In response to a scribe asking “Of all the commandments, which is the most important”, Jesus confirmed the Jewish belief in the necessity of loving God with all one’s Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength (Mark 12:28-31).
But what do these labels mean?
Probably, those words refer to mental faculties. Broadly, our experience consists of sensations, emotions and thoughts. If Heart refers to feeling (emotion and sensation) and Mind refers to thought, then surely both are necessary for love?
Jesus valued positive feelings (such as child-like faith and empathy), but also mature intelligence, to facilitate love of God and other people.
Soul, I consider, is what helps to reconcile Heart and Mind. As the seat of experience, Soul may observe the whole and come to the experiential fore in contemplative prayer. It enables us to recognise the process of our feelings and thoughts and their habitual patterns, that bring about egoic behaviours.
With that awareness, we may consciously modify our behaviour.
In deeper meditative prayer, Soul may enable the temporary transcendence of thought, to experience what St. Paul called “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).
Thus, freedom from egoic thinking is achieved and God’s tranquil presence becomes our experience.
Strength comes from building our house on the rock of God’s presence, rather than the shifting sands of life’s uncertainty; thus enabling us to bear our personal cross.
Strength is built up over time, with the integration of Heart, Soul and Mind. It is the integrity with which we honour our relationship to God’s love and to others, facilitating the freedom to choose ethical action.
In this way, love of God, as inner awareness and resolve, enables outer action, as we gradually grow in our ability to do as Jesus teaches; to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.
Anthony Hare, from Wokingham Friends, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham
