Food for Thought

I met a dear friend for dinner at a fancy restaurant last night. She thinks I'm funny so I was very funny. We talked about serious things and light things and gossipy things for several hours. It was good to be with her to relax, catch up and let our hair down.

This friend spent many years enmeshed in a very dysfunctional situation. She was able to extricate herself from it fairly recently and seems to be revelling in her new-found liberty. She told me stories about her recent adventures and experiences, none of which I related to but which were often very amusing.

I told her about my life; how I'm very happy and excited about where I am and what's happening spiritually and how I feel like something about myself in relation to my family needs to change but that I don't know what and I don't know how (other than to pray about it). She was kind and supportive.

When I awoke this morning my first impulse was to judge myself kind of negatively for straying so far from my intention to remain centered on God yesterday (see the immediately preceding post) but the more I thought about it, the more I see that it's ok to be me. This friend does not have an awareness of spiritual center. I think, if pushed, she would identify as atheist. We've been friends for a long time through lots and lots of changes. We have a relationship based on shared interests, history, mutual love, respect and admiration. She listened openly as I talked about my growing awareness of God's will for me and how exciting it is for me to learn to be faithful. She told me about how perplexing her new life can be in the midst of the pleasure of her new-found freedom. We told each other things in trust and with love, expecting support and listened without judgment. The last thing in the world I want to be is like born-again christians who get all self-righteous, eschewing sinful others.

Even though I wasn't consciously aware of Spirit, I know that I acted in accord with my understanding of God's will for me.