“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.”

These words were written by Marcus Aurelius in ancient Rome. When I first read them, I thought that I have always believed in the opposite of what he said. The body that will die carries around the soul that lives forever, but now his wisdom makes more sense to me.

We read and talk about the soul like it exists in some kind of real form. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word as “the immaterial essence, animating principle or actuating cause of an individual life.” That would mean the most important part of a human being, more significant to personality, attitude and behavior is not the heart or the brain, both of which have physical form.

When an autopsy is performed, where is the soul found? It is absent of physical existence. You’ll never see a soul on an organ donor card, but if that could be possible, some people who do evil things might want to be on top of the list. A common belief is that the body houses an invisible control panel that operates everything about us; a supernatural puppet master that pulls our strings, and yet we believe we’re in charge of what we think and what we do.

A child might understand the complexity of this phenomenon better than we could. Kids believe in what they cannot see. Santa Claus is real to a 4-year-old boy, as are his imaginary friends. A young girl loves to live in a make-believe world where a stuffed dog named Biscuit comes to life and brings her comfort when they go to sleep every night. To tell a 5-year-old girl that an invisible friend called a soul lives inside of her and takes her by the hand every day, you’d might get this reply. “That’s cool. I’m going to name him Sammy the Soul.”

“Sammy” has been the subject of the finest poetry we read. Emily Bronte wrote, “No coward soul is mine. No trembler in the world’s storm - troubled sphere. I see Heaven’s glory shine. And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.”

Some poets hide their inner essence, keeping it from the world to know, covering it with a sheet of armor, afraid that the pain might be too severe if they show their true selves. Charles Bukowski wrote, “There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out, but I’m too tough for him. I say stay in there. I’m not going to let anyone see you.”

There’s even a side of humor in poetry. Zack Ripley wrote, “It’s been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. If you believe this is true, remember, windows can be tinted.”

A common link to romantic relationships is the heart is often associated with the soul. A poet who calls himself Snipes wrote, “You are an understatement of beauty, of heart, of soul, of meaning. Everything has its meant-to-be’s and I’m forever grateful you were meant for me.”

Science has been baffled for centuries to prove the existence of anything that is not physical matter, but recently, progress has been made from the scientific realm in identifying the soul as the essence of the human body.

Psychology Today reports that “the soul is bound up with the idea of a future life and our belief in a continued existence after death.” Prior scientific studies had stated that we humans are just the activity of carbon and some proteins. We live awhile and then we die. Now there are scientists who question “facts” determined from laboratory experiments because the results must pass through the interpretation of the subjective mind. Furthermore, they say that physical objects only exist if they are observed by the eyes and passed through the mind, yet what we cannot observe can still pass through the mind.

The article adds that space and time are simply the mind’s tools to understand our reality; otherwise, life could not function logically. Some scientists suggest “a part of the mind is the soul - an intangible non-matter that not only can exist, it is immortal and lives outside of space and time.” So much for that complicated explanation but in simpler terms, science has crossed the bridge and along with faith gives us further evidence in a life everlasting.

Think about this. Most of the world’s people believe in a god they’ve never seen. Many of us believe that love exists, though we can’t prove its abstract existence. No one has ever captured a ghost or an alien, but millions believe that they exist. How about fairies dancing on the lawn or three-headed purple dragons?

Why would we have the ability to imagine anything that has no physical matter unless things invisible to the eye actually do exist? That would be a cruel joke by whomever or whatever conceived the human condition. If we can imagine a soul as the spiritual center inside a fragile and mortal casement of flesh and bone, then it can logically have existence. If we can think anything that we can’t see exists, then it can exist, which brings me to this thought. Just because I believe an angel is near me must mean one is there and if an angel comes from an invisible heaven, then immortality is a guarantee.

If I need any more proof that I have a soul, well then, an angel really was near me while I wrote this column and by the way, there are fairies dancing on my lawn too.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com