boundaries and Changes That Heal

About this title

About the Author

John Ortberg is the senior pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (MPPC) in the San Francisco Bay Area. His bestselling books include Soul Keeping, Who Is This Man?, and If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat. John teaches around the world at conferences and churches, writes articles for Christianity Today and Leadership Journal, and is on the board of the Dallas Willard Center and Fuller Seminary. He has preached sermons on Abraham Lincoln, The LEGO Movie, and The Gospel According to Les Miserables. John and his wife Nancy enjoy spending time with their three adult children, dog Baxter, and surfing the Pacific. You can follow John on twitter @johnortberg or check out the latest news/blogs on his website at www.johnortberg.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Soul Keeping

caring for the most important part of you

By John Ortberg

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2014 John Ortberg
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-310-27596-1

Contents

Foreword by Dr. Henry Cloud, 9, 
Prologue: The Keeper of the Stream, 13, 
Introduction: Holy Ground, 17, 
I. What the Soul Is, 
1. The Soul Nobody Knows, 27, 
2. What Is the Soul?, 37, 
3. A Soul-Challenged World, 49, 
4. Lost Souls, 62, 
5. Sin and the Soul, 71, 
II. What the Soul Needs, 
6. It's the Nature of the Soul to Need, 81, 
7. The Soul Needs a Keeper, 88, 
8. The Soul Needs a Center, 99, 
9. The Soul Needs a Future, 107, 
10. The Soul Needs to Be with God, 116, 
11. The Soul Needs Rest, 126, 
12. The Soul Needs Freedom, 141, 
13. The Soul Needs Blessing, 152, 
14. The Soul Needs Satisfaction, 161, 
15. The Soul Needs Gratitude, 169, 
III. The Soul Restored, 
16. Dark Night of the Soul, 179, 
17. Morning, 189, 
Epilogue, 193, 
Acknowledgments, 195, 
Bible Versions, 197, 
Sources, 199, 

CHAPTER 1

The Soul Nobody Knows

One of the most important words in the Bible is soul. We throw that word around a lot, but if someone were to ask you to explain exactly what the word soul means, what would you say?

• Why should I pay attention to my soul?

• Hasn't science disproven its existence?

• Isn't the soul the province of robe-wearing, herbal-tea drinkers?

• Isn't "soul-saving" old-fashioned language that ignores concerns for holistic justice?

• Won't it mean preoccupation with navel-gazing? Will I have to go to Big Sur or look some stranger in the eyes? Will I have to journal?

Belief in the soul is ubiquitous: "Most people, at most times, in most places, at most ages, have believed that human beings have some kind of souls." We know it matters. We suspect it's important. But we're not sure what it means.

It's the word that won't go away, even though it is used less and less.

From birth to our final resting place ("May God rest his soul"), the soul is our earliest companion and our ultimate concern. The word is ethereal, mysterious, and deep. And a little spooky. ("All Souls' Day" comes two days after Halloween and has always sounded to me like disembodied spirits floating around at the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland.)

How many of our children learned this prayer? How many times have you recited it at bedtime?

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Is it just me, or are those scary words to teach a seven-year-old to pray alone in the dark? I guess it's not just me: "That [prayer] so, so did not work for me ...," wrote Anne Lamott. "Don't be taking my soul. You leave my soul right here, in my fifty-pound body."

What does it mean to ask God "my soul to keep"? If I expire before sunrise, and he takes my soul, what exactly is it that gets taken?

How Much Does a Soul Weigh?

Jeffrey Boyd is a kind of Don Quixote of the soul. He is a Yale psychiatrist, an ordained minister, and coauthor of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a work in which you will search in vain for a single reference to "soul." It does include something called "depersonalization disorder," a feeling of estrangement from oneself. But Boyd also writes books and articles trying to reinject the word soul into our scientific vocabulary.

In one study of hundreds of church attenders, Boyd found that most people believe they know what soul means, but when asked to explain it, they can't do it. The soul turns out to be like Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter Stewart's description of obscenity: "It may be hard to define, but I know it when I see it." About half of church attenders adopt what Boyd calls the Looney Tunes Theory of the soul:

If Daffy Duck were blown up with dynamite, then there would be a transparent image of Daffy Duck that would float up from the dead body. The translucent image would have wings and carry a harp. From the air this apparition would speak down to Bugs Bunny, who set off the dynamite.

It sounds funny to talk about cartoons when it comes to the soul, but as Aristotle said, "The soul never thinks without a picture."

The soul can't be put under a microscope or studied by X-ray. About a hundred years ago a doctor measured the slight weight loss experienced by seven tuberculosis victims at the moment of death, which led him to claim that the soul weighs twenty-one grams. His idea years later created a title for a movie with Sean Penn and Robin Wright, but it was never duplicated and was widely ridiculed in the medical community. Some are convinced that soul language needs to go.

A philosopher named Owen Flanagan says there is no place in science for the notion of a soul: "Desouling is the primary operation of the scientific image."

But Boyd argues that we see people who have a strength of soul that simply will not be degraded by the humiliation their body puts them through. He writes of a woman named Patricia who suffered from the effects of diabetes, a heart attack, and two strokes; she went blind, went into renal failure (which required dialysis), and had both her legs amputated—all while only in her thirties. She was placed in a nursing home, except for those several times a year when she had to be hospitalized, frequently going into a coma for one or two weeks during those stays.

Pat was part of a church in Washington, D.C., that wanted to create a homeless shelter. They could not find anyone with the leadership skills to pull it off, so she volunteered. In between dialysis and amputations and comas, she pulled together the team and got the zoning changes, architectural help, and fund-raising done. She then helped the team figure out the rules for the homeless people who used the shelter, and she recruited and trained the staff who ran it.

When Pat died after the shelter's first successful year in operation, homeless people stood next to U.S. Cabinet members such as Secretary of State James Baker at her funeral.

The soul knows a glory that the body cannot rob. In some ways, in some cases, the more the body revolts, the more the soul shines through. People may claim to believe that all you are is your body. But Pat said one time, "The only thing I can depend on with my body is that it will fail me. Somehow my body is mine, but it's not 'me.' "

Greatness of soul is available to people who do not have the luxury of being ecstatic about the condition and appearance of their bodies.

The High and the low of the Soul

We can't seem to talk about beauty or art without talking about the soul—particularly music. Aretha Franklin is the Queen of Soul. It is possible that if your soul isn't moved by Ray Charles, otis Redding, Little Richard, Fats Domino, or James Brown, you may want to check to make sure you still have one. Kid Rock wrote "Rebel Soul." A sixteen-year-old, wanna-be pop singer named Jewel hitchhiked to Mexico and watched desperate people looking for help and wrote what would become her breakthrough song: "Who Will Save your Soul?"

We need the word when we speak of not just the highest, but also the lowest parts of human existence. Over one hundred years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois called his book about the oppressed humanity of a race The Souls of Black Folk. No other word would do: The Selves of Black Folk does not carry the same dignity. "Soul food" would be the name given for Southern cooking that began with slaves who had to survive on whatever leftovers they were given. "Soul power" became the name for a sense of dignity and worth in a people who had been forced to live with neither. "Soul brother" reflects the bond that knits together those persecuted because of skin color.

Does soul require suffering to make itself known?

We speak of larger entities having soul. During every election, politicians and pundits warn us that the soul of America is at stake. ServiceMaster CEO William Pollard wrote a leadership book called The Soul of the Firm. (Can a cleaning company have a soul?) Shortstop and team captain Derek Jeter has been given the title "soul of the Yankees." Quarterback Tom Brady deemed receiver Wes Walker the "soul" of the New England Patriots. These may be metaphors, but they point to the notion of the soul as that which holds a larger entity together.

Why do the Chicago Cubs never get a soul?

Soul for Sale

We speak of the soul as a source of strength, and yet we speak of it as fragile. Something about the soul always seems to be at risk. A soul is something that can be lost or sold. The selling of a soul has been made into countless operas, books, and country music lyrics, as well as a movie called Bedazzled and a musical called Damn Yankees. Jonathon Moulton, a New Hampshire brigadier general in the 1700s, sold his soul to the Devil (according to legend) to have his boots filled with gold coins monthly when he hung them by the fireplace. In the television series The Simpsons, Homer sells his soul for a donut and then impulsively eats all but one bite, which he puts in the refrigerator with the instructions: "Soul Donut. Do Not eat."

Periodically somebody tries to sell their soul on eBay. Most recently a woman named Lori N. Offered hers for $2,000 after a car accident left her strapped for cash. No takers, though. It turns out eBay has a "no soul-selling" policy that allows them to stay neutral on the existence of souls: If souls don't exist, they don't allow the selling of nonexistent items; if souls do exist, they don't allow people to sell themselves off one part at a time. The real problem, they say, is that if you sell something on eBay, you have to be in position to deliver what you sell. If you could buy a soul through anybody, it would probably be Ikea—Swedes will sell pretty much anything—but then you would have to take it home and assemble it yourself from instructions that make no sense at all.

Souls keep popping up in our most loved stories. Harry Potter is a teenage wizard with a chosen destiny to overthrow the evil dark wizard, Voldemort, who murdered his parents. Harry discovers deep connections of the soul with the Dark Lord. The greatest sin, murder, is discovered to tear the soul asunder, damage that can only be healed by honest remorse. The Dementor's kiss is a fate worse than death—to have one's soul removed by a soulless creature. To live without a soul is worse than not living. "Have you no soul?" is really another way of saying, "Is it possible that your mind with its values and conscience are not even troubled by what your will has chosen and your body carried out?"

Does a fetus have a soul? A whole debate about abortion rages around this. Does life happen at conception? Is that when a being becomes human? Plato believed souls were reincarnated based on how elevated they were last time around: wise souls come back as seekers of beauty or kings or athletic trainers, whereas cowards come back as women and boozers may come back as donkeys. Augustine said that maybe souls preexist somewhere and then slip into bodies on their own, like people picking out a good car.

We are not sure what the soul is, but the word sells. Advertisers speak of cars being soulful; Kia actually manufactures a car called the Kia Soul. Is it for people who want to go beyond transportation to transmigration? you can also find the Soul Diva (for the "style conscious woman who regards her car as important as her entire outfit"); the Soul Burner (the "bad boy" of the Soul concept); and the Soul Searcher (for the driver focused on "achieving personal inner peace and creating a calm cocoon for occupants").

Maybe that's my problem: when I was growing up, we had a Rambler.

The word soul won't go away, because it speaks somehow of eternity:

Now there are some things we all know, but we don't take'em out and look at'm very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars.... everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it.

A movie called The Sixth Sense starring Bruce Willis tells of a little boy cursed with the gift of seeing dead people. A huge twist comes at the end of the movie; I don't want to spoil it for you, but Bruce Willis, much to his surprise, turns out to be one of the dead people. A kind of mirror image to the story—and maybe the eeriest of all psychological diagnoses—is a condition known as "Cotard's syndrome."

Named for the French neurologist who described it in the 1880s, Cotard's syndrome ranges from claims that central organs are missing to the belief that one is already dead. It's sometimes called Walking Corpse Syndrome. Jules Cotard described a woman he called Mademoiselle X, who claimed that God did not exist and that her soul did not exist and that she was nothing more than a decomposing body. Eventually she died of starvation—which must have come as a great shock to her. In one condition, a soul is dead but thinks it's alive; in the other, the soul is alive but believes it's dead.

Are souls reserved for humans? If a computer were able to think—could it have a soul? Stanford professor Clifford Nass wrote the book The Man Who Lied to His Laptop. He has found that human beings treat computers the same way we treat people—we are flattered by their praise; we want to please them; we will even lie to them to avoid hurting their feelings. Could a computer be able to love a family, or enjoy a sunset, or grow in humility? What about souls and technology? Aristotle said that a friend is one soul in two bodies. Would the same thing be true of somebody if you cloned them?

A Window to Your Soul

We speak of the eyes being the window to the soul. Scientists say the eyes can reveal our inner thoughts. For instance, when people are doing hard mental work, their pupils dilate. Daniel Kahneman wrote about researchers monitoring the eyes of subjects trying to solve difficult math problems. They would sometimes surprise subjects by asking them, "Why did you give up just now?"

"How did you know?" the unsuspecting students would ask.

"We have a window to your soul."

Psychologist Edmund Hess writes how pupils widen when people look at beautiful nature pictures. When I was in grad school, I saw two famous pictures of a lovely woman—identical, except that in one of them, her pupils are dilated, and that picture is always judged much more attractive. Belladonna, an herb-based drug that expands the pupils, is actually sold as a cosmetic. Professional poker players sometimes wear sunglasses simply to keep their pupils from giving their excitement away.

U.S. President George W. Bush said that when he looked into Russian President Vladimir Putin's eyes, he was able to get a sense of his soul. Senator John McCain later said that when he looked into Putin's eyes, he saw three letters: "A K and a G and a B" (a reference to the former Soviet security agency).

My first date with the woman who would become my wife did not begin well. She actually fell asleep. But it was the last ten minutes that turned things around, when we talked to each other, and (she told me later) I made great eye contact. She told me she thought that was sexy. Can a soul be sexy?

We can't talk about our work without talking about our souls, although they often seem at odds. A "soulful work" movement suggests that while cubicles and monitors make us more efficient, our souls lose something when disconnected from the rhythms of working outdoors, of making things with our own hands. And the Internet is full of lists of the ten or twenty most soul-crushing jobs in the world, such as "Jobs that make you feel like a caged ADHD Chihuahua on Red Bull." Maybe there should be a Take your Soul to Work Day.

When we talk of love, we speak of soul. No one searches for the love of their life on a site called BodyMate.com. In his dialogue The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present the story of soul mates. Aristophanes states that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them. In the film Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise's character expresses the idea unforgettably to Renée Zellweger: "you complete me." Can one person really complete another? Do we all have one and only one soul mate out there in the world someplace?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Soul Keeping by John Ortberg. Copyright © 2014 John Ortberg. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0310275962
• ISBN 13: 9780310275961
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208