CHAPEL

"For self is a sea boundless and measureless. Say not, 'I have found the truth.' but rather, 'I have found a truth.' Say not 'I have found the path of the soul.' Say rather, 'I have met the soul walking upon my path.' For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals."

-Kahlil Gibran

Houston I passed through, a fleeting moment along a path to someplace else. I did have time for one thing: I went to Church. 

"I met a very nice man named Joe outside by the fountain who liked to come enjoy the peace and quiet of the park during his work breaks. He chewed bamboo shoots like the big friendly panda that he was and just seemed to enjoy having someone to speak to. 'Broken Obelisk' had been removed for maintenance and would be back in November. Joe was saddened that the sculpture had been removed and the mirror fountain was not working. He looked forward to seeing it returned. So do I."

-Road Journal Excerpt 7/25/16

"The key is to just relax and release, and deal only with what's left in front of you. You do not need to worry about the rest. If you relax and release, you will see that it puts you through tremendous spiritual growth." 

-Michael A. Singer

I sat for a long moment in the center. Turning one direction then the next. The paintings did not say more than Rothko's work ever has but the space did. The only light filling the walls poured in from an obscured skylight, the sun natural yet bent filled the space, dimming and brightening with the melody of the clouds floating by. 

This was the first moment of my journey where I felt free to find my center. To come back to the formidable maze of my mind and sit with myself. The fear, loss, excitement all of the buzzing things that surrounded me on those early days of traveling, I let them go. I acknowledged their 'part' of me and simply let them be just what they were. 

I recall watching others enter the space: a mother and her child, a lesbian couple occasionally holding hands and whispering to each other, a group of friends quietly discussing their separate ideas of the place. There was a sacredness to everyone's posture. Every movement was careful, a slow straight legged shuffle like you might see in a museum and then a bowed shoulder characteristic of someone entering a temple. It was not the art on the walls that made the room sacred for me, although it did not hurt. The purpose of the space, the intention in its design, the atmosphere itself was like fabric, a shawl of spiritually charged intellectually woven cloth. 

The place had soul. 

I sat in the center of that room and let it all go, the energies that had been consuming me, the feelings that flowed in me, I looked at those paintings of such weight and I let all of my burdens flow on to the canvas. Then I closed my eyes. Turned my sight inward and upward and downward in search of myself. I waded through my perception of myself, what society tells me I am, I stepped over my pride and humility and selfishness, I sought myself.
  

Where is your soul? Where would you point if someone asked you? A musician might touch his fingers, a singer her mouth, an artist his eyes, a sommelier her nose, a dancer his feet, many would touch their hearts and many more would point to their heads. Then still others would shrug at the silliness of the question, your soul is an idea. A creation by evolved man to help him understand his place in the cosmos and to give him that beautiful gift of hope in an afterlife. 

If I were asked where my soul was, I would respond, "All around me." I find joy in the idea of our souls being much like the roots and leaves of a tree; unseen below ground and dancing in the wind, nurturing the body by touching sunlight and seeking out the deep wells of water below. Neighboring trees brush up against each other, leaves dancing together, roots meet at the same source of water feeding from the same inspiration, the same beauty, the same divine. 

For a long time I did not understand my self, sometimes I still do not. It is hard work. I am a mystery to myself. The things I feel and believe do need to come into question. In faith I look for soul walking along my path. I feel alone in this faith in my questioning and searching, yet is not that an integral part of faith?

I believe there is something more. More than the science and the logic and the perception of our reality. I believe we are very small creatures in a very large universe. I believe there is something more to who and what we are than skin and bone and thought. I believe we are divine.