Category Archives: Theology

Ash Wednesday: Two meditations on being, dust to dust.

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Multiple small clay heads on a sidewalk

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, the cycle begins again, the ancient whisper of our own frailty, slipping the fine clothes from our shoulders, taking the crown from our heads, bringing us back to that humble place where it all began and where it will surely end. We are the children of the Earth. Earth born, common as the ground we share, raised up by grace to breathe the mystery, laid back down to sleep the mystery deeper still. Dust to dust, life to life, the great cycle spirals our souls, sends us sailors of time, until we come to rest in our own humility, source of our true dignity.

—Steven Charleston

Blessing the Dust
For Ash Wednesday

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

—Jan Richardson

[Photo by Ovidiu Creanga on Unsplash]

A letter from God to her daughters who observe Lent.

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Woman with a cross of ashes on her forehead
Dear Daughter,

On Ash Wednesday, if you are in church, the minister will invite you to the observance of a “holy Lent” and mark your forehead with the ashes of repentance.

Let me be very clear about this: I love you so much. I delight in you. I cherish you. For ever.

Here are a few more things I want you to comprehend. Despite what you’ve been taught, “holy” does not mean pure and unearthly. “Sin” does not mean breaking my rules and making me mad. “Penitence” does not mean listing and wallowing in all the ways you’re wrong and bad. “Repentance” does not mean promising to do better to stay out of trouble.

Please think about these words a new way, on Ash Wednesday and every other day going forward.

What if you only sin when you refuse healing and cling to brokenness? When you use those sharp broken edges to hurt yourself and others?

What if holiness is when you choose to be whole, even though you’re terrified? When you embrace and enfold those pieces of yourself you’ve lopped off to fit into others’ molds?

What if penitence is when you see yourself clearly, and know, speak, and live from your heart?

What if repentance is returning to your true self in all her messy glory?

What if, this Lent, instead of focusing on the ways you’re not good enough and the ways you fall short, you commit to your own healing?

I was there at the Big Bang, enlivening every particle, atom and molecule. You are made of me, and through me you are connected to everything and everyone.

I am everywhere, my love. You live in me and I live in you. This means, my dear, when you let yourself be healed, your healing heals the world. And when you cling to your brokenness, the world stays a little more broken than it needs to be. Your healing is important and necessary.

You think your healing is selfish. That’s incorrect. On the contrary, your healing is crucial. I’m using that word deliberately, sweetheart. Your healing is the crux – where you and I come together.

This Lent, the only fasts I want from you are these: Fast from distractions that allow you to stay wounded and broken. Fast from believing you’re not good enough. Fast from making yourself small, and nice, and silent. Fast from all judgment, especially of yourself.

This Lent, make space for me to flow into you and through you. Befriend your fear, your anger, and your sadness. They are a deep source of nourishment and strength. Let your love go free. Let your joy be unconfined.

Sweetheart, healing isn’t complicated, and it’s always here for you. All you have to do is tap into it, like a springtime maple tree or an aquifer of living water. You know this. But it’s so easy to forget, isn’t it? All you have to do is let me clear out the dams and the trash, the resentments and identities and old, too-small skins that keep you stuck and stagnant.

Open your heart armor just a little. Let go, child. Breathe and soften. That’s all you have to do. I’ll do the rest.

This Ash Wednesday, let those ashes symbolize our unending connection, a connection so easy to forget and so simple to strengthen.

When the priest wipes those gritty ashes on your forehead and says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” celebrate your elemental oneness with this dear, dirty earth, and with me. I am in those ashes, in the dust, in the stars, and in you.

I need you, my daughter. You’re the only you I created. Please, let yourself be the creation I made you to be.

You don’t need someone outside yourself telling you how to live.

Trust yourself.

Trust your heart.

Trust me. I’ve got you.

All my Love,
God  

(A Lenten gift for you: two free PDF printables from this letter.)

Photo: Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash


   

 

On Practicing Joy.

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Little girl sitting in the forest with sun shining on her

This post is for you if being told to practice gratitude pisses you off, even a little.
 
We’re prompted to be grateful. A lot. So many studies show that gratitude is good for us—body, mind, soul, and spirit. And self-help types aren’t shy about promoting gratitude practices.
 
Keep a gratitude journal. Keep a gratitude jar. Say prayers of gratitude. Daily is best, hourly if you can manage it.
 
This time of year, especially, it seems gratitude is all around.
 
I have a terrible secret, my friends. For me, gratitude feels like a death-dealing “should.” Gratitude feels preachy to me. Gratitude feels falsely sweet, a close cousin to denial and forced forgiveness. Gratitude makes my body tighten and harden, just a little, until I override that response because what kind of terrible person has a problem with gratitude, for god’s sake??
 
This is me. If you’re good with gratitude, rock on!
 
But if you, like me, find “gratitude” grating, I have a suggestion. Practice joy. Joy is still abstract, so let’s bring this concept down to the level of our bodies. What feels good to you? What brings you pleasure? In what do you delight?  
 
I keep a Pleasure and Delight journal, not a gratitude journal. Every night, I note what brought me pleasure that day. Sun on my face. The dinner my husband cooked. “White Lotus, Season 2.” A hot shower. The smell of our pine trees being rained on for the first time in months. A scruffy-tailed squirrel hoovering birdseed on the veranda. A conversation. A cat in my lap. That first cup of coffee. Swimming in a wilderness lake. Reading (or writing) a beautiful sentence. Snow on our mountains. Sitting on a rock with my feet in the river. The color red.
 
So many moments of joy, when I stop and pay attention.
 
Am I grateful for these things that bring joy? Of course. Does keeping this list help me pay attention to what brings pleasure and delight? Yes. I’m more apt to notice what feels good to me, and also what feels bad to me.
 
Life is complex. We are complex. We, and life, can be two things at once. Maybe more than two things at once. At heart, we are just fancy animals with bodies that relish pleasure and delight. We benefit when we don’t judge the soft animals of our bodies, but instead let them love what they love. Make your pleasure and delight a judgment-free zone.
 
This holiday season, may we notice our joy. May we let our lives be what they are, containers for both beauty and pain. May we stand with hands open, hearts present, simply being here now. May we say “Thank you!” when we notice our joy. May we say “Thank you!” when we feel our pleasure and delight.

May we savor these moments, sink our roots down into them, and grow ever more strong, resilient, and able to weather our storms: sturdy trees who joyfully shelter ourselves, our families and communities, and our world.
 
Notice what brings you joy, and do more of that. Intentionally create pleasure and delight for yourself. Savor these moments. Remember these moments. Gather these moments and feed on them.
 
My joy practice ritualizes and nourishes my connection with Earth and the Ground of Being—the Source who gives life to all things and who receives us back into herself when we die.  
 
To nourish and strengthen ourselves with pleasure and delight is a holy act.
 

I think this is
the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
~Mary Oliver, Kingfisher

A note on Thanksgiving Day: Millions of Indigenous people died in the genocide perpetrated by White European colonists. For their descendants who remain, Thanksgiving Day is a day to remember and mourn. May we descendants of those White European colonists take seriously and reckon with this legacy. 

I live and work on the original homelands of the Wasq’ú (Wasco), and the Tana’nma (Warm Springs) people. They ceded this land to the U.S. government in the Treaty of 1855. The Numu (Paiute) people were forcibly moved to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation starting in 1879. The Klamath Trail ran north through this region to the great Celilo Falls trading grounds and the Klamath Tribes claim it as their own. Descendants of these original people are thriving members of our communities today. I acknowledge and thank the original stewards of this land.

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Photo Credit: Melissa Askew on Unsplash

Reclaim Your Authority, Christmas Edition

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Cabin in the woods
How’s your December going?
 
I don’t know about you, but at this dark time of year I yearn to be a sturdy fir tree in a quiet, snow-covered forest. I’d feel the sun on my bark during these short days. I’d feel the brilliant starlight from the spangled sky during the long, cold night. I’d shelter chickadees and nuthatches in my branches, and I’d wave my crown to the passing ravens.
 
A close second would be a couple of weeks in a well-insulated, well-stocked cabin in the same forest, overlooking a frozen lake nestled in a valley below snow-covered peaks upon which mountain goats frolic. Long walks. Fireside talks. Deep sleeps.  
 
My first yearning isn’t happening because it’s a fantasy. Perhaps I can be a sturdy fir in my next life, but for now I’m stuck in this human body. My second yearning isn’t happening either, because it’s December. And I’m outsourcing my authority.
 
If this time of year feels like a burden, you’re outsourcing your authority, too. You’re letting someone else decide for you how you’ll spend your time, energy, and money.
 
You and I can opt out of anything we want to. Really. We only have to be willing to be uncomfortable. 
 
The only way I know to a life that’s truly, authentically mine is to reclaim my authority over my choices. Reclaiming my authority starts with my theology.

You have to know what you believe. 
 
Reclaiming your theology: 
What do you actually believe about God, Life, Being, Universe? You get to decide what you believe. Your beliefs about God, Divinity, Holiness, Energy, whatever you call it are foundational. They’re the most crucial beliefs we have. And you must get concrete with them.
 
So much theological language is airy-fairy and abstract. What does “God is love” actually look like? What do we really mean when we say we’re all “children of God”?
 
And, of course, the real biggie … the elephant in the room … What/Who does the word “God” mean, to you? Go beyond and underneath the definition you learned in Sunday School. What does that word mean to you, right here, right now, today? It’s crucial that you answer this question for yourself.
 
Here’s one way into that question. I use this process with myself and with clients, and the results are always surprising. We’ll get back to Christmas, I promise.
 
1. What qualities do you ascribe to God/Being/Universe? Do you believe God is generous? Life-giving? Light-filled? Warm? Abundant? Pervasive? Beautiful? Diverse? Powerful? Nurturing? Healing? Renewing? Strengthening? Flowing? Make a good long list, then pick your foundational three to five descriptions of Divine energy—the ones that resonate most deeply. The ones that bring a smile to your face and a warm glow to you heart. 
 
2. Imagine a metaphor for God that incarnates the qualities you chose in Step 1. For example, if you believe God is healing, renewing, and flowing, you might imagine God as an infinite underground aquifer, as Meister Eckhart did. Or as the green sap rising, along with Hildegard of Bingen.
 
If you believe God is warm, nurturing, and life-giving, you might imagine God as a womb.
 
If you believe God is light-filled, life-giving, and pervasive you might imagine God as the sun.
 
If you believe God is nurturing, strengthening, and abundant, you might, along with Paul Tillich, imagine God as ground. Or dirt.
 
You might imagine God as Mother. Or perhaps Father, a time-honored choice. Gardener. Wind. A city on a hill. A potter or sculptor or artist. Rock. The only requirement is that your metaphor be something concrete and real in the world.
 
So many options. What comes up for you? Every answer is right. 
 
3. Now ask yourself: Who am I in this metaphor? If God is dirt, am I possibly a tree? If God is sun, am I perhaps a rose? Or a sunflower?  If God is wind, am I a hawk? Or maybe a sailboat? If God is an infinite aquifer, am I a well? Or a spring? If God is a woman’s womb, am I a daughter born of that womb? And so on. You get the idea. 
 
4. Use your metaphor as a springboard. Mess around. Play with this. Try several on for size. You could ask these questions: What does my metaphor for God tell me about prayer? What does my metaphor for God tell me about what “sin” might mean for me? What does my metaphor for God tell me about love? What does my metaphor for God tell me about how I want to live my life?  
5. Finally, what does my metaphor for God tell me about how I want to celebrate Christmas?
 
This is deep soul work. Deep soul work is nurturing. Nurturing for you, for those you love, and for the world. Thank you for doing it. 
 
Cultural capitalist Christmas has little overlap with deep soul work. Church Christmas misses the mark for most of us, too, with its underlying message of our sinfulness and consequent need for salvation. This disconnect is exhausting. It’s exhausting to pour so much time, energy, and money into a celebration that ultimately doesn’t reflect your deepest values and beliefs.
 
We care for ourselves when we do our deep soul work, gently and consistently. We care for ourselves, those around us, and our world when we gently and consistently bring ourselves home to our hearts. We care for ourselves when we tell the truth about our values and priorities, with our words and our lives.
 
Remember who you are.
Reclaim your authority.
Recommit to your life.
 
If you’re feeling burdened by December, I hope this helps. Let me know how it goes!
 
PS. I’m intrigued by the possibility of doing this work in community, so I’ll be hosting a free Zoom in early January to do it together. I’d love to know if that’s something you’d be interested in. And I’m available for a no-cost, no-obligation Clarity Call if you want to explore this process in person.
 
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Image: Swampy Lakes Shelter, Deschutes National Forest, 12.5.22. 





   

 

No authority is higher than your own holy heart.

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Arrow tattoo on woman's wrist showing true north

Have you ever tried really hard to believe something that you knew in your heart wasn’t true? I’ve been trying to make myself believe a very important untrue thing for most of my life. I didn’t know I was doing it. I just felt wonky and off, a feeling I ignored for decades. I felt unaligned, and I thought all I needed to do was try harder to believe this thing that, deep down inside, I knew was untrue. Everyone around me believed it, or at least they said they did, so it must be true.
 
I thought the fault was in me, not the untrue thing.
 
I’ve known since I was a little girl that much of what I was hearing about God from church and family and culture just wasn’t true. Experience upon experience upon experience didn’t line up with what the people around me said about “God.” I thought that the remedy was to discount my experience of holiness, and cut off the parts of me that didn’t fit into the “God” box.
 
I’ve had this backwards all along. I want so passionately to articulate the importance of this shift that I’m struggling to find the words. Your experience of the sacred is the starting point for the stories and myths and theologies, the symbols and metaphors, that attempt to contain the sacred. If your heart-felt experiences of “God” don’t fit the theology your head is striving to believe, it’s the theology that’s wrong, not your experiences.
 
Sisters, we will never fit into the myth of monotheism—one God for everyone, invented by Abraham thousands of years ago, the source of so much suffering in the world today. We will never find a home for ourselves in worship of a disembodied, unearthly, solitary Father God. We will never be lovable and whole in a theology constructed to shelter a male, celibate, lone ranger lawgiver and arbiter of holiness. Men have a hard enough time, but women? Women will never measure up. (I imagine that queer folk struggle even more.)  
 
If “God” is ethereal, heavenly, and orderly, what do I do with my embodied, earthy, messy experiences of Holiness? What do I do with sacred dreams, making love and birthing babies, deep grief and soaring joy?
 
We swim in monotheism like fish in water. We don’t even notice it anymore, it’s such an assumed fabric of our lives. I see now that even as I scrape off and root out the patriarchal Father “God” from my being, I’ve been subconsciously searching for another monotheistic “God” to take His place. I’ve been disbelieving in that “God,” not understanding that I have gotten the cart before the horse. I’ve been searching for a pre-existing myth into which I can fit.  
 
What I need to be doing is to make my experiences, beliefs, and values primary before finding, or creating, a myth that fits ME.
 
I cannot overstate the importance of this shift.
 
The three pillars of my mending ministry (aka “coaching”) are remembering who you are, reclaiming your authority, and recommitting to your priorities.
 
To reclaim my authority, I now see, means to honor my experiences of holiness. I am NOT limited to what others have already created. I must take seriously the values and beliefs that grow out of my experience – of embodiment as an Earthling, of friendship, of love and sex and marriage and motherhood and aging, of words and images, and more – and weave them into a theological garment that fits ME.
 
I can give up this exhausting search through the already-created for an existing temple I can tolerate. I can create a structure into which I fit as a flesh and blood woman on this beautiful earth. I can build a shelter for myself and maybe for you, too.
 
Any theology you now inhabit was made up by someone. Just because you were raised in it and four billion people believe it doesn’t make it true.
 
There really is nowhere to land but in your own holy heart.
 
All the goodness and wisdom you need is within you. When you go into your heart deeply enough, you’ll find that you’re connected to all the other hearts in the universe.
 
If you’ve been cutting off parts of yourself to fit into the patriarchal monotheistic myth, these steps could be the beginning of reclaiming your authority.
 
1. Make a list of your holy experiences. Remember that our English word “holy” shares a root with “healthy,” “healing,” and “whole.” When, where, how, and with whom do you feel or have you felt whole, healed, and holy? In what do you experience holiness?
 
My list of objects, moments, and memories is quite long. Here are a few, in no particular order: Pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing babies. Sitting on a rock with my feet in a river. Swimming in high mountain lakes. Standing in front of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” The companionship of cats, dogs, and horses. El Hospital del Alma in Castrojeriz, Spain, and my Camino vision of the deep heart. Hikes with Jed. Listening to wind in Ponderosa Pines. Mary Oliver’s poetry. Going to church with my grandparents. Water fresh from a spring. Granite and sandstone. Dippers. The night sky.
 
What’s on your list? Please take five minutes to start one.
 
2. Honor your experiences as holy. Ritualize the quotidian, everyday items and events. Reverence your holy moments. Remember your holy experiences deliberately, with intention. Pick a few items on your list, and find or make symbols of them for your altar.
 
4. When it feels right to you, begin to play with myths, spiritualities, theologies, symbols, and metaphors that contain your experiences of “God.” Let yourself roam in the wild unknown. There are no rules.
 
If you feel like you need a starting point, here are a few ideas. Perhaps Celtic spirituality, the pre-Roman Catholic version, works for you. Maybe Goddess spirituality is your jam. Maybe it’s Wicca. Maybe it’s even progressive Christianity. Or a little of this and a little of that to begin with. Since those are already invented, maybe your call is to invent something completely new, and invite us to join you. I don’t know. Only you know. If you do explore an existing theological structure, pay attention to how it feels in your body. Ask yourself if it feels true enough to contain your experiences of the holy.
 
As for me, I’m going to dwell in this wild openness for as long as it takes, which may be a lifetime. These roots go deep. It will take time, attention, and perseverance to disentangle myself from Father God’s possessive grasp.
 
No authority is higher than your own holy heart. Trust your good, strong, wise heart. Follow its yearnings, whether or not they make sense to your head.
 
Remember who you are. Reclaim your authority. Recommit to your priorities. This is the work. This is the call. This is the journey. This is the dream.
 
(Dara Molloy’s Reimagining the Divine: A Celtic Spirituality of Experience was a rich source of inspiration for this post.)

PS. If you enjoyed this heresy, you can subscribe to my weekly-ish newsletter for up-to-date heresy and coaching offerings. Thanks!

Image credit: Natalie Rhea Riggs on Unsplash

Loosen your unworthiness habit.

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Girl in field of daisies: You are holy. You are perfect. You are beloved. You are safe.

“I hope she always looks at herself like that … “ This is my friend’s wish for her four-year-old daughter. Her photo shows her daughter looking in the mirror, admiring her new French braid, and she’s simply ecstatic with herself.

We all used to look in the mirror like that. When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror and were completely satisfied, even ecstatic, with the woman looking back?

What happened?

What happened is culture, family, church, school, patriarchy. We’ve been told so many lies about women’s worth – our bodies, our voices, our places. We absorb them from birth, if not before. They’re in the air we breathe.

I spent three days last week in a quarterly retreat with 65 other mostly women entrepreneurs. We were asked to reflect on our biggest obstacle. Hands down the biggest obstacle was that we were “playing small.”

Why? Because we’re afraid that if we go big, get visible, and say exactly what we mean, we won’t be safe. Here’s what I wrote: “I believe that the real me is unlovable. So I have to send out fake me to fool everyone with my perfect façade. Staying small and fuzzy keeps me safe, and I have to feel safe at all times.”

I know that none of this is true. Yet my default pattern when I’m about to say something that I think someone might not like is to freak out and silence myself in advance. I default to “I have to prove that I’m lovable. And being lovable means no one will ever get mad at me and everything will always go smoothly.” 

Ownership of ourselves comes after awareness of our patterns. I’m noticing this pattern, finally, and dismantling the thoughts that make me suffer. Because they’re lies.

You heal this oh-so-painful pattern by gradually, one-by-one, relieving yourself of the weight of those lies. Your belief in your belovedness is down there, underneath all the garbage. Beloved shiny you, the you who looks in the mirror ecstatically, will rise up, expand, and gradually take her rightful place as you lift off the garbage piece by piece.

How to lift off the garbage? Here are a few suggestions, in order of time commitment required.

High Five Habit: Basically all you do here is look yourself in the mirror and give yourself a high-five. For more, check out Kara’s Unf*ck Your Brain episode with Mel Robbins.

RAIN: Dr. Tara Brach’s four-step process for becoming aware of what’s going on with us and giving ourselves kind regard. 

Awareness Wheel: A simple tool for self-awareness. 

Thought Work: Dismantle those lies through gentle, self-compassionate inquiry. 

And finally, find a photo of yourself as a child, frame it nicely if you want, and put it where you’ll see it all the time. Ask yourself if that kid is unworthy. Does she need to prove her belovedness? Would you let anyone else tell her she’s not okay just as she is?

Our habits of unworthiness are based on false beliefs.

There is no lasting safety in playing small.

There is no true joy in smooshing ourselves into little appropriate boxes.

Making our belovedness dependent on how others treat us only leaves us bereft of our own kindness and compassionate self-regard.   
 
We’re still the beautiful beings we were when we were babies, toddlers, and four-year-olds, before we started to believe the hurtful lies. Beloved, your belovedness is a given. Your belovedness hasn’t gone anywhere. Your belovedness is within you, waiting for you to remember.

Who do you think you are? How do you treat yourself? These are ultimately theological questions, deeply related to our conceptions of Being and our place in the cosmos.

Want to go deeper? Contact me for a free no-strings-attached conversation.

PS. Happy holidays and happy New Year! I’ll see you in January, beloveds. 

Photo Credit: Melissa Askew on Unsplash

Foundation #3: Ownership

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Sun shining through fingers

Foundation #3: Ownership. Your theology is the matrix in which healing happens. Examine your theology. Deconstruct and reconstruct as you choose.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. ~Mary Oliver

(Three foundations – embodiment, awareness, and ownership – are fundamental. The four healing shifts – more soul, more acceptance, more intention, and more creation – are powerful. But making the shifts without the foundations is like building a house on the sand. I’m diving deeper into these seven facets of healing throughout November and December. You can subscribe here.)

First, a caveat:
I write these newsletters as the “me” who knows these things I write. I am still also the “me” who forgets them. I am still also the “me” who commits to this open-ended soul pilgrimage, gets scared, and returns to the safety of culture’s prescribed path. I commit to my journey, lose my way, and then find my way back to commitment, over and over and over. This seems to be how it works for most of us. Deep change takes time, usually. Time, and continuous recommitment.   

An audacious statement:
Theology should not hurt. Theological beliefs that cause pain aren’t true. It’s that simple. If a belief or a system of beliefs hurts, let it go and choose holier, healthier, more whole beliefs instead.

You get to do this.
You are a theologian. We are all theologians, whether we want to be or not. Many of us are passive theologians—taking what we’ve been told as the gospel truth, whether these beliefs about God*, creation, and our place in the cosmos cause harm or not.

When you’re more bodyful and mindful, you become aware of what hurts. You become aware of forces and ideas you may have endured for decades, believing you had no choice. After all, you’ve been taught, implicitly or explicitly, that theology is done by other people—more qualified, authoritative, male people.

Dr. Diana Butler Bass (author of Freeing Jesus, most recently) describes a moment in graduate school when another student referred to a woman author as a “theologian.” Diana’s male professor corrected them: “Women don’t write theology. Women write memoir.” (Or self-help.)

You get to choose your beliefs. If the theology implanted in your brain before you had the capacity to think about it critically works for you, rock on! If not, it’s your calling and your responsibility to create new theological pathways for yourself, and possibly for others.

These beliefs might be hurting you:

  • God* is male, therefore maleness is superior. Maleness is superior, therefore God* is male.
  • Bodies are bad, especially female bodies.
  • Earth and earthly things are profane.
  • My sexuality is dangerous, must be controlled, and is to be expressed only in the context of heterosexual marriage, if then.
  • One marriage only.
  • Religion is about following rules, being good, and getting to heaven.
  • Sin is breaking rules.
  • Jesus died for my sins.

Some alternatives to try on:

  • God* is love. God* is in everything and every thing is in God*.
  • All bodies are holy.
  • Earth, the body of God*, is sacred. There is no such thing as “profane.”
  • Sexuality is a gift to be cherished, explored, and shared if I wish.
  • People change. People grow. Sometimes that change and growth requires leaving a marriage.
  • Religion (the Latin root means to reconnect, retie, realign) is how I outwardly express my inward beliefs. Religion is how I tie myself to the holy.
  • Sin is refusing to heal and be whole. 
  • Jesus’ radical beliefs about human belovedness and the loving heart of God* led him to the cross. His fidelity to his beliefs and his willingness to die for them are what saves.

Some ways to begin:
1. Awareness = bodyfulness + mindfulness. Pay attention to how different thoughts feel in your body. Say a thought out loud or to yourself. What do you notice? What’s going on with your breathing? Your heart rate? Your muscles, especially in your upper body? Your abdomen? Truth feels like freedom. For most of us, freedom feels expansive, light, open, and warm.

2. Remember your experiences of holiness, if you have them.
Ask yourself questions, and listen for your answers.

  • Do I really believe in God*? (Maybe you don’t.)
  • If yes, why?
  • Have I ever experienced the Sacred/More/Holy/Love/God*? (Maybe you haven’t.)
  • If yes, how? Where? When?  

Attend to what you know is true. Truth feels good in your body. Perhaps unsettling, but good. False thoughts and beliefs do not feel good in your body.

3. You could play with this sentence: “If God* is …, then I am …, and my soul is ….” Using my Camino deep womb-like heart experience, I might say “If God is a deep womb-like heart connecting everything, then I am a child of God, and my soul is an umbilical cord.” Here are more examples.

This above all: Trust your knowing. Trust your experience. Your knowing is more valid than beliefs formulated by others, passed along as truth. Stop trying to make yourself believe things you know not to be true. Stop pushing those uncomfortable thoughts of disbelief aside. Believe yourself. Be truthful with yourself. Know what you know, at least internally. Claim your integrity.

If all you know to be true is the sweetness of an apple, or the feel of water on your feet, or the sound of birdsong? That’s okay. That’s real. That’s authentic. Trust yourself. Believe yourself.

Stop cutting off parts of yourself to fit into others’ theological boxes.

This work is too important to delegate. Be your own theologian. Take ownership of your fundamental beliefs.

*** ”God” is a commonly-used name for unknowable, unnamable, animating energy. How does “God” feel to you? If that name feels good, use it if you want to. If not, trust your knowing and use another name, or no name at all.  

 PS. Happy Thanksgiving to my readers in the United States. I’m thankful for each of you. Here are a couple of resources if, in addition to giving thanks, you want to think critically about this day.

To know more about, and perhaps acknowledge, Indigenous people who occupied your home before you, check out this resource. Bend, Oregon, is located in the homelands of the Tenino and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, comprised of Wasco, Warm Springs, and Paiute people. Members of these Tribes, and others, live here still. 

And here’s a video by Robin Wall Kimmerer about “The Honorable Harvest,” which describes an ethical relationship with plants upon whom we depend. 

Photo credit: Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash