Soul Seeing

Michael Leach and friends write about seeing God, the world and ourselves with the eye of the soul. Each column is a spiritual reflection on the beauty that hides behind appearances and the peace that is beyond all understanding.

An illustration shows NASA's Perseverance Mars rover, which landed on the planet Feb. 18. (CNS illustration/JPL-Caltech, NASA handout via Reuters)

A meditation on Mars, and beyond

by Peter Gilmour

May 15, 2021

Soul Seeing: A rover has been searching for signs of life on Mars. Might its findings challenge our religious beliefs about God, or help to narrow the centuries-old gulf between faith and science?

The gift of an unexpected midwife

by Pauline Hovey

Apr 24, 2021

Soul Seeing: An early episode of "Call the Midwife" brought me back 11 years, when I may have been like a midwife, an intermediary.

Man standing on rocky shore of Algeria (Unsplash/Benoumechiara)

For Lent, it's watermelon and large curd cottage cheese versus the Psalms

by Peter Gilmour

Feb 24, 2021

Soul Seeing for Lent: The relevance of Psalms written, some perhaps set to musical accompaniment thousands of years ago, is a contemporary miracle. Maybe it's time to give up what you were planning to do without this Lent and look to the Psalms instead.

A children's Bible illustration of Exodus, Chapter 15 (Wikimedia Commons/Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing)

In the Bible and US history, we need to look at all the pictures

by Amy Morris-Young

Jan 30, 2021

Soul Seeing: The history we teach our children — in books very like our children's Bible with simple line drawings to illustrate even simpler versions of the truth — has not yet included the full picture.

Columns ›

A meditation on Mars, and beyond

The gift of an unexpected midwife

For Lent, it's watermelon and large curd cottage cheese versus the Psalms

In the Bible and US history, we need to look at all the pictures

In this darkness is there also light?

Letting go and giving all to God in 2021

Have a happy Gerard Manley Hopkins Christmas

The proof is in the (bread) pudding

Take a prayer day: a time to put the world aside

I need to forgive Donald Trump

Finding sacramental grace in 50-minute therapy sessions

'If only we could row together, we would get there faster'

What can you give someone locked in a cage?

Armchair pilgrimages are meditations during the pandemic

Why not to worry

You could see Elizabeth's soul, despite outward appearance

Books offer wisdom when we need it most

I do not want to die soon

Fragments: Journal of the Plague Year 2020

Wade in the water, wait in Juárez

Coronavirus: When a metaphor is more than a metaphor

Seeking wisdom from masters of social isolation

'Open the windows of your soul'

Having the time of my life

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