its time to stop soul crushing.

if you know me or have had more than a 6 minute conversation with me, you know i love the soul. the soul is the real you, the bluebird that wants to sing out the message you have inside, the sermon to loveliness and realness and poppies and sunshine and childhood and yes and it is fragile and soft and beautiful and all things good and lovely in the world. i say lots of things are my favorite activity, but my #1 favorite activity in life is finding out the message of people's souls. nothing makes me happier. sometimes it takes hacking down brick walls with a shovel and reaching like you've never reached before, pounding with both fists, getting out your chainsaw, but i can usually find it with time and effort. the thing is, its usually worth the investment, because people's souls are incredibly beautiful. i like to visualize what every person's soul looks like--a seaside mural, a lone bluebird warbling to the heavens, the sound of claire de lune by debussy, a field of poppies stretching out forever. sometimes the soul is buried so deep you can't even see it at first, but its always there, and people want to share their souls, even if they feel nervous at first. everyone wants to be understood. everyone wants to be real. the problem is, life beats you up and people are mean and people bruise each other's bluebirds, so you push your soul down to the dark interior of your being, covering it all up in a big pile of meaninglessness and defenses, defending your soft heart with walls of apathy and jadedness. i guess what got me down today is i realized there is enough hunger, poverty, sadness, depression, illness, and so forth in the world to crush people's souls, that no one needs other people crushing their soul too. the universe is capable of enough soul crushing on its own, without people helping it along. the scary thing is the soul crushing done by other people is the most devastating. look at the holocaust. look at the wife you know who is desperate for her husband's attention. look at the lonely girl that feels like she has no friends. look at the abused child. sometimes people don't even realize they are doing it, but i see it happening everyday, all the time, and sometimes i just want to yell out to the world wake up! pay attention! you are crushing people's souls! you are crushing my soul! sometimes its just not caring, or not showing people you care, or treating people like less than the bluebirds they are, or being so inwardly wrapped up that you can't look beyond yourself to other souls in need. in a song by jewel (i know, who quotes jewel), she says we are all fragile flames. i agree. we are all gold inside, buried treasures, warbling bluebirds, and we should treat each other as such. we are all fragile. in a poem i wrote once i said cup the bluebird in tiny hands, gently, gently (i love to quote myself). in a much better poem t.s. eliot wrote, he ends it with this:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

i feel like that whimper is the last sound of the soul as it is dying, crushed too many times by too many people not caring, too many people not listening, too many people not treating each other right, too many people forgetting to tell other people they matter.

im sending a desperate plea out into the internet world right now. a message in a blog bottle. this is what it says:

dear humanity,
be gentle with each other. be nice to each other. care about each other. look for people's bluebirds. care about the message of their soul. tell them they matter. cup their bluebirds in tiny hands, and never, ever bruise it, even when you are tempted to. help combat hunger by loving your neighbor. we're all hungry. stop soul poverty by listening. we are all poor. fight against cancer by spreading love. we all have cancer of the heart. leave notes. if you think something nice in your head, say it. hug your mom. kiss your girlfriend. tell people how you feel. give gifts. ask people about themselves. care enough to listen to their answer. remember their answers. don't crush souls. build souls. pay attention . make people feel like they matter. forget yourself. be good. be true. help people's bluebirds come out and sing. be sincere. be real. let your bluebird out even when its hard. even when people bruise it. be a sermon to loveliness. sing like the mountains are singing back. its a happier way to be. its time to stop contributing to the soul crushing. its time to combat the soul crushing, and it starts with a listening ear and a quiet hug and finding the beauty deep in each person's heart. we'll get better with practice. but we got to start somewhere, so i say we start today, right now, at 6:53 PM on Wednesday April 9, 2008. i know we can do it humanity. its up to us.

sincerely,
shannon elizabeth mehner.