Sitting in the front garden this evening with my true love Diana enjoying the beautiful starlit night and a light dinner, we saw a falling star and several twinkling planets, satellites and impressive magical clouds. It was 40 years ago this month that we met for the first time at university in America.

Her kind sparkling eyes captured my attention immediately as I saw her across the room at the International Student House. We smiled at each other and felt an immediate connection despite our language barrier.

She had learnt the German language in high school, which was a huge help as my English was not very strong. We were able to communicate quite well as my English skills increased rapidly.

Having a soul connection

To me there has always been an incredible soul connection between us. When we love someone we feel it in our innermost being, our soul, and that is why we call it soul mates.

The word “soul” means all of our thoughts, feelings, personality characteristics, self, desire and passion. Daniel Amen, in his book Healing the Hardware of the Soul, says “the soul is who we are inside, from the top of our head to the bottom of our feet”.

Then he continues how “ … the soul is felt and translated into action through the day-to-day function of the brain”, quoting William Shakespeare saying, “The brain is the soul’s fragile dwelling place.” It is an interesting book and in it Dr Amen describes how modern brain-imaging makes the brain-soul connection evident.

Modern brain-blood-flow scans, called SPECTs, can actually show whether people are of good nature, which requires optimal brain function, or tend to be more evil. Amen says: “It is likely that Adolf Hitler and other brutal dictators had faulty brain wiring, despite being able to rise to power.” Those scans show in clinical trials that most racists for example have specific abnormal brain patterns.

Improving our soul

However, he also says that there is a brain-soul feedback loop, that can be used to change the brain function and improve it. We are not stuck with a brain, and not with a specific soul, we can retrain it and improve it, both the intellectual part (for example by studying or practising certain things) but the soul part as well, the way we feel about ourselves, others and the world.

We can build new neurons (the connections between brain cells) through mental exercises and improve blood flow through better nutrition and a healthier environment (avoiding insecticides some people still spray even inside their homes, use less perfumed products and so on) and through increased interaction with healthy minded people.

We become like the people we hang out with. That is why the apostle Paul warned in 1 Corinthians 15>33 (NIV): “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’”

The same is true when we choose a life partner. When we choose to marry someone, we choose a story with that person, we become a unite, even mentally we become a “we,” an “us”, while we also keep our individual identity.

We begin to build a life together and with the others around us. Jesus says in Mark 10:7-8 (NIV): “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”

The urge to belong

Most of us are searching for a more fulfilled, meaningful, peaceful, hopeful and positive life. We want to live, love and feel connected to something and someone. We want to belong. When I grew up in the German countryside, people often asked us children: “Who do you belong to?” when asking for our family.

Belonging is a matter of the soul. While we live in a more and more individualised society, we still seek groups we can identify with, like a sports team. We may buy club jerseys, scarves and other fan articles to express our belonging, and watch their games, celebrate and cry with them.

In the 21st century we yearn for more improved relationships, work and spiritual connections in the deepest ways possible. I have the feeling that we have higher expectations on our relationships as well, particularly our relationship with our soulmate, even if that means to work on the relationship.

We want to find happiness and joy in it and experience hope for a common future even beyond the often-mentioned honeymoon phase. We need to find meaning and purpose for us, individually and as a couple or family.

Meaning is found outside of ourselves

We need something we cannot find just inside of us, but that is given to us from the outside. We need the input from our partner, the love from our partner, the hope from our partner to be able to build a life together and begin filling the void.

I think there is even more we need. We need a spiritual source to connect us not only with each other, but with the whole creation and the Creator. For me that outside source is God.

He fills me and my relationships with that love, hope and faith, 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV) speaks of: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s