I grew up surrounded by mystery. In the Greek Orthodox Church, the priest stood with his back to the congregation, chanting prayers I couldn’t understand in a language I barely knew. The air was thick with incense and reverence. I watched candles flicker, bells ring, and holy gifts lifted high in gestures I sensed were sacred even if I couldn’t translate them. It was beautiful and otherworldly—an early lesson that divinity could be felt even when it wasn’t fully understood and this lesson certainly shaped the soul I know.
My mother, however, came from a Southern Baptist lineage. At family gatherings we’d gather around the piano and sing How Great Thou Art and Blessed Assurance. Those hymns were their own kind of liturgy—familiar, emotional, and earnest. Between the solemn mystery of Orthodoxy and the sing-it-loud passion of the Baptists, my young soul was given both awe and intimacy.
As I got older, my voice carried me to more churches than I can count. I was invited to sing solos at Sunday services of every denomination—Methodist, Pentecostal, non-denominational. In each sanctuary I sensed the same longing for the divine, but also a pattern that began to trouble me: no matter the flavor, the story was still dualistic. Heaven or hell. Saved or lost. The soul was something to be redeemed, scrubbed, rescued from itself.
In my thirties, living in Atlanta, I joined a Presbyterian church—a kind of middle ground between the ornate antiquity of Orthodoxy and the fiery certitude of evangelicalism. It was thoughtful, measured, and moderate. Yet beneath the hymns and sermons, the same old split remained: the soul as something that could fall from grace.
Over time, through study, reflection, and lived experience, that narrative unraveled for me. I couldn’t reconcile the idea of a “fallen” soul with what I felt to be true: that the soul is pure essence—an unbroken current of awareness. What fractures isn’t the soul; it’s our human perception of it.
The soul, as I’ve come to know it, doesn’t need saving. It doesn’t fall from heaven or climb its way back. It simply is. It hums beneath everything, steady and bright, while the human ego flails, forgets, and learns. The work of life isn’t redemption; it’s remembrance.
That’s why pantheism—or more accurately, panentheism—speaks to me. I see the face of God/dess in everyone and everything. If all creation hums with divine frequency, then the sacred isn’t confined to churches. It’s in the trees, the animals, the crystals, or the scent of an essential oil rising from the bottle. When I try to fit pantheism inside traditional Christianity, it feels like trying to pour the ocean into a cup. If everything is divine, even the stones, the idea of damnation simply dissolves.
There’s a passage in Hebrews 13:2 that I’ve loved since childhood: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Even as a girl, I sensed its deeper meaning. The divine hides in plain sight. Every stranger, every moment, every reflection is a potential mirror for the soul’s radiance.
And so, the soul I know isn’t waiting to be washed clean or rescued. It’s already whole. It’s the steady hum of divinity that never falters—what we do with it as humans is what sometimes goes wack-a-doo. But the frequency remains pure, always calling us back to tune in.
Reflection | Soul Note Prompt
The soul, I believe, is never in peril. It’s the human condition that stumbles — the part of us that forgets, reacts, and builds stories of separation. Yet even in those moments, the soul hums beneath the noise, waiting for recognition.
Soul Note:
Where do you notice your human condition pulling you out of alignment with your soul’s steady frequency?
And what helps you remember — even for a breath — that your soul has never stopped singing?
