Over the last few years, Krista Tippett has had a tremendous impact on the way I view the world. My compassion and sense of dignity skyrocketed since I started listening to her interviews and reading her books. It has challenged me to not only think about, read about, and talk about faith, but to explore what faith means to me and in my life.

In terms of my own spirituality and religious background growing up, you can neatly file me into the “Nones” category. One parent Catholic, one parent Protestant, my brother and I… just not interested. I’m grateful my parents never forced my brother and I into any one religion or political view (one parent a Republican, one parent a Democrat). I sort of lived my first 25 years of life not really thinking about religion at all. Until I found her podcast. Until I read “Speaking of Faith.” I was blown away by her perspective on spirituality, and I felt so overwhelming compelled to know more. To seek truth. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best: “Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same all.”

My current phase of faith and spirituality exploration has taken me into the realm of Buddhism, but more specifically, meditation. I recently read Sam Harris’s Waking Up, where I found many contradictions between his worldview and Krista’s. I immediately went to find an OnBeing interview with him, but alas, no luck. To my surprise, there is only one article on the OnBeing blog that even mentions his name, published in 2013 about the controversy over his criticism of Islam. I’m deeply influenced in my day-to-day by both of these humans.

I have since posed a question to the OnBeing team:

“May I ask… why haven’t you two had a public conversation? Do you expect to? Would you like to? Have you tried?”

More to come…