Feeding Our Souls
Last summer in the chaos of a pandemic, we took the mountains at every opportunity. The city reminded us of restaurants we couldn’t frequent, businesses no longer operating. Nature offered reprieve, soul-enriching beauty in a season of loneliness and unrest. The weekdays were lonely but the weekends renewed our souls.
In his book “Culture Care,” artist and writer Makoto Fujimura tells a story about buying flowers. Broke and newly married, Fujimura comes home one day to a bouquet of flowers on the counter. Frustrated, he asks his wife: “How could you think of buying flowers if we can’t even eat!?”
“We need to feed our souls too,” she replies.
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Our embodied lives, made in the imprint of a Creative Creator (who spoke beauty into existence), require soul-nourishing beauty to thrive and flourish. Often we forget. We stay indoors, bypass the $20 bouquet at Trader Joe’s, ignore our stacks of good books and poetry because we’re too busy, too distracted to nourish our souls.
Fujimura writes that he doesn’t remember what they ate that week or month, but he remembers painting the bouquet. The feeding of his soul influenced his work.
In the miles we hiked, the wildflowers we plucked, the cold streams in which we dipped our toes, I too was influenced. This past year reminded me that life is far too short to neglect beauty. I needed to return to something. I needed to start writing again. My mind was teeming with ideas, my fingers itching to type, but my soul was overwhelmed with thoughts that have long plagued me: “I have nothing interesting to say, I’m too old (ha, I’m 32 but still), vulnerability is terrifying,” etc.
The beauty of the Colorado mountains slowly fed my soul. I think they ultimately influenced me, months later, to return to the work. Countless writers and poets have written about landscapes, forests, and wildlife. Artists attempt to recreate the natural world in their drawings and paintings. Photographers venture out to capture the mystery and glory of the universe. And I think the reason is because our souls are so deeply stirred by the beauty around us. Nature inspires us to create. Beauty not only feeds our souls but influences the work that flows from us.
Mary Oliver said, “Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.” And perhaps this is why Madeleine L’Engle says to create is to be obedient. Because this life is meant to be one of making, creating, bringing something to life out of nothingness. To be inspired we must first be fed. Anne Lamont says if you think you have nothing to say, sit down and start at the beginning. Write about your earliest memory, write about vacations, and your childhood home.
Write about the things you find beautiful, the little glories of life that feed your soul.
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How are you feeding your soul? Where are you finding beauty in and throughout your daily life? I’d love to hear about it all!