Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem

Episode 14:  Soulset:  The core of us

May 4, 2020

Screwtape letters:  From the experienced demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood – Screwtape is teaching Wormwood the ins and outs of tempting men, trying to drag their souls to hell.  When Screwtape refers to the Enemy he means God.  

“Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

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Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis:  Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me. 

Soul CCC: The spiritual principle of human beings. The soul is the subject of human consciousness and freedom; soul and body together form one unique human nature. Each human soul is individual and immortal, immediately created by God. 

Soulset.  Soulset is essentially our attitude of soul, how we orient our governing spiritual principle.  Soulset is the core of a man or woman or child. It can and does operate independently of mindset and heartset, both of which are bound up in the body.  Our soulset reflects how we see God, and how we see ourselves in relationship with God, how we see God viewing us.  

Consider the man that Screwtape was describing.  A man who has lost his desire for God, who experiences God as vanished, gone, who feels forsaken, alone.  Heartset.  Mindset.  Bodyset curling up.  

But he still intends to do the will of God.  In spite of all that his wounded, heart is telling him, all that his confused mind is telling him, all that his aching body is telling him, he still – that man still intends to do the will of God.  That is an admirable man.

The way I’m describing soulset includes our conscience, 

The council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) defines conscience "as man's most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. By conscience, in a wonderful way, that law is made known which is fulfilled in the love of God and one's neighbor" (16).  

And I love the idealism and I believe every word of this definition.  It was extremely helpful to me when I was experiencing an existential crisis at age 22.  This paragraph was precious to me, in its idealism and its beauty and the way it shows the dignity of men and women and children.  

But.  Here’s the But.  but I’m a psychologist, I work with people in messy, painful situations with raw emotions and excruciating, unresolved experiences.  I don’t have the luxury of just retreating and staying in the realm of ideas like philosophers or theologians can.  I’m down here in the trenches often with people who are desperate and frantic, whose lives are chaotic, and you know what?  They hardly experience the voice of a loving God echoing in their depths.  They are not experiencing, in this wonderful way that Vatican II describes, God’s law being fulfilled in the love of God and neighbor.  

In their distress, they do not seek out a philosopher or a theologian.  Who does that?  Would you do that?  When you are suffering, do you go to internet or pick up the yellow pages and look up philosophers and theologians in your area?   Why not?  Because we need to nourish and heal  not only the mind, but the heart, and the body and the soul, the whole person.  In an integrated way.

When people are suffering this can just seem like words words words, blah blah blah, it just doesn’t seem to stick.  Haven’t all of you experienced that?  How many sermons have you heard that might be speaking to your mind, but not the rest of you?   This intellectualized sermons that speak not to your heart, not to your body. 

Or it can happen the opposite way – a charismatic sermon that speaks to the heart, it really pulls on the heartstrings but it speaks to the heart only, not the mind or soul or body.  How many of you have heard really emotionally moving sermons that were quite confusing or unclear or even heretical in their actual content.  

And let’s also just say it like it is.  Some sermons don’t seem to move the heart or the mind or the body or the soul at all.  Just meh.  Dry.  Boring.  Distant.  And then they can start to feel irrelevant, unattuned.  It’s amazing how mediocre some sermons really can be. It’s not that they are evil or anything.  They just aren’t very human.  

Dietrich von Hildebrand:

God has called us to become new men in Christ…This new life is not destined merely to repose as a secret in the hidden depths of our souls; rather it should work out in a transformation of our entire personality. 

 Our entire personality. All facets of our psychic life.  And I am going to go farther than that statement.  Not just our entire personality but our entire personhood, all of us.  Every aspect of us.  

That’s what we do here.  Souls and Hearts.  

Alice von Hildebrand:  How difficult it is for us fallen men to will what God wills, for as much as we believe we love God, we are tempted to love our own will even more.  

Our soulset very much depends on our level of security in our relationship with God. 
 
 

Let’s be clear.  Soulset does not have to be about feelings.  It’s not driven my emotional states.  For example, in a period of desolation, one can have a very open soul, and be growing spiritually by leaps and bounds, very open to the working of the Holy Spirit – but have no consoling feelings and few or no great spiritual insights.  So it can operate very independently from mindset as well.  

Importance of integration of heart, soul, mind, body.