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?