Sitting down to dinner tonight and the following exchange greeted me:
Miss Thing: Mommy, is a soul blue? What is a soul?
The Husband: I want to hear the answer to this…
Me (taking my time chewing to try to compose something of a satisfactory answer to my 6 year old daughter): No, I don’t think a soul is blue. Some people think that a soul is the thing that makes people different from animals. A soul lets us think, reason, and love.
Miss Thing: Is that all?
Me: That’s enough. A soul is what lets us love. Without a soul, you wouldn’t be able to love mommy.
Kisses and a quick snuggle and then dinner returned to all its mundane glory. In the kitchen I asked The Husband what he thought of my answer, and he told me I deserved a philosophy prize…something like The Cracked Nut.
What is a soul? If my daughter was older, I would tell her it is a spark of divinity. The eternal within all of us – the thing that is unbreakable, that animates our poor carcasses of flesh for this all too brief sojourn. As I think about it now, I wonder what is divinity, what can it possibly be BUT love?
Once in a while, mommy gets it right. Now where is that Cracked Nut award?
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