Sara Hughes-Zabawa and I discuss a spirituality that pays attention to both the church’s tendency to spiritually wound and spiritually enlivening. We discuss Fowler’s Stage Five in the context of spiritual practice and suggest those moves that we can make to support our living with a complex spirituality that refuses the easy binaries and judgements of either/or and right/wrong.
(Photo credit: ‘The True Mystery of the World is the Visible not the Invisible by Alice Popkorn)
I so appreciate this podcast. It is so difficult to feel free to investigate, and navigate through finding and challenging what works for me. The church is not friendly toward that. There is a lot of judgement with that. There are well meaning people in the church who if you are not at church will call or write or drop something off. They worry about you and insert their lives into yours in unwanted ways and then there is the reckoning with the patriarchy. That is difficult because all you are trying to do is navigate through things and figure out what works or doesn’t work for you. My daughter came out a few years ago as gay after serving a mission for the church. My first reaction was I can’t support the church. That didn’t feel right to me and was incredibly difficult for me to navigate. I am now at a place where I realized I never in my 59 years of living have challenged or questioned the church and there are reasons for that , that I won’t go into. However, now I find myself asking what is that I believe? My big issue with the negative is supporting a church who would call my daughter an apostate. There is NO WAY I can envision God standing before her and telling her she is an apostate because she is in a loving relationship with a woman. I cannot and will not support that. And in the process of naming that, I have realized that I have turned my back completely on God. And so my curiosity and my wonder right now, is where and how can I find a deep and meaningful relationship with God and Jesus? I am exploring that but do so quietly so as not to “rock” that Mormon boat nor the family boat. So thank you for this conversation and guidance. I honor and respect both of you and appreciate your candor and openness to discuss these issue and help those of us in the waters navigate it. Thank you