The core conversation

WRITING is a way to discover and hear the spiritual converssation of your life. Journal writing is a way to engage in a dialogue with yourself and the Spirit.

For the last 20 years of my life, the core conversation I have been having with myself and my life is all about how to have an authentic relationship with the Divine. When I was a kid, I had a deep sense of the Divine in my heart. I enjoyed going to mass and engaging in the rituals of Catholicism. But along the way, the pressure of belief got in the way, and there were a lot of differences in my large family as we grew into young adults. In my extended family, we have followers of Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, Buddhism, as well as atheists.

When I was twenty and fresh out of college, I bought a one-way ticket to Asia and traveled with a good friend through China, Thailand, Nepal and Japan. Our plan was to spend a year in India, deepening our spiritual search, but my friend became seriously ill trekking in Nepal, and ended up in the hospital for three weeks in Kathmandu. After that we headed home and never made it to India. But my spiritual search continued, since it was not about an outer place but more about an interior desire and need. Images of meditating in the hills of India and becoming enlightened in loose fitting cotton clothes faded away as I fly back to California.

I returned to San Francisco, where I had gone to college, moved into an apartment with a friend, and went back to school to became a teacher. After my first year, though, I realized that I didn’t have the temperment for the job, and went to work in a non-profit educational agency. Later on, I went to work in an elementary school as a part-time librarian, which is my current position.

Along the way, I attended the Spiritual Direction Institute at Mercy Center in Burlingame, and become a certified spiritual director. It’s not a money making,  but it was during those three years in the prograom that I realized how creative and dynamic the spiritual life really is.

How do we see our spiritual life as creative, evolving, intersting, worth exploring?

There is a spiritual dimensions to everything we do – to our relationships, our work, our creative projects, our bodies. What is that creative, spiritual dimension? How do we have an authentic relationship with the Divine? How do we kindle our spiritual life so that if really feels authentic?

What is the spiritual conversation of your life right now?