“All spiritual growth is really about letting go of something. It’s not about gaining anything.“  – Rev. Michael Beckwith

I happened to see an Oprah ‘summer rerun’ this afternoon.  The topic: finding one’s spiritual path.  Ahh, I treated myself – it was a pleasure actually sitting down and watching a show without distractions.  The guests included a panel of ‘spiritual’ thought leaders including Rev. Michael Beckwith, Rev. Ed Bacon of a ‘progressive’ Episcopolian church in California and Elizabeth Lesser of the Omega Institute (gosh did I used to love looking at their catalogs!).

Below, and interspersed throughout this post, I’m going to quote what was said during the show, which Oprah has put up on her site summarizing the people’s stories shared, because one day she may take those words down and they are so powerful I want to always be able to look at them again.

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I don’t know about you but I’m always looking for examples of true, heart rending stories showing the real life, negative impacts of heterosexism and homophobia on families.   True stories that everyone, even people who follow religious belief systems that deny the fact that gay people exist, have to sit up and take notice of.

Well, I saw a commercial the other day about a really touching movie that is coming to the Lifetime channel this month that might ‘fit the bill’.  Prayers for Bobby is the tragically true story of a gay teen who commits suicide because of his mother’s rejection of who he was due to her religious beliefs, and how losing her son forces her to question and then, reconsider, her position.  Sigourney Weaver plays the lead and, that fact alone should draw some of us to tune in!  

But, seriously, Prayers for Bobby looks like a ‘must see’ movie for all of us who ‘get it’ and those who don’t…(yet)