I ask that we redefine the terms “Soul Mate”.
Ms Tara is a mate to my soul. We’ve taken to writing messages to each other via our blogs, rather than through email or *shudder* FB messages. Scoff as you will, but when we write to each other in our blogs we send an unassuming message with mere hope that the other receives it. Like a message in a bottle. It always sweeps up on the right shores, though.
I’ve gathered many soul mates in my young time in this life. See, my soul is a complex one. A single human could never fulfill all it’s many and varied needs. And how could I ever ask that much of a solitary, beautifully flawed person? Some have been men, some women, some old and some young. There is a delightfully exuberant 4 yr old boy in Cincinnati who connected with me in ways an adult never could. He was one of the Magic ones… but I doubt we could have seen each other in the true way we did if we had met as adults with a slight age difference.
In Genesis, God said it was not good that man should be alone. He would make him an Ezer Kenegdo. This term has tripped up theologians for centuries. The closest translation they have been able to find is “A life-giving help-mate”. I read this in a book recently and shook with pause over the words… LIFE GIVING! A mate that brings life to your world! It should be noted that I take the term ‘man’ to mean HUman. That each human deserves a life-giver to aid them through the journey. A flesh and blood helper to ease the burdens that strengthen us if we choose to let them.
I recently heard of a book that proposes the idea that perhaps marriage isn’t meant to make us happy, but to make us holy. Now, take this out of any religious context that makes you uncomfortable, and try to keep reading. Perhaps linking ourselves to another human isn’t simply about fulfilling all of our needs, but rather, asking us to become the better versions of ourselves by learning to forgive, to aid another, to be bigger than we know ourselves to be for the sake of another.
And now, maybe, take the term marriage into a broader term. To marry two people is to unite them in love. So what if we chose to approach all relationships of all sorts (family, friends, co-workers, strangers) with the sanctity of a marriage that is meant to make us better than we think we can be? We could take the risk of asking ourselves to be slower in anger, quicker in praise. Kinder to moments of weakness, greater in forgiveness for offenses we gather.
So truly… do we have a “Soul Mate”, or do we allow ourselves to become soulfully linked to numerous people, in order that we would grow to be more than we think we can?
Just think about it.
