Conversations with a Soul by Tom McArthur

overheard of adult chatter. The uncomplicated, untroubled and unquestioned faith of our childhood days found, or created solutions to every problem and framed answers to every question.
    Little did we know it at the time, but the Soul had already initiated a conversation.
    I cannot remember how I first learned about the existence of my Soul, or who taught me, although I suspect my Scottish grandparents had something to do with it. Before I was allowed to fall asleep, evening prayers had to be said, which frequently concluded with a recitation of an ancient 18 th . Century children’s prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
    I pray the Lord my Soul to keep;
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take.
    As the lights were extinguished and the 'Goodnight, sleep wells' were finally silenced, I was left in darkness; whereupon my immature powers of reasoning were immediately summoned. I concluded that, given the words I had so recently recited, my Soul must, apparently, have something to do with living and dying. If I was fortunate, my Soul would eventually find a way to live in the presence of Jesus, although, I needed to confess, if the Lord didn’t mind, I would much prefer another day of wrestling with my grandmother’s dog or spend the afternoon fashioning clay animals down at the river.
    Before sleep claimed me and silenced my thoughts, I remembered that one of my playmates told me that he had heard that on one occasion Jesus had fashioned a clay bird that suddenly came to life and few off! I was never able to reproduce that feat, which I assumed, was irrefutable evidence of my lack of faith. My creation just sat there until I blasted it to smithereens with a well-aimed mud ball!
    Later, lessons at Sunday school had a contribution to make as did conversations with my young companions, each of whom could speak authoritatively about the murky domain within which ghosts, witches, fairies, angels and sundry spirits resided thereby providing a possible setting for the Soul. We became fascinated with stories about the moving glass and tales of the occult.
    On those occasions when we felt particularly brave we would extinguish the lights and conduct our research into the word of the supernatural in the dark, although it needs to be noted that our explorations consisted mainly of sharing stories we had shared before but now embroidered with imaginative outcomes. Sometimes we would even go so far as to leave the security of our homes and gather under an ancient tree where the sounds of night added a spine-tingling reality to our whispered stories. None of us would admit to the terror of walking home afterwards, afraid that it was not a passing breeze that made the grass move but something far more sinister!
    I can remember that from an early age, probably inspired by a dream, I suspected that my Soul left my body while I slept and returned just before I awoke. I used to wonder if I awoke before my Soul managed to get back in, whether I would have to spend the day without a Soul! And what severe penalties would come my way if I died while my Soul had gone AWOL?
    Above the mantelpiece in the dining room of my austere Scottish grandparent’s home hung a somber oil painting of moonlight reflecting off rolling ocean waves, which, for whatever reason, I thought was all about Souls and dying. I must have been a barrel of fun at birthday parties which may account for the fact that I was seldom invited to any.
    After my grandfather died, from my place at the table, I used to sit and stare at the painting and wonder whether his Soul was now in heaven and whether he could see us all eating dinner, and if I didn’t eat everything on my plate, including the mushy green stuff, was he in a position to inflict retribution on me? Being about six years old at the time I was not greatly troubled by philosophical problems related to Soul language, but I ate everything, just in case!
    From an early age I came to believe in my Soul.

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