Reclaim your inner voice 

The seat and source of everything that lives

"If we pretend to be something we are not, and violate our own soul, we will pay a terrible price. If communities make choices about the future disconnected from the seat and source of their life, from what is real and honest and what matters most, they will build a house of cards. There will be no transformation. For some communities, sadly, their inner voice has gone silent. For communal transformation to occur in your community, you will need to reclaim your inner voice both individually and collectively. If you can honor your soul in this way, you will honor the sanctity of life.

 

In his book, Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore tell us: “There is nothing neutral about the soul. It is the seat and the source of life. Either we respond to what the soul presents in its fantasies and desires, or we suffer from this neglect of ourselves.” What good is it to have planned well for the bricks and mortar of your lives, arranged your finances to be more fully funded for retirement, or to have solved your community’s leadership crisis, only to have neglected the soul of your community? Is there a price you wouldn’t pay to reclaim your inner voice and restore the soul of your community? Jesus’ message is clear: Do the soulwork because nothing else matters. 

 

Transformation is an inside-out, soul to surface, movement. Reclaiming the inner voice of the community requires that communities create a space hospitable for its own soul to thrive. This is the work of rebuilding the kind of trust among members that allows for intimate exchanges about their longings, heartaches and vulnerabilities. Such intimacy requires that members remove the masks and armor that have been built up over the course of time. Creating this kind of soul-dwelling space is key to the inner work of transformation.

 

What is the soul, the inner voice of a community, and what is the soulwork communities must do in order to transform their lives? While there will always be much about the soul that is left to mystery, it is mystery itself that beckons us to wonder and search for answers. In this chapter, we will first look at the individual soul and then at the soul of community. We will explore the challenge of living soulfully, the role of the ego and how easy it is for our inner voice to be silenced. We will then look at the soulwork we can do, both individually and as a community, to reclaim our inner voice." 

 

An excerpt from Dr. Ted Dunn's new book, Graced Crossroads: Pathways to deep change and transformation.

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