Thomas Moore, psychotherapist and bestselling author of "Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life," spoke to a packed Page Auditorium Tuesday night about the need for spirituality in daily life.
"The questions of the soul can be easily denigrated because they are so simple, but in order to care for the soul, we need to focus on exactly those essential, albeit elemental, issues," Moore said.
Instead of concentrating on resolving problems or eliminating symptoms, Moore urged people to go to the core of the issue by cultivating the spiritual and sacred in everyday life, as well as a stronger sense of community.
Moore begins his book by asserting that "the great malady of the 20th century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is loss of soul." He writes that neglecting spiritual health causes such ills as "obsessions, addictions, violence and loss of meaning" to surface.
In his speech Tuesday, Moore said, "By caring for the soul, we won't have perfection and will make mistakes, but soul thrives in those failures and is the basis of life."
Moore outlined the difference between the soul and the spirit. Many people seek an intellectual definition for the soul, but "It is not really something to be understood. We don't have to define it; we need to get close to it and trust our intuitive sense of what it is. One of the reasons we don't have more soul in life is because we've created such a mental existence of ourselves."
Moore went on to describe spirituality as "any attempt to get away from ordinary, everyday life."
Moore took great pains to detail how the soul should be treated. Above all, he stressed that one cannot tend the soul alone. Instead, the task must involve "family, friends, neighborhood, work and communityÉ Soul is about quality of depth with focus on the particulars of lifeÉ Being connected to other people is what gives us our sense of self."
Moore also asserted that the soul -- much like many of life's questions -- must be nurtured, not analyzed. "Instead of trying to understand what is going on with the soul and finding treatment for it by making resolutions that we never keep anyway, a better alternative is to feed the soul what it needsÉ By looking at [problems] as mysteries, we can contemplate and discuss them instead of trying to solve them."
Being so attentive to personal and spiritual needs is not an equivalent or guarantee of happiness, Moore said. A wide range of emotions is needed to connect with the soul, he said.
"I don't want a happy marriage; I'll leave that for Snoopy because happiness is not how I can live a soulful life," he said.
During a question and answer session following his discussion, Moore also spoke of how he was influenced by the 12 years he spent as a monk in a Catholic religious order beginning when he was 13.
He asserted that the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience helped him in his own care of the soul. "The vow of poverty was not so much about not having things; the essence was more about common ownership which helped to foster a sense of community," he said. Moore asserts that the essence of the vow of chastity "is to find intimacy everywhere, not just in sex. My need and desire for intimacy was satisfied by the community" and the vow of obedience "was about really listening to what people tell you for a sense of direction."
As Moore ended his discussion, he said, "Caring for the soul isn't a level of higher consciousness. It's about being less intellectual and losing control and rediscovering imagination and love and compassion."
Moore's speech was sponsored by Duke Chapel's Religious Life Program, Counseling and Psychological Services, the Duke Union Major Speakers Committee and the Mind-Body Medicine Study Group. He will also be conducting a sold-out workshop for psychotherapists on Wednesday.
"We chose to invite Thomas Moore to speak because his books have been so popular around here," said Will Willimon, dean of the Chapel. "I think he's particularly good at talking about issues of spirit and soul."
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