The Power to Change Our Story with Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

We’re joined by author Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew (@elizabethjarrettandrew) on the podcast this week. Elizabeth is the author of “Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Memoir of Bisexuality & Spirit” and the chapbook, “A Map to Mercy,” due out in 2025. She is also the author of three books on writing. She is a founding member of The Eye of the Heart Center for Creative Contemplation, where she teaches writing as a transformational practice and hosts an online writing community. In this engaging conversation, Elizabeth shares her journey as a queer contemplative Christian and how her spiritual path intertwines with her identity and creative work. She discusses the importance of spiritual direction in her personal growth, the practice of rewriting one’s narrative, and the role of creativity in spiritual exploration. Elizabeth emphasizes the value of community and rituals in tapping into creative energy, and offers insights on how anyone can approach writing as a spiritual practice, regardless of their perceived creative abilities. We totally agree with Elizabeth’s understanding that there is power in creativity and personal practices in fostering change in a complex world.

 

Takeaways

• Identifying as a queer contemplative Christian shapes my worldview.
• Coming out is a lifelong process of spiritual growth.
• Spiritual direction provides a safe space for exploration.
• Rewriting our narratives is essential for personal integrity.
• Creativity is a fundamental aspect of the spiritual journey.
• Rituals help connect with creative and spiritual energy.
• Writing can be a private, transformative practice.
• The process of writing is often more important than the product.
• Community support is vital for spiritual and creative growth.
• Sharing personal stories requires discernment and care. Be intentional about who you share your writing with.
• Writing is a process that requires multiple drafts.
• Our identities are multi-dimensional and complex.
• Revising our stories adds depth and richness.
• The journey of publishing can be challenging yet rewarding.
• Sexuality can be a sacred aspect of our identity.
• Faith and sexuality can coexist harmoniously.
• We are interconnected and part of a larger community.
• Creativity is essential in times of uncertainty.
• Personal practices can lead to meaningful change.

 

Chapters

(03:18) Exploring Queerness and Spirituality

(07:20) The Role of Spiritual Direction in Personal Growth

(10:38) Rewriting Your Narrative: A Spiritual Practice

(14:36) Creative Work as a Spiritual Journey

(16:43) Rituals for Tapping into Creativity

(19:27) Writing as a Spiritual Practice for Everyone

(23:20) The Process of Sharing Your Story

(30:42) Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Memoir of Identity

(34:18) The Journey of Publishing and Reissuing a Memoir

(39:08) Sexuality as a Seat of Sacred Knowing

(42:06) Faith and Identity: Lessons from Bisexuality

(45:00) The Next Horizons of Queerness and Faith

(47:57) The Power of Creativity in Challenging Times

 

Resources:

• Learn more about Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew and her work at https://www.elizabethjarrettandrew.com/ 
• https://www.spiritualmemoir.com/ 
• Eye of the Heart Center for Creative Contemplation
• Elizabeth’s online writing community
• Be part of the workshop, The Politics of Jesus by joining the Sanctuary Collective Community 

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

 

This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions.

(9s):
Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts From Genesis Drug Revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how tuning In each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Welcome back to the Queer Theology Podcast. Our guest today is Elizabeth Jarret. Andrew Elizabeth is the author of Swinging on the Garden Gate, A Memoir of Bisexuality and Spirit. Now, in its second edition, the novel, Hannah delivered a collection of personal essays on the threshold Home, hardwood and Holiness, the Chapbook, A Map to Mercy.

(53s):
Due out in 2025 and three books on writing, writing The Sacred Journey, the Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir, living Revision, a Writer’s Craft, A Spiritual Practice Winner of the Silver Nautilus Award and the Release Finding Creativity and Freedom. After the writing is done, She is a founding member of The Eye of the Heart Center for Creative Contemplation, where she teaches writing as a transformational practice and hosts an online writing community. She’s a recipient of two Minnesota State Arts Board artists Fellowships, the Loft Career Initiative Grant, and is a Minnesota Book Awards finalist. She lives in Minneapolis with her wife, daughter, and two rambunctious cats. You can learn more about Elizabeth at Elizabeth jarret andrew.com and spiritual memoir.com.

(1m 38s):
You’re really gonna love this conversation, so let’s get to it. Welcome, Elizabeth. We are so happy to have you on the podcast today. Really looking forward to this conversation. I’m really grateful to be here. We love to start by asking, if you were at a queer cocktail party, how would you introduce yourself and your work? You know, we’ve already heard your kind of fancy official bio, but you know, how do you introduce yourself casually? Are there any other identities that are really important to you? Yeah, I would probably say that I’m a queer contemplative, queer contemplative Christian, identify as bi, but actually that kind of bisexual lens and my contemplative lens feel very much the same to me.

(2m 31s):
So it’s really about seeing the world non dually and practicing, you know, kind of, kind of this intentional practicing becoming, you know, like we come out, we come out in a big way as queer people, but I think of the contemplative practices coming out all lifelong and bringing out what’s within us. So yeah, I would say I am a queer contemplative Christian. We’re gonna talk a little bit more about in depth about your work and your books, but first I’m wondering if you’d be willing to share a little bit about your spiritual journey and how queerness has intersected with that.

(3m 17s):
Yeah, it’s been critical. So I was raised in a liberal United Methodist church by a loving family, and it was a dying congregation, so, you know, super small, racially diverse, financially strapped, and so every person who showed up on a Sunday morning was precious to them. In my late teens, early twenties, I began in college, I began exploring my sexual identity and really didn’t have words for it.

(3m 58s):
I knew that that something was not right with the story that I had told myself in my head about who I am, and it wasn’t matching up with the truth of my body and, and attractions. So I ended up doing two things, just kind of out of instinct. The first was putting myself into spiritual direction, because really I had the sense that I couldn’t grow in my spiritual dimension without addressing my sexuality. And, and so that safe listening space was really critical to my coming out.

(4m 43s):
And then the second thing that I did just instinctually was get myself to a reconciling United Methodist Church. Again, another really small congregation. I I had moved, I grew up in New York And I moved to Minneapolis. So the big irony of my coming out, or, or I should say the huge grace of my coming out was that one day after church, during adult ed at this, at this little United Methodist Church, they, they were already a reconciling congregation, so they were already overtly welcoming gays and lesbians, but they had a panel discussion to help them consider whether to also intentionally welcome trans and bi folks.

(5m 27s):
So after church, there was this panel of trans folks and a couple bisexual people who were speaking about their experiences and their faith. That was the first time that like the light bulb went off in my head, oh, I’m bisexual, so I am, I like one of the blessed people that church gave me language around my sexual identity. So from there, it was really a matter of I’m a writer, and so it was really a matter of rewriting my, my narrative.

(6m 9s):
You know, here’s this story that I told myself about who I was and the story that my parents assumed for me and my culture assumed for me, And I had to extract myself that from that and, and rewrite it. So I did a lot of that in spiritual direction. I did a lot of that in what became my first book, which is a memoir, but coming out. So I came out during joys and concerns at church, Love that. And, and coming out for me really was intricately connected to my, what I would then have called my, what I did call my relationship with God, that, that I had this sense of, you know, stepping into my own integrity and my own truth, aligned myself with the integrity and truth that I think really is the source of our life, a source of life and source of love.

(7m 14s):
And so, so coming out for me was the start of my spiritual journey. I’m, I’m so fascinated by the fact that you intuitively went to spiritual direction only because I, I feel like as a college student, I didn’t even know that that existed. So I’m, I’m, where was that in your kind of consciousness? Like how did you know to seek that out? Yeah. And and what did that do for you? How, how did that help unlock things for You? Yeah, I was actually outta college at that point. I think I was 22, 23, so still really young. And it was, again, through this church, this, this United Methodist church.

(7m 55s):
We were on retreat and this man by the name of Jim Dodge, who was a, oh, he was a retired United Methodist pastor in a, wh he’d been in a wheelchair his entire life. He was also trained as a spiritual director, and he had started a ministry doing spiritual direction with people on the streets. And so he was leading this retreat for us and offered to do, we brief one-on-ones with participants, and there was something about the words spiritual director, spiritual direction, or spiritual director. It just set my heart, like thumping, you know, I was just, I had never heard of anything like it before, but I think I, again, just intuited that I desperately needed direction, and I’ve since, you know, I’ve since kind of backed away from that term, because actually I think the spirit is the one directing and the, the person who sits with the spiritual directors had is really just kind of a, a mirror or a good question asker.

(9m 1s):
Yeah. But, you know, I think, so I’ve written my whole life, And I think what spiritual direction did for me was kind of create this human blank page where I could test my story, kind of write the rough draft of my story, and have loving open-ended questions be asked of me, such that I could listen more deeply. So, so in many ways, and, And I was very fortunate because I landed with a very good director right away, but in many ways, spiritual direction really functioned for me, like the blank page as a place to be messy and be heretical and cry a lot, and, you know, like, really question my beliefs about God and, and actually not believe, and, you know, like, it just was this permission giving space where, where I could grow.

(10m 4s):
Yeah. You, you’ve said a couple of times used the phrase like, rewriting your story or Rewriting Your Narrative, which I love. And we just did a, a journaling workshop literally called Rewrite Your Story, which is all about like how to do that. But I can imagine that there are some folks listening who are like, I don’t know what that even means. Like, how, what it, how do you do that? It, it sounds a little maybe wooey or, or, or fictitious, right? That you’re just like pretending to be something. And so I’m, I’m curious how you would, how you would talk about or explain this practice of rewriting your own narrative.

(10m 48s):
And I know that’s a really big question, but It’s a big question. But, you know, I think in some ways people who have done the hard work of coming out, or people who have done the hard work of, of being in recovery, we, we know what it means to rewrite your story because we’ve lived it, you know, it’s like there’s, there’s just one way of being in the world, and then you go through this really difficult process, but at the other end, you are living in the world in a different way. That that’s so, so, I, I think, I think to some extent, any of anyone who’s had major internal personal change knows the experience of rewriting your story, but, but the dimension that I think being a writer I can bring to that conversation is, and, and, and being a contemplative, is that we can be intentional about how about participating and how, how our stories get written.

(11m 59s):
So just to give you an example, I coach writers in book development, and lots of times when a writer puts a, puts down a first draft of their story, it’s kind of the story that they’ve told themselves. You know, it’s, it’s like, this is, this is who, you know, how I’ve understood my life. But over the course of writing it, all these insights come up, you know, like you realize all of these things that you didn’t know and all of these memories come up that you didn’t remember. And then you start seeing themes like, oh, this mirrors that. And, and there’s these patterns across my life that are really remarkable.

(12m 41s):
And then if you do the hard work of revising that story, you, you can take those themes and say, okay, well, I noticed that this theme cropped up here, here, and here, but it’s not here, but I know it should be, and so I can, I can add it here. So we then can like, find continuity and integrity in, in our stories simply by looking for it. That, that we didn’t know we held. Here’s, here’s another, here’s another good example. You know, lots of times when people are writing memoir, they just write a bunch of little fragments of, of memories, right? That, and that’s a great, that’s a great way to start. And then, then they’re like, well, how does this all fit together?

(13m 24s):
And at that point, we get to make choices, right? Like we can fit all those fragments together in a story that says, woe is me. I’ve been so neglected and hurt, and you know, I’ve had such a bad lot in life, and I’m gonna lick my wounds in this story. Or you can frame the story as, oh my goodness, look at all the, the people who came into my hard life to help me along. Or you could frame the story as how did I become who I am today, given where I started? You know? So there’s all these different ways that we can tell the same story, and as writers, we get to choose, right?

(14m 7s):
So, so then in the process of choosing one frame or another, we kind of live into the frame that we’ve chosen, which is just like miraculous. And it is kind of, but it’s a really beautiful process. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. You know, so you’ve already started talking about the fact that you coach writers. You have several books out on writing and memoir, and specifically writing and even revising as A Spiritual Practice. And I’m wondering if you can just say a little bit more about specifically the intersections you find between creative work and spiritual practice. Yeah.

(14m 48s):
This is, this is the intersection that I just find infinitely mysterious and, and exciting. So I experience the spiritual dimension, the sacred dimension as, as creative. So, you know, I think that’s where with my coming out experience and kind of coming into myself, it essentially was this co-creative process where I was willing to, you know, with a lot of, having gone through a lot of anger and disappointment and, you know, loneliness, but willing to, to do that work, to be able to name who I am today, I was participating in what I understand to be kind of like this basic human spiritual thrust, which is to become more alive.

(15m 54s):
And so, so I think that the spiritual journey really is ultimately a creative journey that, that we get to participate in who we’re becoming, and we get to participate in who the, you know, what the world is becoming. And it’s relational, you know, it’s relationship relational with our bodies. It’s relational with our, our partners. And it’s definitely relational with the, the natural world. And, and with, with the sense of mystery or inspiration or, or life force or energy that’s kind of everywhere and kind of waiting for us to, to be open enough to to, to invited into our lives.

(16m 43s):
Do you have any particular ways that are rituals for you to tap into this creative or spiritual energy? Well, journaling, journaling’s a big one. I, you know, I usually start my morning with writing down my dreams. So that’s, that’s a direct way of listening to that mystery, because dreams are so peculiar and, and instructive and mysterious. And it’s not that I try to interpret my dreams necessarily, but just writing them down is a way of paying attention. And then also, you know, just checking in with myself in the morning.

(17m 25s):
I usually do a little bit of spiritual reading first thing in the morning, and then I do silent prayer practice. That’s, you know, it’s a lot like meditation. So those are, I light a lot of candles. And so, so that’s kind of the personal dimension, you know, as a, I’m also a very strong believer in community. I think that’s my, my Christian upbringing and that tiny dying church that kinda loved me into being, they has just really made me convicted, I guess, that, that we need each other in order to experience the spirits movement.

(18m 13s):
And so, you know, church is, has, is and has always been problematic for me. But, but I do attend church and, and my partner And I are raising our daughter and church, but honestly, it’s a circle of women, two other queer women, and a woman of color who’s straight, who we pray together weekly, and we’re working together, and we we’re sharing a vision for a creative community together. And that’s the place where I, I feel that that kind of bigger creative force where I’m part of a bigger movement.

(18m 54s):
So, so it’s that, you know, kind of gathering, listening, listening to the spirits movement and silent prayer, or sometimes we make art, sometimes we dance, and then also listening deeply to each other, you know, our personal stories and, and, you know, our longings. And it’s hard work. It’s, you know, it’s not, it’s not like it’s bliss, but community communicating. Oh, to me, that’s the word in church. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I, I’m, I know that there are some folks who are listening who are probably thinking, well, I’m not a writer, or, I don’t consider myself a creative person.

(19m 38s):
And so I’m wondering if you have any specific advice on like, how to start writing as A Spiritual Practice, especially for maybe someone who like doesn’t consider themselves already prone to writing or, or to being creative. Yeah. Well, I would first say that lots of times we have too narrow an idea of what creativity is. So cooking a good meal or, or, you know, initiating a great conversation or, or, you know, rearranging a room or, you know, there’s all sorts of ways to be creative starting a business.

(20m 25s):
So, so I think that creativity is really about kind of stepping forward and being willing to put your particular fingerprint on something beyond you. In terms of writing the, you know, we come to writing with so much baggage because it was a, a means of testing what we’ve learned in school, and we also assume that what goes down on the page is meant for an audience. And so, so it, we, I mean, I could go on and on about all of the incorrect assumptions that we have about writing.

(21m 8s):
You know, like we, we also have the incorrect assumption that like what we put down on the page, it has to be perfect somehow, or that, that it’s, that it’s somehow static when in fact, writing is fluid, it can always be changed. You know, we, it can always be kept private. I used to work with a writer who, a woman who really wanted to write, but was super stuck and, and just was terrified to put anything onto the page. And so we would sit together and write, and then we’d go out to the street and burn it, just because, because it’s like, you know, it is totally, the process is valuable. There’s another assumption we make about writing.

(21m 48s):
We assume that it’s all about product. And, and the process itself is infinitely valuable. It’s so transformational, so transformative. And so it, you know, yes, the product can do beautiful things in the world, and it’s really exciting to share, but the product does not have to be the point. The point can be the process. So even if you know, you, you can’t spell, and your handwriting stinks, and, and you’re, you know, like everything you put down on the page looks horrible. You know, even that, that practice of seeing our brokenness and, and loving it anyhow, and trusting that it’s valuable anyhow, is tremendous.

(22m 33s):
Like, that is spiritual practice, right? Is to, to see ourselves mirrored back in a, in a way that’s uncomfortable and to say, yeah, that’s still me. Yeah. Yeah. I Love that. So, so journaling, I’m a strong proponent of journaling or, or writing whatever, poetry or memoir, whatever, with no audience in mind, intention of no audience. So I also had a student one time who, like, she had her husband who was a welder, like weld all of her journals shut into a box. Oh, wow. Metal box, you know, so like, what, what does it take for you to feel safe on the beach?

(23m 14s):
Yeah. Yeah. And I, and we’re gonna talk about your memoir in, in just a second, but I, I wanted to ask like how the, kind of the flip side of that is that often I think folks are wondering when it’s time to share, right? Like, how do, how do I know that I’m ready to share the, either my memoir or this particular story? And so I’m wondering for you, you know, what, how did you deal with, with that question of like, am I ready to, to write this memoir? But then also, am I ready to share this? Yeah. Well, so I’m a little different because I have this compulsion to write, like I write, to find out what I think and what I believe.

(24m 2s):
And so, so it was, it, it’s never, it was never a question, you know, should I write this memoir or shouldn’t I, it was like I had to write it. The real question is, do I share it when and how? So, so the writing of it, so, so essentially I came out to myself by writing, and, and it was, it was in the journal, but it was also literally needing to write out my life story so that I could see it with new lenses, you know, like, okay, if I, if I am bisexual, what, you know, suddenly that childhood friendship I had with the girl in my art class who I was totally obsessed with, you know, like I see it in a new light, right?

(24m 54s):
Yeah. Yeah. And so in any case, I had to, I had to write it out in order to, in order to even arrive at the place where I could say the word bisexual out loud. And so, you know, when I came out to my parents, it was this, you know, I basically said, okay, I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve been like struggling with this for years, And I think I’m bisexual, and here’s my book. Read it. And so, so really the two were like, the writing got me to the point where I could come out, and the coming out process to me was the same as sharing my writing, at least, at least in my intimate spaces.

(25m 41s):
Yeah. But, you know, just kind of in general, like that process, like when do you share it? It’s a, a discernment process, right? Because the privacy of the page is so precious, you know, it’s, it’s like, it’s like the privacy of prayer and that there, you know, it’s, it’s ultimately permission giving and ultimately forgiving. And you, you don’t want to puncture that space too soon. You don’t want to, to, and you, and, and when puncture is kind of a harsh word, but I think of it as like a cloud or, or, you know, like this, I I call it like a cloud of privacy that I think is really important to write in.

(26m 29s):
And at some point I think you feel strong enough with the content of what you’re writing about that it’s like, oh, this, this can be shared. But, but it’s also super important to only share with people who are going to give you what you most need. And lots of times, family and friends are not, that the not the right people to share writing with. Lots of times it’s a writing group actually, you know, a bunch of strangers or, or a teacher or spiritual director or a pastor. You know, like lots of times it’s someone who can see through the, you know, whenever I would share my writing with my mom, she would always say, well, you weren’t, you’re exaggerating there, you know, she would kind of be nitpicky about these stupid details and totally disregarding kind of the heart what I was writing.

(27m 22s):
It’s like, I just didn’t need that. I mean, you know, she wasn’t disowning me, which is, you know, that’s also a possible reaction, right? But to, to be really intentional and careful and deliberate about who you share what with, when, and then, you know, so I, I write in this cloud of privacy, but then I, like Stephen King says, write with the door closed and rewrite with the door open. And I kind of gradually open the door. So, you know, at first I share it with my trusted writing group, you know, then I might share it with my partner, and then, you know, eventually I might choose some beta readers who are, you know, who understand my vision and, you know, go on down the line.

(28m 10s):
Yeah. I love that. I, I think that’s so important, right? Because I think often because of the internet, we, we think of sharing as, like, I write it in privacy, and then it’s for the whole world, right? And there’s no intermediary spaces. And so I, I love that kind of teasing out of there, there’s there gradations, right? Of, of how we share. I think that’s so important. Yeah. How we share and also gradations of how we write. You know, I, in some ways, I, I think of that as creative bypassing. So you write something and then it’s out there, right? And basically you’ve bypassed the whole revision process, that whole process of re-seeing and, you know, seeing a new, and seeing the different eyes.

(28m 55s):
And, you know, which to me is the, the, the bisexual lens. Okay, let’s, let’s look at this from many angles. Let’s embrace the many perspectives. There’s a, a really great Ted talk by, oh gosh, I’m hoping I remember her name. It’s Che is her last name, and it’s, she’s talking about how when she first came from, I think it’s Nigeria to the United States to go to college, her roommate had all of these assumptions about her. You know, like she was amazed that, that this woman could light, you know, use a stove. And, and so Adii says, okay, this, my roommate had a single story about me.

(29m 40s):
And, and prejudice is a, like a single story about a person. But actually what what we want is more than a single story. We wanna, you know, who we are is many, many stories, and we need that multidimensional multidimensionality of ourselves in order to really see ourselves as whole. And I think for writing, like when you write your first draft, that’s a single story. And the, the beautiful, hard, long, deep process of developing a book or, you know, any, any a poem or whatever, a longer work is about layering that first draft with many other drafts.

(30m 30s):
You know, like adding the multidimensionality to your story, not just, you know, it takes time, it takes commitment, but, but if, if you love writing, then like, that’s a fantastic journey. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about your book, Swinging on the Garden Gate, A Memoir of Bisexuality and Spirit. For those who haven’t read it, can you just say briefly what it’s about? Yeah, so I, when I was coming out, the biggest struggle for me was reconciling my sexual identity with my faith. Because even though I was raised in this very generous, loving, liberal Protestant congregation, I absorbed by osmosis all of the teachings that our culture somehow circulates.

(31m 25s):
That you can’t, you know, that it’s sinful to be sexually deviant or, you know, like the, and, and, and that, that somehow my attraction to women was wrong. No one ever told me that in, you know, from the pulpit, you know? So I, so I was really spared the direct teaching of that, but it did come through the culture. And so, and in fact, you know, I grew up with two men living in the house to the north of us and two women living in the house to the south of us. And I just thought they were two old ladies and two old men.

(32m 7s):
And, you know, never really meant anything to me. But one of my only memories of my mother talking about homosexuality was her standing at the kitchen sink peeling carrots and saying, oh, we’re surrounded by them. And, and So just, you know, just kind of like little, you know, microaggressions in, in the house that taught me that this was not okay. And I mean, it’s not to say, you know, like we always brought them Christmas kook in, so, you know, and they were good neighbors, but, but there’s just, you know, just that little sense of this is not right. And so, so in, in any case, the book is, is really about reconciling that kind of Christian indoctrination that I absorbed with my pure knowing of, of truth and, and energy and life.

(33m 11s):
And I was a really mystical child and had a very dynamic dream life and dynamic sense of, of the presence of something beyond me that eventually I called God. And so how, how to bring those two stories, you know, my, my embodied experience of the sacred and this taught doctrinal experience or, you know, lessons about God and morality and sacred scripture and all that, how, how to, how to reconcile the two of them.

(33m 52s):
So, so that’s, it’s kind of an intellectual perspective on what it is that it’s really my life story and, and how I was able to, to reclaim Christianity as true to my, it kind of rewrite the Christian language so that, so that it was mine and, and true to my experience. Yeah. So you, you wrote this book a, a while ago, it’s now in its second printing. I’m curious what your journey has been with the book, whether that is, you know, how you feel about it now, or what has changed since the book.

(34m 32s):
You know, it can be wild to like put something out in the world and that have, that be people’s only, you know, knowledge of you. And so I’m just curious, what, what’s that journey been like? Yeah, yeah. So I, it, it came out in the year 2000 when I was, how old was I? About 30. And it was really small, you know, finding a home for it was really difficult because, you know, most traditional publishers wouldn’t touch the Christian aspect of it, and most Christian publishers wouldn’t touch the bisexual aspect of it. I feel very fortunate that I found a home with the Unitarians, and they published, you know, like 500 copies.

(35m 17s):
It was a really small print run, but it served as this beautiful permission slip to me to go out into the world and speak. And so I spoke at so many unitarian fellowships and national reconciling conferences and my high school and, you know, so it was, it was an opportunity to be really at, not in a massive scale, but to be out in a, in a pretty big way for me, and almost entirely, it was a good experience. So I got to meet all kinds of people. I got to meet a lot of queer people, a lot of people really hurt by the church, and, and it felt really connective and good to be able to share my story.

(36m 10s):
Then, you know, the, they did a, they actually did a second print run, and so I think in the end it was maybe 1500 copies went out into the world, but it went on a print, And I had a bunch in my garage that I just, you know, sell a couple every year. And then, then, I don’t know, five years ago or so, a friend of mine asked me to do this tour through a bunch of two year colleges in Wisconsin speaking to, you know, the queer clubs and, you know, like little G-L-B-T-Q-A resource rooms, you know, that sort of thing.

(36m 51s):
So this was, this was, you know, 28 years after the book was published initially, And I just was heartbroken by the questions that people were asking me, you know, these, these young kids saying, wait a minute, are you saying it’s possible to be queer and spiritual? And you know, much less Wait, you mean you’re saying you can be queer and Christian? So just, just this, you know, this gulf between the life of faith and queer identity that just, it made me weep.

(37m 31s):
And I decided at that point that I was gonna just self-publish it the second time because it needed to be in the world, even if it was just, you know, a handful of people. And actually, you know, I wanna tell one other story from, from when it first came out. I was speaking on a panel at a local college, and this young woman came up to me with her copy of Swinging on the Garden Gate, and it was completely mutilated. Like she had underlined and highlighted and dogeared and, you know, like, it, it was, she had just used that book, and she asked me to sign it, And I was so moved by how, how she had used it.

(38m 17s):
And then that I ca got to know her eventually. And she, you know, she was raised Catholic, she came out lesbian, she left the Catholic church, became a Methodist, went to seminary, went into the ministry, you know, like she had this strong calling that she claims my book helped awaken in her. And so, so I, you know, I, I, going into the second printing, I, I knew that it didn’t need to reach massive numbers of people, it just needed to reach the right people. And so I decided I was gonna self-publish it. But before I did, I went back to scanner house And I said, you know, I’m gonna do this, and are you interested?

(38m 59s):
And they said, you know, I think that the time might be right now that maybe it was too early to publish it, and that the time’s right now, so they reissued it, which I’m really grateful for. You use this phrase in the preface to the second edition Sexuality as a Seat of Sacred Knowing. And I, I love that. And I, and I’m wondering if you can say a bit more about what you mean by that, or what that means. Yeah, I, I mean, I think one of the real gifts that gay lesbian by transgender, you know, non-binary, you know, that, that folks who have, who have had to claim identity in opposition to assumptions of the dominant culture, like one of the gifts that we bring to the world is this understanding of sexuality as a, an essential component of identity, right?

(40m 2s):
Like, and, and gender, you know, like this is an essential component of who I am and, and coming out forces us to be aware of it and be in relationship to it. And I think sexuality is just so basic to our life force that when we’re in loving relationship with it, it’s this really powerful sacred dimension of who we are. So, you know, we, I think this is also a, an unfortunate inheritance of, of our Christian, the Christian influence on our culture.

(40m 43s):
We’ve really kind of denigrated sexuality as not sacred, you know, we’ve separated it from the sacred. And so as you know, because of that, it’s, you know, it’s like everything else that we’ve separated from the sacred, it has kind of this, when I was studying liberation theology, it’s like, God, there’s this, God has a preference, preference for the poor, right? You know, like, like, and, and there’s something about the margins, those, those marginal places of our lives, of our culture where, where there’s real energy and creativity.

(41m 25s):
I mean, sexuality is also the source of our creativity, right? Like, and so to, to, I think think, I think when we heal that dichotomy, that division between sexuality and spirituality and reenter into kind of a loving, exploratory relationship with it, that it just has the potential to, to fuel us in, in a really powerful and healing way. You’ve talked a little bit about bisexuality and contemplative nature and how those two have, have gone together for you.

(42m 6s):
I’m wondering if you can say even more about what your sexuality and your identity has taught you specifically about your faith or how it has opened up your faith in, in different ways. One of the things that Christianity’s wisdom, tradition, you know, the, the legacy of the mystics and the, the desert mothers and fathers and, you know, kind of the, the, that, that current, that generally we don’t hear about in church, but that, that has preserved this, this teaching, which is that we can be in direct relationship with our source.

(42m 47s):
And so I believe that having to come out and having, having my embodied experience of attraction to people of many genders, and also having this embodied experience of, of sexual attraction to the world, you know, to to like, you know, that, that there’s a sexual dimension to like a, a, a beautiful sunset, you know? So, so to to, to live in this body teaches me direct relationship with the amazing embodied world in the embodied spirit of the world.

(43m 39s):
And, you know, in particular my wife and in particular my daughter and my cats. But, but, but you know, like there’s, there’s this way that being in our bodies is connects us to something beyond our bodies. I’m not being very articulate about this, I’m afraid, but it’s, it’s kind of, that’s okay. It’s so intimate, isn’t it? Like that, that place of, you know, I’m thinking about many of the saints who, who just, like, when they describe their relationship with God, or like St. John of the Cross is a great example.

(44m 19s):
Like, for St. John of the cross prayer is sneaking out of the house and going to the lover’s apartment and resting his head on his lover’s chest. You know, like, so, so there’s this, there’s this arena in Christianity where that is like, that’s devotion. That’s, that’s an alive faith. And of course it’s, you know, it’s scary to a lot of people. But to me that describes my, my experience of relating to my, you know, my partner and to the spirit.

(45m 2s):
I’m, I’m curious, you know, you’ve, you’ve been in this world of, of writing about the intersections between faith and identity for a long time. We have too, and I’m always curious, you know, where folks see the next horizons of the intersections of queerness and faith going. I’m wondering you I do. I’m so glad you asked that question. Yes. Because I think the next stage for us, And I think the queer community can be leaders in this arena, is really shifting how we perceive our identity as human.

(45m 45s):
We tend to understand ourselves as separate from one another, right? Like, my identity is a white, middle aged queer woman who’s a mom and a writer, you know? So that’s how I understand my identity. But I think ultimately we’re not separate people, you know, like I am my ancestors And I am my descendants, And I am my teachers, And I am in the people that I’ve taught. And, you know, it’s like, so, so we are vastly interconnected people, And I think if we could move, if we, you know, when we do move into really owning that sense of identity, that I, you know, a person is a person through other persons, that, that, that’s an evolutionary leap.

(46m 44s):
And the reason I think the queer community can and should be our spiritual leaders in that area is because we’ve already done, we, we already have practiced revising identity, you know, revising our sense of identity and participating in how we, how we name ourselves, and what we wanna be, how we wanna, who we wanna be in the world. And we could keep going, like, we don’t have to stop with whatever label we’ve given ourselves. Now we can continue to come out and to come into this much bigger sense of who we are. So, so that’s what I think about a lot actually, is how, how to encourage everyone, but queer folks in, in, in particular, not to kind of stop growing once, you know, to stop coming out once you’ve named yourself, but to keep exploring, you know, what more am I and what went, what might it mean if I kind of broke down some of the boxes, kind of the individuality boxes that, that I’ve assumed.

(47m 56s):
Yeah. Well, I love that, you know, we’re living in kind of a fraught time, and some folks might be wondering, why bother with things like writing or art making or, or being creative, right? Like, we have bigger things to worry about. And I’m wondering how, how you would answer those folks. The, you know, what do we really have power to change? And it’s ourselves, right? So what, so by, you know, what, what kind of, what kind of world do we want? You know, we want a world that is inclusive and uplifting and peaceful and, and connective and meaningful.

(48m 40s):
So where do you start? You start with yourself, you know, like you start with, you know, your interior, honestly, you know, like how is your heart? Is your heart connected and growing and peaceful? And the, in my experience, the practice, a creative practice or A Spiritual Practice, it seems self-centered. It seems small, but in fact, those practices connect us to the depths of who we are. And those depths feed us in ways that enable us to, and compel us to make change in the world.

(49m 29s):
So, so I would actually argue the opposite, that unless we’re doing these practices that connect us to our roots, anything we do in the world is gonna be ineffective. So, so it’s like tapping into what’s beyond us, you know, what’s bigger than us? We’re very small, kinda helpless. People don’t, you know, we’re pretty ineffective, right? But, But we can tap into the power of the natural world and the power of community, and the power of the spirit. The power of love. Like if you can, if you can root yourself in that, you’re just kind of, you can’t help but make, you know, bring that about, bring that into being around you.

(50m 14s):
So, so yeah, for me it’s like, you know, I, I love activists who are, who are doing really great work in the world, but I think nothing’s worse than an angry activist. And really what I mean, well, I should say, let me qualify that anger can be holy too, but you wanna root that anger and love. So it’s like, okay, where, where am I rooting myself? This conversation has been so lovely. I feel like we could keep going forever, but I’m conscious of time. If, if folks wanna know more about you and your work, where is the best place for them to connect with you? Yeah, Elizabeth jar andrew.com.

(50m 55s):
It’s Elizabeth with a z and Jarret, J-A-R-R-E-T-T, Andrew, without an s that’s my, my author website. And, and then I also have a website that’s spiritual memoir.com, that’s resources for writing and reading and publishing, spiritual memoir. So there’s all sorts of classes and an online writing community that, that I host for free. So yeah, there’s all sorts of ways to connect there. Amazing. We’ll link those in the show notes so that people can just scroll down and, and click. And we love to close by asking, what is one thing that’s been bringing you joy lately?

(51m 37s):
Baking. I amazing. I, after the election, spent the whole evening making all of my mother’s favorite brownies and blondies. And I think that that was my, you know, if I, if here’s what I can control in the world, I can make people smile by feeding them sweets. Love it. Well, thank you so, so much for taking the time to, to do this interview. I really appreciate it. Oh, Shannon, thank you so much for, for inviting me. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at Queer Theology dot com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for LGBTQ Christians and straight cisgender supporters.

(52m 18s):
To dive into more of the action, visit us at Queer Theology dot com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

The post The Power to Change Our Story with Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew appeared first on Queer Theology.