Writing is My Spiritual Practice
Even though we cannot release ourselves completely from our own heritage, I have come to believe that we have to find our way to the spirituality that resonates with us individually.
My father was a Holocaust survivor and thinking about this experience left me confused about my own spiritual practice. Even though we cannot release ourselves completely from our own heritage, I have come to believe that we have to find our way to the spirituality that resonates with us individually. As I approach my 60th birthday and reflect on this, I see that for me, the act of writing has become my spiritual practice of choice.
Halfway through the last century, my mother and father emigrated from Austria and Germany, respectively. My father arrived in 1947, after enduring five years in Dachau’s concentration camp. He talked about losing his family in the Holocaust, and sometimes talked about God, but in his heart thought that if there was a God, he or she would not have taken his family in such a way.
My mother’s sense of spirituality leaned towards yoga, meditation classes and occasional visits to psychics. It has been said that children typically take on the religious or spiritual beliefs of their mothers; it is true in my case, since I do lean more towards Eastern-style spirituality. However, I do not totally deny by Jewish roots.
