I recently had the joy and privilege of facilitating a group coaching program on Living Your Soul Song – offering your hearts contributions into life more fully.
In the first week of the 6 week course, we explored how alignment—the orientation of one’s heart towards it’s Source— is a key to discerning and living the songline of your soul that Love uniquely placed within your being.
A commitment to your soul
To live your soul song means to make a real commitment to your souls journey home to the Beloved.
It is to offer ourselves – Here I am Lord. I’m here for you. For the sake of your love for all.
It is a commitment to say Yes – to choose Love – moment by moment.
Align – Transform – Serve
As you deepen your alignment with the Source of Love, engage in deep inner transformation work, and surrender more fully to what Love asks of you in your daily life, the Book of your Life begins to reveal itself.
Mother Teresa came to discover this on her own path of love, listening, and surrender: “I am a little pencil in the hands of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world. He does the thinking. He does the writing. He does everything, and sometimes it is really hard because it is a broken pencil, and He has to sharpen it a little more.”
As you continue to offer yourself into the hands of the Divine, and become receptive to the grace needed to purify and beautify your heart, you start to witness that you no longer write the story – you become a vessel through which a sacred narrative slowly unfolds.
There are many precious moments along the way when life responds with the right help, relationships and synchronicities just when they are most needed.
I discovered this beautifully on my own journey following the penning of Caoimhe’s Mindful Pause when doors opened to bring forward a culture regeneration and peacemaking initiative that up until then was only a mustard seed of possibility in my heart.
Walking the path of alignment, participation and surrender is the most fulfilling journey for the heart. It is also very demanding – it requires an every growing depth of spiritual maturity – along with a deep humble embrace of our imperfections and limitations.
There are times when we take one step forward and two steps back when we meet an inner or outer block, resistance, trial, or a challenge that seems insermountable.
Fr Thomas Keating kindly reminds us in these moments to remember that “God is hidden in difficulties. If we can find him there, we will never lose him. Without difficulties, we do not know the power of God’s mercy and incredible destiny he has for each of us. We must be patient with our failures. There is always another opportunity unless we go ashore and stay there.” [1]
Along the way, we learn to rely on and trust on our higher power of Love. As the great Sufi teacher, Sidi Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal Ar-Rafai as Shahiliyya [2] reminds us: “Listen for His song, the song of peace and mercy, and be what He asks and give what He asks, for then He will give you everything you have been waiting for. Keep Walking.”
We are never alone on this journey. There is so much help, both seen and unseen—spiritual ancestors, the lineage of holy prophets and saints, the living earth, the people who support us, and even those who challenge us – each serving a purpose in the unfoldment of the Life’s story.
Say A Full Wholehearted Yes!
The Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan Lee [3] wrote: “I think we each have a destiny and our free will is whether we have the courage and the commitment and the “yes” to follow that destiny. Some people’s destiny will take them to places in the outer world. Some people’s destiny will take them to really meeting their neighbor. And some people’s destiny may take them into the inner worlds, on the journey towards Truth.”
Our free will choice and humility determines whether we receive the grace, courage and commitment to say a full YES to our higher destiny.
Let’s take retirement as one example. Many people who retire reach a point in life where they can now choose how to use their time and energy. The question is will they now retreat and only do what brings fulfilment to their desires, or will they step into their higher calling, allowing Love to move through them in new ways?
Living Your Soul Song
To live your soul song is to value Being more than doing. It is much easier to do something that to BE who we truly are – who we came here to be – who we are in our essence.
To live your soul song is to trust that the true beauty of your presence, and the real meaning of your life longs to emerge.
It is to say YES fully, not just in part.
So listen deeply. Say yes. and listen to the call from within inviting you to sing the song only your soul can sing.
Final Reflection
In my own walking along the path, as I aspire daily to align, transform and serve, I witness painfully the parts in me that are still resisting that full yes, that full self giving into life. It is at moments of such recognition that I find solace in prayer, and especially in this prayer from one of my Spiritual Fathers, Padre Pio. I hope his sincerity and grace-filled words may touch your heart in some way too:
A Prayer of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
Stay with me, Lord,
for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You.
You know how easily I abandon You.
Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak
and I need Your strength,
that I may not fall so often.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life,
and without You, I am without fervor.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light,
and without You, I am in darkness.
Stay with me, Lord,
to show me Your will.
Stay with me, Lord,
so that I hear Your voice
and follow You.
Stay with me, Lord,
for I desire to love You
very much, and always be in Your company.
Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.
Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is,
I want it to be a place of consolation for You,
a nest of love.
Stay with me, Jesus,
for it is getting late
and the day is coming to a close, and life passes;
death, judgment, eternity approaches.
It is necessary to renew my strength,
so that I will not stop along the way and for that,
I need You.
It is getting late and death approaches,
I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows.
O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile!
Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all it’s dangers. I need You.
Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of the bread,
so that the Eucharistic Communion be the Light which disperses the darkness,
the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.
Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to You,
if not by communion, at least by grace and love.
Stay with me, Jesus, I do not ask for divine consolation, because I do not merit it,
but the gift of Your Presence, oh yes, I ask this of You!
Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for,
Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit,
because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.
With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth
and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity. Amen
Endnotes
1. Sidi Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal Ar-Rafai as Shahiliyya lived on the Mount Olives in the Holy City of Jerusalem. He was a teacher, judge, social justice activist and a vocal advocate for the downtrodden and the oppressed.
2. Fr Thomas Keating was one of the principal architects and teachers of the Christian contemplative prayer movement.
3. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, PhD, is a Sufi teacher and author of numerous books on Sufism and spiritual responsibility in our present time of transition. This quote is from Parabola Magazine: https://parabola.org/2015/11/15/part-of-an-ancient-story-a-conversation-with-llewellyn-vaughan-lee-full-version/