Seen and Heard

Just like the column in one of my celebrity gossip magazines, Seen and Heard is little snippets of spirituality in unexpected places of every day life and just things that resonated with me.

My dad downloaded some spiritual lectures that Oprah has been doing and I listened to the beginning of one today. A Catholic priest on her panel said, "The idea that God is separate from us, and that we are separate from each other, is an illusion." A Catholic said this! I'm looking forward to listening to more.

I've been reading Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife, and it's quite excellent. As I try to navigate moving away from my parents and their spirituality and into my own life and my own understanding, one quote that really stood out to me was this:

"I no longer denied I was betraying my father. I no longer looked for excuses. I knew what I was doing was both true and wrong. I could not make just one choice, I had to make two: Let me live. Let my father die. Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another, you are choosing what you want. And you are also choosing what somebody else does not want, and all the consequences that follow." p. 360

Even though my choice is not nearly as dramatic, I also have that sense of my choices not just effecting me.

*************

I've been quiet lately because I've been dealing with and processing some things to do with my past. I'm not sure of my thoughts and feelings on the subject, and it is closely connected to my spiritual growth, so I'll need some time to sort through it all.