My Paisley Soul

Inspired by Jacob Nordby's pigeon shit on a parking lot raven.

I remember Sister Sarge, or was it Father Mac, teaching us about our souls in first grade.  I was taught that my soul was a glowing white ball that lived in my chest and that each sinful act I did created a dark mark on that ball.  Why such deep philosophical concepts as sin and soul were being taught first graders seems an even deeper mystery.

I was a willful child and full of sin if you believed what I was taught.  I sinned before my feet hit the floor in the morning and continued sinning all day long.  I imagined that each time I spoke back to my mom, another dark mark appeared on my soul.  Each time I refused to eat something that would feed a starving child in India, another mark appeared.  Each action leaving a soul bruise that never passed through the blue-green stage.  Never healed.  Never went away.  Each mark accumulating one after the other like Pongo and Perdita's pups growing into their spots .

I was also a fairly logical child and knew that this ball must be finite in size, rather like a hard ball, given the description Father Mac had made of it.  The marks too were of a defined size.  Maybe bigger sins left bigger marks and venial sins left tiny ones (I could never get a straight answer on this).  I became obsessed with knowing what happened once my soul was full of black marks.  What happened when the last empty white space got filled in.  I know I asked this question.  I know the answer was something stupid like don't sin.  So the worry and obsessing continued.  How hard would it have been to tell me that confession was like turning my Etch-a-Sketch over and clearing my soul.  Instead, all I got was don't sin.

I just knew that my soul was black and knew that god must have another more elaborate way of keeping tally.  So I proposed in my head that once it was completely black, it acquired red marks.  Once red, it became blue and so on through the rainbow.  And that when I died god would judge me based on the evolution of my soul color sure to bounce me to hell or maybe Purgatory if I was lucky.

I don't believe any of the BS I was taught at the tender age of seven anymore.  I do still imagine my soul as brightly colored.  Today it's a vibrant paisley, made so, not because I have sinned, but because I have loved.