what wrinkles a soul?
The writing prompt wrangled me. Enthusiasm reminded me of geeks and cheerleaders and political frenzy. Who needs it, I jabbed, as my index finger punched the word into a search line along with another — enthusiasm etymology. I could usually count on this tactic to circumvent the limits of my own connotations and wedge the door open just enough for a better angel to push through.
Socrates would have delivered the sentence using the Greek word enthousiamos, which in his time meant “to be inspired or possessed by a god.” Enthousiamos derives from entheos meaning “having a god within.” Further, Socrates’ conception of a higher power ran along the lines of moral discernment. So to revisit the offending writing prompt: “…lack of being inspired or possessed by a god who offers the power of discernment wrinkles our soul.” Now that’s something I can work with, Socrates.
For me “to be inspired or possessed by a god within” suggests that my awareness and reasoning engage intentions which contribute to harmony with self and other in a place absent of diatribe, urgency, possessiveness, hubris, bullying, violence. The god within calls forth the gracious and generous and good. The hospitable. And that seed of discernment, sown by the very act of invitation, offers itself as song, as medicine, as beauty, as patience, as forgiveness, as love.
In a time when the wrinkling of souls seems to be a national past time, I thank my virtual etymological resources for taking me to the roots, plumping up the alternatives and helping me to see that it may well be, in the spirit of Socrates, that “lack of enthusiasm wrinkles our soul.”
