Queer Theology

This week we are joined by Rev. Benjamin Perry on the podcast. Benjamin is author of “Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter,” and an award-winning writer. His work focuses on the intersection of religion and politics. They hold a degree in psychology from SUNY Geneseo and a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. He is married to Erin Mayer, they live in Maine with his brother and best friend. They are the editor of the Queer Faith photojournalism series, curator of an art exhibit by the same name, and a passionate advocate for building Church that lives into God’s blessed queerness. His two proudest achievements are skydiving with his grandmother and winning first prize in his seminary drag show. In this conversation, Benjamin discusses their journey as a queer minister and author, exploring the intersections of queerness, spirituality, and social justice. They share insights on the importance of emotional expression, particularly through crying, and the need for progressive voices in the face of rising Christian nationalism. The discussion also delves into Benjamin’s book, which examines the cultural stigma around crying and advocates for a world where emotional vulnerability is embraced. We explore the multifaceted nature of crying, discussing its physiological and social implications, the shame surrounding masculinity and emotional expression, and the intersection of queerness and vulnerability. Benjamin emphasizes the importance of grief and emotional balance in a world filled with anger and anxiety, advocating for a deeper understanding of our emotional lives and the connections they foster.   Takeaways I have to come out as queer and Christian. I joke that I professionally fight with evangelicals. Crying is a deeply human experience. We need more prophetic voices. The answer to hypocrisy can’t be silence. I didn’t cry for more than a decade. What would a world shaped by more open weeping look like? I made myself cry every day for months. I became a person who cried more easily. We need to create moral clarity. Crying serves as a physiological release and a social signal. Emotional tears contain higher concentrations of stress-related proteins. Crying can create unexpected connections between individuals. Public crying often invites empathy rather than judgment. Shame around crying is often rooted in societal norms and expectations. Men experience a double shame regarding their emotional expression. Crying can be a radical act of vulnerability and authenticity. Grief is a natural response to love and loss. Balancing grief and anger is essential for emotional health. Crying can be a deeply queer act, challenging societal norms.   Chapters (01:56) Introduction to Benjamin Perry (04:54) Spiritual Journey and Queerness   (15:10) Intersection of Religion and Politics   (27:15) Exploring the Book ‘Cry Baby’   (32:55) The Complexity of Crying   (36:00) Crying as a Connection Tool   (44:59) Crying and Queerness   (51:00) Grief, Rage, and Emotional Balance      Resources: Learn more about Rev. Benjamin Perry at https://www.benjaminjperry.com/  Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter by Rev. Benjamin Perry  Join our online community at  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, revelation, the Bible declare 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. Hey there. Before we get into this week’s episode, just a reminder that Shannon’s new book, no one taught me How to Be a Man, what a Trans man’s experience reveals about masculinity is coming out very soon, on April 15th. Pre-orders are so important, and we would love for you to grab yourself a copy now, Shannon, in like a sentence or two, what is this book about and who is it for? (53s): This book is about my journey of figuring out what masculinity means to me and what that journey might open up for other people who consider themselves men or on the masculine spectrum as ways to embody and inhabit their gender in ways that feel good to them and are also healthy for people of other genders around them. So, really excited about this book. You can get that book wherever books are Sold. So if you’re an online shopper, you go to Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon, we have links to all those three at Queer Theology dot com slash books, so you can get easy access to those. You can also go to your local bookstore, and if they don’t have it in stock, you can request it. Ask them to either like ship it directly to you or have it shipped to the store. (1m 33s): Putting in requests at your local bookstore will help booksellers know that this is a book that people are interested in, which really helps get the word out about this important book. Again, the title is No One Taught Me How to Be a Man. What a Trans Man’s Experience Review about Masculinity. It officially comes out on April 15th. If you pre-order, you might get it a few days early. So go ahead and do that now. All right, onto the episode. Welcome back to the Cariology Podcast. This week we have a special guest, Reverend Benjamin Perry, and you are really gonna enjoy this conversation. So here’s a little bit about Reverend Perry. Reverend is the Minister of Outreach and Media Strategy at Middle Church and author of Cry Baby, Why Our Tears Matter published by broadleaf books in May of 2023. (2m 18s): Benjamin is an award-winning writer. His work focuses on the intersection of religion and politics. The writing can be found in outlets like The Atlantic, the Washington Post slate, the Huffington Post, sojourners Bustle and motherboard. And he has appeared on SNBC Al Jazeera and New York one. They hold a degree in psychology and a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. He’s married to Aaron Mayer. They live in Maine with his brother and best friend. They are the editor of the Queer Faith Photojournalism series, curator of an art exhibit by the same name, and a passionate advocate for building church that lives into God’s blessed queerness. His two proudest achievements are skydiving with his grandmother and winning first prize in his seminary drag show. (2m 57s): Welcome, Reverend Benjamin Perry. Welcome to the podcast. We are so excited for this conversation. Thank you so much for being here. It’s a delight to be here. Thanks so much for having me. So we love to start by asking, you know, we’ve heard your official bio, but if you were at a fancy queer cocktail party or a not fancy queer cocktail party, you know, how do you generally introduce yourself and your work? And in that, what are some identities that are important to you that you would like our listeners to know? What a loaded question. I feel like I, I, I always joke that I have to come out as queer and Christian spaces, And I come out as Christian and queer spaces like, like many a person. (3m 39s): And so I would say that usually I, I don’t lead with, I’m a minister because especially at a cocktail party that immediately launches into a whole bunch of, lots of throat clearing and other conversations that, like, especially at a cocktail party, I don’t necessarily wanna get into. Yeah. So I often, now that I’ve written a, a book I lead with, I’m an author, I write about crying and emotional intelligence, and then as we sort of get to know me a little bit better, then I will sort of peel the layers of the onion back and say, I’m actually, I’m also a minister. I do a lot of Queer Theology. I work a lot with how we can build religious communities that welcome and embrace all people, how we can use religion as a force for liberation and a collective flourishing as opposed to lot of the ways it is, it is currently being used by other shorthand way of saying that, particularly in, in a cocktail party setting is, I will joke that I I professionally fight with evangelicals, which sometimes is how my work fuels on the internet, even if it’s not the, the work of my spirit. (4m 40s): If you’ll Yeah. Yeah. O yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned that you, that you have written this book Cry Baby, Why Our Tears Matter, and we’re gonna get into that in a bit. But before we do, we would love to ask you just to share, you know, a little bit of your spiritual journey, what that’s been like for you and how queerness has intersected with that. Yeah, thanks so much for that question. I came out pretty late publicly. I was out to a lot of my friends by the time I was 18, 19, but I was still grappling with a lot of internalized homophobia and shame and moving through all that, all that good stuff. And then by the time I was in my early twenties and starting seminary, I had largely started to unravel a lot of that for me. (5m 29s): But then I started dating a woman and all of a sudden had all sorts of other feelings and, and fears and concerns like, oh, well maybe I don’t belong in the queer community and, you know, I, am I taking up space if I’m, you know, publicly identifying as queer, even if I’m in a hetero passing relationship. You know, went through a, a whole cycle of these new worries and doubts and fears. And so it wasn’t until I was, you know, 27 or so that I actually came out publicly and started doing Queer Theology from a more authentic and explicitly personal place. Prior to that, a lot of my work was around the Intersection of Religion and Politics. (6m 9s): Part of that actually ended up just being a, a function of a rather bizarre and unexpected series of, of life events. My third year of seminary I went to to school at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and my third year there was the year of the Eric Garner non-decision. And so a lot of folks in my community and myself were involved in organizing and protest efforts. And one night, myself and another seminarian were out protesting, and we were on the FDR and the Riot Police showed up and, you know, charged with their shields and do what riot police do. And my friend And I were, you know, locked arm in arm. (6m 53s): And then we sort of got tackled and broken up and thrown into the pavement. And the officer who initially apprehended me whispered in my ear, like, get outta here. And I stood up And I turned, And I saw my friend who’s black in handcuffs, And I was like, well, like, see you later, Sean. Like, catch you in the morning. Have fun in jail. So I literally just stood around the FDR for another, you know, five, 10 minutes until another officer was like, what are you doing? And I was like, waiting, waiting for you to arrest me, I guess. And because this was so emblematic of exactly the same circumstances that we were in the street protesting in the first place, the story really caught on in a way that I was not expecting. (7m 35s): And so the New York Times ended up writing up a big story about it, and we were on Melissa Harris Perry’s show, And I was NBC in New York one and Al Jazeera and did the whole, you know, media circus, if you will. And this was right as I was applying for pastoral jobs. And all of a sudden all of these nice Presbyterian churches who I had been interviewing with mysteriously moved onto other candidates. And so I found myself graduating seminary without any, you know, fucking Yeah, that’s Presbyterians. That’s it. Maybe. So I was, you know, I literally, I graduated and was like, oh, I guess this past spring thing might not work out. (8m 16s): And because I had written some pieces around the same time that this was happening and that had gone fairly viral and it seemed like, you know, there was a place for me to write about this Intersection of Religion and Politics, I said, well, I guess I’ll do that. And so I worked as an editor at Time Inc for a couple years doing more editorial things. And I eventually, when Trump was elected, realized I couldn’t, you know, edit my Ford magazine and Caesar’s Total Rewards and these other, you know, magazines for time anymore. And so I, I approached Union and said, well, listen, you know, this ascendant Christian nationalism needs to have robust voices and engagement, people calling this out and saying, this is not Christian. (8m 57s): This is not faithful to the gospel. This is a perversion of everything about who Jesus was and what Jesus lived and died for. And I think that union could be the place, or a place that, you know, robustly amplifies this message in this presidency. And they were, I was fortunate enough that they, they took me on with that crazy idea, And I went and did public theology with them for a number of years where I, I was laughed when Trump would yell about paid protestors because that was, you know, largely a, a lie and a silly thing to say, but actually kind of accurately characterized a lot of my work for like the first three years of the Trump presidency as I would go around the country, you know, profiling the Poor People’s campaign and other popular, you know, religiously motivated uprisings against the, the violence of the Trump administration. (9m 49s): So that actually was a lot of the work that I, I did for a long time And I kept my own queerness. That was something I was sort of moving through personally, but it wasn’t explicitly a part of my public work. And then the United Methodist Church made their decision in 2019 to, you know, re entrench the homophobia that then was, you know, guiding their book of disciplines saying that queer folks couldn’t serve as ministers or be ordained. And we had a number of queer Methodist students in the ordination track at Union who were obviously very hurt and fearful and, you know, at, at a loss for exactly what to do with, you know, what this meant for their futures. (10m 35s): And I realized I, I needed to do something. I was, you know, in the communications office and we collectively needed to do something to respond to this. And I got, I’m so tired now and then of the same conversations about, you know, unpacking the glob or passages. And I just, It’s very funny when you invited me to this podcast, I was like, oh, I’m so grateful to both of you because oftentimes when I don’t wanna have that conversation, I point people to episodes that you have done. So I’m like, they do it so well, and then I don’t have to have this conversation with you. I can have a different conversation that is more life giving. But it took Us like five years before we, we were, ’cause we also were so over that. Yeah. We started this work to not have to do it and then like, so we just like ignored them for the first many, many years. (11m 19s): And then like, just everyone is obsessed with ’em. So I was like, we’re gonna record a handful of Things. Fuck, we might as well do it, Never do, never do them again, because like, that’s not where the life is. Yeah, exactly. And so, so I wanted some sort of response that would be, you know, affirmative of the place that I knew in my heart that queer people had in the church. And so I put together this photojournalism package called Queer Faith, where I had a, an incredible photographer, Mohamed Mia, who was an intern in, in our department at the time. And he took these gorgeous headshot of faculty, staff and students, all queer faculty, staff and students at Union coupled with testimonies about how we understood our own faith journeys and our queerness and how we saw those not as somehow contesting forces, but very much wrapped up in the same mission to live authentically and to nurture, thriving. (12m 15s): And I was reading all of these beautiful profiles and testimonies from students who had so much to lose by coming out. And I had so very little to lose that I, it it made my ongoing silence feel really intolerable. And so I, I came out publicly as part of that project and I’m so grateful that I did. In some ways I’m a little curious as why it took me that long because it then opened up this whole, you know, trajectory of my career since then that has become such a, a core part of the work that I do. That to that point I was sort of keeping locked up in inside of myself. And so I, I became a minister at Middle Church in New York, which is a very queer congregation. (12m 57s): I gotta do all kinds of incredible Queer Theology there. And, and now I’ve written this book about crying, but crying becomes this refraction point where I can actually talk about all of these other things that I’m so interested in discussing, like masculinity and queerness and power and race and, you know, whose tears are, are privileged and whose tears are cast aside. And how do we create a world where that kind of tenderness and softness that all people should enjoy is in fact the, you know, the water in which children grow up, the, the circumstances in which all of us experience life. Hmm. Love that. Yeah. I, oh man, I wanna just like jump right into that. (13m 37s): But I also, like a, a few minutes ago you touched upon the, like, intersections of religion and politics and it, it feels like perennially important, like when you were first coming up right? With Eric Gardner, I remember I like came out as queer right around the time of like the George Bush’s reelection campaign and all of the anti gay state constitutional amendments. Yep. And now we’re recording this before the election, but like Christian nationalism is alive and well it sure is. Like, it’s all just sort of like mixed up together. And so like, can you, And I know it’s complicated for, for progressive folks because on, we’ve seen the ways in which religion gets weaponized in public spaces by the, by the right. (14m 27s): And so I think there’s this like reluctance for some progressive folks to like, we, we don’t wanna like voice our religion on other people Right. But like religion and politics are mixed up together. And so can you talk about like why religious literacy is important for politics and maybe why political literacy is important for like religious folks and how those two are, are, are intertwined historically, but I also like what’s like, what’s the word in this moment? Yeah. And doing some time traveling. We we’re recording this before the election, but it will be coming out After election right. Days before Yes. Much trembling and trepidation. Yeah. You can like feel it in the air on the call. Yeah. (15m 8s): Yeah. I’ll say as a, as a Christian and a pastor, when we allow Christian nationalists to be the only people who are talking explicitly in public about religion and politics, we seed the moral center to people who are defining Christianity in a egregiously harmful and bigoted way. And as someone whose faith means an awful lot to me, I, I can’t personally sit and listen and not say something. So there’s just a personal part of myself that, that feels like I, I have, you know, Martin Luther here I stand, I can do no other, like, when I hear people talk in explicitly religious terms about how we need to deport millions of, you know, immigrant neighbors like that, that is a violation of some of the religious principles I hold most dear. (16m 7s): And so when I hear that, I feel the need to talk in explicitly religious language because otherwise people who do not have a lot of religious literacy will hear who might, you know, identify as Christians loosely and feel that that identity has some importance for who they are in the world. That they then may experience cognitive dissonance where they say, well, you know, on the one hand I don’t really want us to round up families and, you know, use military police to, to go after my neighbors. But if, if that’s the Christian thing, like, oh, I, well what, what am I to do? (16m 50s): And so I think creating a moral clarity where we actually accurately talk about like what is in the Bible, you know, pointing to passages where, you know, the Bible is very explicit about the command to welcome the stranger about that there shall be one set of laws to, to rule both the, the citizen and the, the non-citizen resident. You know, that these kinds of explicit commands are not somehow anti-biblical. They are the very substance that, you know, grounds our, our faith. Those kinds of things are really important also, when you have a, a movement of Christian nationalism that is using explicitly, you know, salvific terms to talk about Donald Trump again and again. (17m 42s): Yeah. And again, that kind of heresy, And I don’t use that word like freely or loosely, but like that is, that is what it is when you’re talking about any political leader, but particularly this political leader in these hagiographic terms as if, you know, he is in fact, Jesus, come again, if I as a minister do not say, I should probably just turn in my collar and and go do something else. Yeah, yeah. I I think that, you know, in this time we’re just, we’re in a space where We need more prophetic voices. (18m 23s): And, and when I, when I was, I was working at a, an an ELCA congregation in Minneapolis, and one of the things that I was finding is that my congregation was like super, super justice oriented, right? They cared deeply about their neighbors and the political sphere and they were working in all sorts of ways, but when it came to articulating that they were doing that work because of their faith. Yeah. Like that step was just missing for so many of them. And I think it was because of this reticence of like, we don’t wanna be like those other people that are in the public sphere that are talking about their faith so ridiculously, right? (19m 9s): Like, we don’t wanna be lumped in with evangelicals, we don’t wanna be lumped in with the Christian nationalists. And I think that there are a lot of people that are listening that are feeling that tension. Yeah. It’s like, yeah, of course I care about justice. Like of course I’m doing these things, but like, how do I make explicit that faith connection? And I’m wondering if you have advice for folks who are wondering like, how, how best can I have the conversation that is grounded in my faith? Yeah, Yeah. But to avoid being those other things. Yeah. Well I think it’s, it’s exactly what you were just, what you were just laying out that, you know, the answer to that hypocrisy can’t be silence and it can’t be a feeling of shame that somehow these justice commitments are made at odds with our faith that they are in fact expressions of our deepest values and beliefs. (20m 3s): I’ll share a little story from here in the woods of Maine where I live. There was a school district nearby that had really wonderful policies protecting trans kids. And I mean, basic common sense stuff. These are not radical policies that you, you know, teachers should use Children’s Pro the correct pronouns. Kids should be able to use the, the bathroom that is appropriate for their gender. I mean, you know, really, you know, don’t bully kids for being trans, like these kinds of policies. And a number of fundamentalist Christians ran for the school board and won school board seats and won a very narrow majority and decided to make it their first act as school board members to go after this policy and rescind it to replace it with nothing. (20m 60s): And so there was a, a big outcry from the queer community in the, in the area and a series of like seven hour hearings where we, I mean literally like, you know, a Parks and rec episode. We were there from 7:00 PM to like 2:00 AM and people, you know, open comment, everybody’s talking for three minutes and saying all kinds of things. And there were a lot of pastors who got up and spoke very explicitly about how Jesus condemns these children. And so, like in a context like that, it’s really important to talk about your own faith and not to do someone who say that, listen, everybody needs to believe what I believe or even that, like, my beliefs as a Christian should be, you know, addressing school board policy because they should not, you know, public schools are public schools. (21m 47s): Religion has no place in them. And when you have a open hearing where pastor after pastor is saying, oh, you know, God hates trans people and there are trans kids in that audience, it is really important to talk about your own faith. And I, I didn’t do it in a, when I testified at those hearings, I didn’t do it in the kind of way where I was at actually at all talking about what they were saying. ’cause I didn’t really care. I mean, I, I do care, but I, that’s not what I wanted the kids to hear. Didn didn’t want them to hear me talking about these toxic odious things that these other speakers had said. (22m 28s): I wanted them to hear that this is a community that cares about you, that God loves you, that this community is here for you. And hundreds and hundreds of people showed up to testify. And to say that this is, these are the values of our community by a, a measure of, I think it was like 80 or 90 people spoke against rescinding the policy to like 10 to 15 people who spoke for it. And those people were for all other parts of Maine. They had been Boston, they were not local to the community. And the, the school board heard all of this and they voted to get rid of the policy. Anyways, literally, children were coming up to the microphone begging them, please don’t take away this policy. (23m 12s): It’s what helps me feel safe in school. And these adults who listen to this after they heard teachers and social workers and pastors and all sorts of folks say, please, please keep this policy. They got rid of it. And what the kids in my community got to see next really speaks to what happens when we live into our values. Because there was an election the next Tuesday and there weren’t enough progressive candidates running. And there was very quickly a writing campaign organized, again, we’re talking small town Maine, it’s like 5,000 person towns A a writing campaign was organized. (23m 55s): And the, the can, the progressive candidate who everyone was encouraging folks to write in won by like 60 something votes. And kids got to watch adults in their community. So, you know what, we’re actually not going to sit and let these values that we cherish be trampled. Like that is the kind of pro proclamation of values that means something. And I don’t have to talk about Jesus to do it. I often do talk about Jesus, but it’s not essential. What is important is living into my own Christian values and explicitly articulating how my commitment to people, to kids is something that I’m willing to fight for and something that we collectively are not going to ignore. (24m 43s): What I think is so important about what you just said is, is that I, I think often people think that they have to combat or argue against the things that are being said by the other side, right? And that, and that part of the concern is why don’t, I don’t know how, like I don’t have the right argument. And I think what’s so vital about what you just said is like, it’s not about the argument, right? It’s in fact, we don’t even need to dignify their argument. Instead we speak from our own convictions and our own values. And I think that that, that also like gives people a sense of like, you don’t have to have all of the right answers, right? (25m 25s): Like, you can just share your story, you can share what, what matters and it’s important to you. And I think that’s really, that’s Important. Well, the other thing that happens when we feel like we need to have the right argument is we let the worst actors in our society dictate what all of the rest of us are talking about. And I’m really tired of that. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Amen. And, and not only do you like not have to have the like with the right argument or the right response that actually that, that is like a poor tactic. I remember before I did a lot of direct action activism. I like got Glad media training and they’re like, absolutely do not ever repeat back the opposition’s talking points. It like, just reinforces it in a public consciousness. (26m 6s): And I just like, I learned that in, I don’t know, 2007 And I feel like I’m still trying to teach people that ’cause it just like, you then say it. And now Twitter didn’t exist back then, but like every time you quote tweet something or you stitch a Instagram or a TikTok, you’re just amplifying the like, the garbage. And I like, I, I so appreciate it. You were talking about this school board meeting, you’re like, I don’t need to address these passwords. Like, that’s not what I want these kids to take away. I don’t want them, you, we need to like speak from the positive and like it’s more effective strategically. I also think that there’s like a, a faith-based and a pastoral reason to like not subject yourself to that, to not subject other people to that that, and, and also like, to your point, like lets the wor it lets the worst actors like define define the terms and define the parameters and define the assumptions of it. (27m 1s): And it’s just like I, I’m not willing or interested in like, seeding the moral framework to the assholes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for, thank you for bringing, bringing that up. We’d love to talk a little bit about your book Cry Be, And I’m wondering for folks who are hearing about it for the very first time, can you just give us a brief snippet of like, what is Cry Baby about and what inspired you to write this book? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for asking. So Cry Baby begins with my own journey being someone who didn’t cry for more than a decade, learning how to cry again, learning how to feel again. Then it goes into the physiology of crying, crying in literature, all to say, if crying is this deeply human experience, if it’s good for us, if it’s linked to transformation, why do so many people feel so much shame about crying? (27m 57s): And then the middle chunk of the book gets into all of these social forces that affect when and if we feel comfortable crying. And then the last third asks, if we could get rid of all of that, What would a world shaped by more open, weeping look like, inspired by the communities where that is already vibrantly present. And so the, the book came about in part because of an essay I wrote in the, the very beginning of the pandemic. I was living in Washington Heights at the time, and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital was two blocks away. And in the early days of the pandemic, they were parking more trucks in the street right in front of my window. (28m 42s): At the same moment that I was hearing all of these governors talking about, we need to get back to business, business as usual. And it was this perverse juxtaposition that sparked this recognition in my own spirit. I was like, oh, I, I know what that is. Like, that’s an inability to deal with Grief, an inability to, to really feel anything at all other than, you know, intellectually this desire for, for the thing that you are grappling with to no longer exist. And it reminded me viscerally of the time in my life that I didn’t cry. So between when I was, you know, 12 years old or so until I was beginning seminary, I didn’t cry at all. (29m 28s): A lot of that was, you know, my own internalized homophobia. The ways that I, I feared, you know, crying would expose parts of myself to other people that frankly I was not ready to deal with my own internalized transphobia and discomfort in my own gender. My, you know, all of this stuff had calcified into a point where feelings felt really threatening and dangerous. And so I, I didn’t do them for quite some time. And I then I learned, you know, I told this story in the, in the book that I had this experience at the beginning of seminary when I was in a Hebrew Bible class. And a professor asked us to share moments in our lives that we had wept in small groups. (30m 11s): And I listened as folks went around the circle and shared these beautiful experiences of crying. And as the, you know, proverbial baton was coming around to me, I realized that I had nothing. I I had vague memories of crying as a child, but nothing more recent. And it was this moment that crystallized for me that something inside of me was, was broken. And that if I was gonna provide effective and compassionate care to other people, I needed to figure out why I was so emotionally numb in the first place. And so I, I went back And I abused myself emotionally into crying that first day. (30m 51s): I had this euphoric experience of feeling something for the first time in a very long time in a, in a deep and real way. And it felt so good that I decided to engage in this odd spiritual experiment where I made myself cry every day for months. And this really interesting thing happened where over the course of, you know, days into weeks, my entire emotional baseline shifted And I just became a person who cried more easily. So whereas I, you know, went years and tears and years without crying, all of a sudden I would hear a beautiful piece of music and start to tear up. Or a friend would share a, a moving story And I would find myself in tears. (31m 33s): And so many days I didn’t have to go back and make myself cry at the end of the day. ’cause I had already cried at some other point. And so I, I wrote this article sharing this story of learning how to cry again as a microcosm for what I thought we needed to do culturally. And an editor approached me and asked, you know, would you be interested writing a whole book on crying? And I hadn’t thought about it at, you know, up until that moment. But the more I thought about crying, I realized how wrapped up tears are in all of these other social forces that I, I care a lot about writing about. You know, crying is rarely just about crying. And so it, it became this really beautiful opportunity to explore so much of what makes us human through this uniquely human act. (32m 17s): Hmm. Love that. I, I’m curious if you can, obviously people should just go read the book, but please do, if, if there is a, a a nugget of like, what, what is one thing that crying can or does do for us? I don’t, I don’t know if there’s like one thing that you could point to that would be A Yeah, it, it’s really interesting. In my, my chapter on physiology and crying, I talk about this sort of two camps in the psychological world. There’s, there, there’s folks who believe really strongly that crying is a physiological process that helps to release pent up neurotransmitters associated with stress. (33m 2s): There’s this scientist, William Fray, who in the, the eighties did this very famous experiment where he compared emotional tears to tears that you cry if you’re, you know, chopping an onion or you get dust in your eye. And he found that emotional tears have much higher concentrations of these various proteins. And so hypothesized that tears were actually detoxifying the body in, in literal ways. And then there’s folks on the social side of things exemplified by this Dutch psychologist Aho, who talk about crying as an interpersonal process. They’re evolutionary psychologists who talk about things like the fact that emotional, those that same elevated protein content makes emotional tears have a higher viscosity. (33m 51s): So it slows the rate at which they fall down our cheeks and makes it more likely that somebody else is gonna see that, that signal for a need of assistance. And research has repeatedly shown that when people see other folks who are crying, they feel more tender towards them, they’re more likely to offer help. That crying can be this invitation to connection even where it didn’t exist before. And in the book, I tell some stories about times in my own life where I cried with a stranger and all of a sudden felt tethered to that person who I did not know in ways that simply would not have happened from a, from a normal conversation that there seems to be something about the act of crying and particularly the act of crying with another person that builds these tender yet durable social interweaving. (34m 44s): That is something that I think is such a gift that we don’t talk about enough. I think so many of us have this shame and fear that if we cry openly in public, we are gonna be judged for it. That we’re gonna take up too much space in the room and not have a whole chapter devoted to times when that certainly is the case. I’m not saying that that’s never true, but more often than not, I think that when people cry in public, that’s actually not the reaction that other people have. That people are generally empathic. That we long for connection, particularly in this time of isolation and alienation and polarization that we yearn for interpersonal connections. (35m 24s): And so when we cry, it’s this invitation to a different kind of world that isn’t shaped by that kind of divisiveness, but is instead grounded in our common humanity. Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I, I I think that you’re onto something there and that, that when people cry, that it, it triggers a, I dunno, like a natural sort of empathetic thing. And other people, and also like, I I think that we’re not people who are worried about being, I don’t know, a judged, for instance, or like, not entirely wrong, like, I don’t know if judge is the right word, but like, I’m thinking especially around like, tears around like Grief. Like one of my best friends died a few years ago. (36m 5s): My a family member’s family member died recently. And I’m just thinking in a way of like, people are like really, really, really uncomfortable with Grief. And so like, if you’re, like, once you’re crying, people can comfort you. But if you’re like, not crying, I, I found that people really want to like jump into like problem solving mode. Like make it, make it like kinda how you were saying like, I’m just gonna like not do the feelings, like make the feelings go away and fix it. And like, whether it’s like they’re in a better place, or at least they didn’t suffer, like whatever, like bullshit they used to try and shut it down. And so like, I do wonder if there’s like a communal response that it’s not just like you by yourself have to like, figure out how to cry more often, but like, how can we make space for like sadness without, and to sort of like really feel into that in a way that doesn’t try to solve it Well. (37m 0s): Yeah. ’cause Because if we can sit with that, like we, like you were saying, all of these really beautiful important things like come out of, come out of that space Yeah. And we learn so much about ourselves and one another. Yeah. And I think part of it, you’re, you’re not at all wrong. There is this collective aversion to, you know, going there, quote unquote. Yeah, yeah. In part because we don’t do it. And so people Like, it’s a muscle like anything else. And if you’re not, you know, well versed in accessing your emotions and being able to hold them, they can feel wildly unmanageable. And not to say that we should all have Yeah. You know, nicely controlled emotional lives, that’s not the point. (37m 42s): But the more that we are open with our own emotions, the more we become mindful of them, the more that we can, you know, have interactions that affirm what people are feeling without that reflexive need to fix. Yeah. In the book, i, I share one of my favorite little bits of, you know, things, practical things that you can do for the people in your life. This is a piece of advice that my clinical pastoral education supervisor shared with me. For folks who don’t know about CPE, this is something that pastors do as part of your training, oftentimes you’ll serve as a chaplain in a hospital. And I was working in the, the pediatric ICU and had lots of experie like moments where I was crying with other people. (38m 28s): And my supervisor pointed to this thing that so many of us do when someone else is crying, which is that we put, put our hand on their back and we rub in a circle. And this is not, you know, an evil act in and of itself. It’s not like I’m, I’m saying, oh, how, how dare you do that? You, you villain like this comes from a very emotional and empathic place of, oh, I see you hurting And I I want to take that away from you. I don’t want you to feel so much pain that you are clearly currently experiencing. But what that does is it communicates through this circular motion that like, I would like you to stop crying when in fact what we can really do to be there for someone is to instead sit with them in that feeling and say, you know what? (39m 16s): This is, this is okay. Like this is natural, this is normal. Of course you’re feeling this and I’m going to be here with you beside it. So what she encouraged to do instead is in, you know, still put your head on their back. But instead of rubbing in a circle, just hold it there. And what that communicates is, I am here for you as long as this takes and it changes the tenor of that interaction. And so I think there are little things like that and big things, but like, there’s so many little things that are just baked into the fabric of our own collective discomfort with, with Grief, with big emotions that we need to be really intentional about how do we create different kinds of interpersonal paradigms that don’t continue replicating these forces that I think all of us on some level know are damaging. (40m 3s): It’s really interesting. I have a whole chapter on masculinity and crying And I was talking with all these men who were sort of reporting these, these double shame that they had all of this shame about crying when they were growing up because it wasn’t manly, because it wasn’t, you know, associated with femininity. ’cause it was, you know, called gay what, what have you, they had all this this shame about the act of crying and now they are adults and they have all of this shame about not being able to access their emotions and not being able to cry. You know, see, you get it coming and you get it going. And, and part of what I’m trying to get across in this book is like all of that shame is not yours. Like this is something that has been handed to you by generations of patriarchy and white supremacy and all these other toxic forces that have taken something that is beautiful and human and loaded it with so many ambivalent at best feelings. (41m 0s): And just because it isn’t ours doesn’t mean that we don’t have a responsibility to do something about it. And so the question becomes how can we sift through all of that wreckage and excavate a more authentic relationship with our tears and with one another? I’m wondering if, for you, is there something inherently queer about crying? Yeah, it’s a really great question. I I would say queer in the sense of destabilizing supposedly fixed boundaries, boundaries and borders like that, that sort of academic queer theory definition of queerness. (41m 43s): Absolutely. One of the things that I love about crying is that it unearths things is quite literally, you know, moving through our bodies and dredging up all of the stuff that, that feels stuck. You can feel that experiential thing when you have that, that really good cry and all of a sudden you feel, you know, both drained but also in some ways almost like purified afterwards like that. I think there are, there are experiential ways in which that’s true, but it’s also true on a, you know, a, a more metaphysical level. I mean, that’s sort of going back to what I was talking about earlier. That’s what I was so scared of when I was a kid. (42m 23s): I had this sense that if I cried, other people would know this thing about me, that it would reveal parts of myself that I was not ready to tell them or tell me. And while that can be scary, it’s also this beautiful opportunity. And it’s interesting, I, I just finished, I got, I had the, the great fortune of getting to, to read Shea’s book before it, it is out in the world, but you should absolutely pre-order it this beautiful, beautiful book about masculinity. And it was so interesting reading the way that you talk about masculinity. ’cause it was bringing up so many of these forces. (43m 3s): For me it’s, you know, you frame the book as this journey of, you know, always knowing that you are a man and sort of finding your way into understanding masculinity for yourself and understanding what that means culturally. And I found myself reading it from this sort of opposite perspective of someone who has never felt at home in masculinity, who is, you know, a assigned male and is, you know, relatively masked in my presentation. And so it gets read by the world as, as male in a lot of ways, but it’s always been deeply uncomfortable in groups of men has never felt comfortable with, you know, I always joke with, you know, queer friends that I identify as a tomboy. And I think that’s about, as about as close as I can sort of, you know, put a label to it. (43m 47s): But it was this, it was this really interesting, like, there’s so many of these social forces that sort of like get stuck inside of ourselves that we don’t have great language for that, you know, oftentimes, you know, I’ve been wrestling with these feelings for 35 years And I still don’t have good words to put around them, but there’s something about crying and these emotional, these kinds of emotional authenticity that in some ways can help affirm who we are before we even have the language to, you know, put a name on it. Or even if we never have words that feel exactly right, we can still feel right in our bodies in ways that transcend language. Yeah. It’s so, it’s so fascinating as you were talking about, you know, crying and, and masculinity. (44m 30s): Like my experience was I wasn’t able to cry until I started a transition and then as soon as I started to get more comfortable in my body and be in touch with my masculinity, I became a crier. Right. Like Hallmark commercials, whatever films like I am just, I’m like, I cry all the time. Yeah. And so it’s so interesting that that piece for me, right, it’s so tied into my masculinity, like the, the ease of which I cry Yeah. For me is very much centered in my identity, but I think it’s more about like being comfortable in myself, right. And being able to be vulnerable because that is a, it is a sharing of vulnerability. (45m 10s): Well it’s so interesting you say that because one of the comments I’ve I’ve gotten from a lot of particularly trans men is that when I’m fit on tour and, and things is that they used to be big criers until they went on tee and then all of a sudden they found, they found themselves unable to, to cry. And so there does actually seem to be some sort of hormonal link between, you know, estrogen, testosterone and tears. Like it’s, it’s not very clear in the research. There isn’t really good studies because nobody funds crying research ’cause crying is effeminate and not linked to things we can use for the military. And like why, why would we fund research about it then? So there’s not a whole lot, you know, really crystal clear picture of what exactly is happening. But there seems to be some sort of link between, you know, elevated le levels of testosterone and you know, a reduction in, you know, the number of tears that people cry. (45m 59s): But I think that what you were talking about is so interesting because I also think at the same time that that is true. There is a, an a simultaneous truth that if we do not feel comfortable in our bodies, it does not matter what the hormonal balances are like. We are not going to feel comfortable enough to weep that in some ways crying is this experience of oneness with, with who we are physically. And so I think the more that we can sort of cultivate this authentic and tender relationship with our own bodies, we learn so much of our, about ourselves and who we are and we can create different ways of, of feeling and being embodied. Even if we go through periods where for any number of reasons, we end up not crying. (46m 39s): ’cause I also never want to, you know, hear people when I’m talking about crying, have people who have a hard time crying hear me saying like, oh, like shame on you. Like that’s terrible. Like I, I people get enough of that from the world. I, I don’t need to add on to it. And that’s actually not what I’m trying to say. You know, people will often ask like, oh, should everybody be crying more? And I’m like, I dunno, maybe. But like, that’s not actually not what I, what I really want, what I encourage people to do is sort of be curious about their relationship to tears. You know, when do you feel comfortable crying? Why, you know, think about times in your life where you cried, but more frequently or less frequently, how did that situate you within the world? How did the world respond to that? (47m 19s): What were the lessons you learned from those kinds of relationships? Like these kinds of things. I think crying dredges up. And so, so to go back to your earlier question, you know, is crying queer. Yeah. I think there is something radically unstable about crying in a way that, that is deeply queer. And I think that’s partly why, you know, I have a whole chapter in the, in the book on Crying and Queerness And I, I talk a lot about, you know, the ways that, for example, movements like Act Up used Public Grief as a way to galvanize political action, you know, to tie together a lot of the threats we’ve been talking about today. But, you know, there’s, you know, the, for folks who are, who are too young to, to, I mean, I, I was not alive so, or or barely alive, so I’m, I am counting myself in the, in folks too young to, to physically remember, you know, act Up was a, an organization in the eighties and that was founded in the eighties and nineties that was really marshaling around the Reagan administration and subsequent Bush administration’s lack of response to the AIDS crisis. (48m 22s): And one of the really public demonstrations that activists engaged in repeatedly were these public funerals where they would carry the bodies of their friends who had died through the streets. There was a very public action where folks from all over the country brought ashes of people who had died and scattered them on the White House lawn and wept. And I interview people who were there at that and they talk about that, that link between tears and action, but between crying over the way that the world is as a proclamation of the way that the world might be. And so there’s something deeply queer about that too. (49m 4s): Yeah. I, for folks who haven’t seen that, we actually have a clip of this on our website at Queer Theology dot com slash ashes. I think it’s so, it’s so powerful And I, I go off a whole tangent about how that was like, that was part of my Queer Theology journey in terms of like seeing faith and queerness And I was like, oh, like this is, this is a conversation another day, but I was like, this is like Palm Sunday, right? Like yeah, this is what it means to like put your, like your faith in action and oh God, it’s so powerful. Deeply liturgical. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. And I, this is, you’re leading me right into my next question, which is like, you know, we’re in, we’re in a world where there’s a lot happening where, you know, we’ve mentioned we’re recording this before the election, so there’s lots of anxiety around that. (49m 47s): Too Much happening, happening all over the Place. Yeah. Yeah. We’re in the midst of climate collapse. Right. And, And I think that often people’s response is to head right towards Rage and often like a very righteous Rage. Yeah. Right. But I think one of your points is that, that we need to also make room and space for Grief too. And I’m wondering if you can just share a little bit about why that is and, and how maybe Rage and Grief go together if there’s a way to balance them. And I guess like along with that, not to add too many things into one question, but like, is there, there, is there a risk of like getting stuck in a place of Grief, right? (50m 31s): Like, can there be too many tears? Yeah. These are, these are great questions. I dunno what you do with all of this. Yeah. I mean, one of the things, you know, to, to stick in that, that chapter where I’m interviewing folks from Act Up, one of the things I heard over and over again and Act Up was a place where there was all a, a whole lot of righteous anger on display. Yeah. Regularly. And it was interesting talking to some of the folks who I was interviewing saying like, yes. And that, like, that is in some ways a lot of the public recollection of Act Up. And that was absolutely there and an essential part of, of how folks were fighting for change, for dignity, for recognition, and also folks who share these beautiful stories of tenderness and Grief and the way that folks held each other in the midst of, yes, you just went to a protest, but you also just heard that another friend of yours had, you know, tested positive like that. (51m 30s): It couldn’t be one or the other. I think that, you know, as someone who’s been involved in, you know, organizing work in, in various capacities for, I I guess a while now, years, years creep up on you, staying in the anger place exclusively is unsustainable. That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel angry. Like who, boy do I feel angry? Who, boy do I feel angry right now? But I think part of what it means to be human is to access a full spectrum of emotional life. (52m 11s): And so Grief becomes also this way of, of, of naming loss. You know, it’s, it’s become a, a little cliche at this point, but I I don’t think it can ever be mentioned enough that Grief, the act of Grief is in some ways a proclamation of love that we grieve because we love something deeply. And so giving ourselves that space to grieve is a way of naming the magnitude of what is on the line and what we are losing. You know, think talking about the climate crisis, I’ve, I’ve done a few lectures now explicitly on climate Grief that folks have invited me to give. (52m 55s): And it’s a question I hear a lot because I, it’s something that I think is inside of a lot of people’s bodies that like, even if we do all of the things that we should be doing right now, which we are not doing, even even in the, the imaginary world where politicians actually start to do something now, we are still going to be moving through all kinds of unpreventable Grief and loss. And so if, if we ignore that or we refuse to sit with it, we’re actually not being honest about what we’re moving through collectively. And we don’t give ourselves the space to build those kinds of interconnected ties. (53m 40s): ’cause one of the other things that is, you know, anger is, is great and righteous and has its place, it’s also phrase social fabric in ways that sometime are really important. Sometimes things are ossified that need to be frayed or, or shattered or broken. And if we just are in this place of constantly breaking things down, we don’t actually get to a place where we can start to build new things. And I think the Grief becomes this really fertile place where we can talk about what we love, what we want to invest in, the kinds of things that, that nurture life. You know, that that literal metaphor of tears falling and watering something new feels really important and salient in this moment of how can we grieve in ways that move us closer to the kind of world that we deserve. (54m 38s): And what’s, you know, to sort of answer your last question there about, you know, is there ever a time where we get stuck in, in Grief or we get Yeah, yeah. Like we should not sit and just like cry every day, all day on, on the ground. Like that’s, you’re not particularly conducive to getting things done, you know? And that’s true of crying. I I think sometimes we don’t cry in part, especially for those of us who cry more frequently. ’cause you’re like, not today I have, have things I need to do. Like today is not, it’s not a crying day. Like, I need to stop weeping. I need to do, I have like a whole list of stuff that needs to happen and like, I can’t just this weekend. Yeah. Like I can’t just be crying for two hours right now. I got like stuff, but it needs to get done. (55m 19s): And so yeah, there’s a degree to which if we are always just perennially in this sort of solipsistic place of just weeping in a circular pattern that just, you know, ends up sort of being weeping about weeping. Yeah. That’s not great. And I think also sometimes people need to go through that season to get to a place where they can find balance between like their various emotions because the opposite isn’t great either. The sort of anger that feeds on itself and becomes more deeply entrenched. You know, I I think that there, you know, are, are lots of folks who very righteous anger over the, over the course of decades turns into a place where all of a sudden it sort of twists upon itself. (56m 1s): And then you end up with, you know, all kinds of unintended ramifications where people become kind of toxic as a product of having just stewed in that anger place for so long. And again, I don’t wanna, you know, I’m not trying to like demonize anybody. I think there’s so many different ways that, you know, folks can get stuck in that in ways beyond, you know, their own agency or volition. So many times that’s not a thing that somebody chooses, is just the way that, you know, their life exists in friction with the world. But, you know, as much as we are able to consciously and intentionally shape our own emotional lives, I think trying to find balance between these various forces and knowing that like there is, there is holiness and all of it. (56m 41s): And unless we are able to access the fullness of our humanity, you know, what we’d say in like the, you know, the Abrahamic traditions of, you know, that, that the mago de that, that being made in the image of God, you know, that image of God is wr large across all of these things. It’s not just one of them. And so, you know, that righteous anger is part of the image of God, but so too is that Grief. And if we want to be, be faithful, and if we wanna live sustainably, we need some sort of balance that allows us to hold all of these things in tension. (57m 23s): Amen and amen. Or we could, I, I could talk about this topic all day, every day. If people want to find you and your work, where is the best way for them to connect with you? Yeah, you can find me online@benjaminjperry.com. My book is Cry comma Baby. Why? Our Tears Matter. You can get it wherever books are sold. I narrated the audio book, if you’re an audio book person, it’s on Audible. And then you can find me at Faithfully BP on Twitter and Instagram, although I’m using social media less these days. So you, you go give me a follow, but know that I’m not always, I’m not always on there. (58m 5s): Awesome. And we love to close by asking what’s one thing that’s been bringing you joy lately? Last Sunday, I went to a folk song circle here in May, And I showed up at the, the Steam and Sail Power Museum of all places. And there were, I love it, you know, 15, 20 folks, mostly like in their sixties, seventies and eighties, some younger folks, but like all playing different instruments, banjo, guitar, fiddle, and singing old folk songs. And it was healing in ways that I did not even know I needed. (58m 46s): Just hearing these songs that were being passed, you know, a lot of the songs that these folks had heard as children that they are now singing and, and sharing with me that kind of enduring liturgy, that, that intergenerational thread that gets passed through music is a place where I find deep joy and tenderness. There’s, there’s something beautiful about music that helps us invite different ways of, again, being in our bodies, being in relationship with one another and proclaims the possibility of, of hope in a fractured world. Thank you so much for being here. I, I think folks are really gonna resonate with and appreciate this conversation, so thanks for having it. (59m 30s): My pleasure. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at Queer Theology dot com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration, Fort Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters. 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 Cry it Out with Rev. Ben Perry appeared first on Queer Theology.

We delve into the complex interplay between church teachings, gender identity, and masculinity. As we explore the subtle (or not so subtle!) messages received in church environments regarding gender roles, we look at the impact of gender segregation and the challenges of navigating masculinity in a world filled with conflicting expectations. Shannon’s book, “No One Taught Me How to Be a Man,” comes out April 15, so this conversation emphasizes the importance of redefining masculinity and gender identity. We are advocating for a more inclusive understanding of gender that allows for personal expression and self-discovery not confined, or defined, by Christian ideas of what are masculine or feminine.   Takeaways Messages about gender in church are often subtle and sneaky. Gender segregation in church settings reinforces patriarchal structures. Navigating masculinity involves conflicting societal expectations. The solution to masculinity isn’t to double down on traditional roles. Self-discovery in gender identity is a personal journey. Trans experiences can teach valuable lessons about masculinity. Gender expression should be intentional and authentic. It’s important to hold gender identities loosely and explore them. Conversations about gender should be inclusive and open-ended. The journey of understanding gender is ongoing and evolving.   Chapters (04:25) The Impact of Gender Segregation (10:38) Navigating Masculinity and Expectations   (18:24) Redefining Masculinity and Gender Identity   (26:41) The Journey of Self-Discovery and Gender Expression     Resources: Order Shannon’s new book, No One Taught Me How to Be a Man Join our online community at  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, 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. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Queer Theology Podcast. This week we are gonna be talking about church and theology and gender. So exciting, exciting things. We’re getting ready for the release of my new book. No One Taught Me How to Be a Man, but a trans man’s experience reveals about masculinity. (50s): It comes out in just two weeks from when we’re recording this on April 15th. So it, it’s available for pre-order now if you wanna get that. And so we thought it would be a good time to talk about church and gender and all of those fun things. So Brian, I’m curious for you, like when you think about church and gender, especially growing up, what kind of messages did you get? I, I, I feel like I know your ans my your answer to this of like, the messages that you got at home were very different from the messages that you got at church. Yeah. And so I wonder if you could just talk about that a little Bit. Well, I think the messages I got at church were subtle and sneaky. (1m 32s): It wasn’t until, I don’t know, when I was maybe like in high school or college that my mom pointed out to me. Oh yeah. Like they start segregating Sunday school by gender starting in fifth grade. And from that point on, boys are never taught by women. Like, and the, in the group, in the groups, in the combined group settings, like a man is always teaching. And then when you have like your breakouts, it’s like men lead the men’s, the boys groups and women lead the, the girls groups. And it had just like, not occurred to me that part of the reason for that was to keep women from teaching even like 13-year-old boys. (2m 19s): Yeah. I just as growing up thought like, oh, like, it’s like fun to be with the other boys, like boys and boys together and girls and girls together. Like, that’s just like how it is. Even though as like a closeted gay boy, I had close friendships with people who were girls. And so like, but I, I just like, I, I never questioned what function, like gender segregated classes or small groups might have, other than it being just sort of like a positive thing. And my mom was like, oh yeah, that’s like definitely part of fourth, this theology that like, women can’t teach men including teenage boys. And that just sort of like blew my mind. (3m 0s): And I think that like had she not pointed that out to me, I might not have ever stopped to even think about that. Right. And I know that, like, obviously I know that sexism is a thing, but like that particular way of like the ways in which small groups Sunday schools were like leveraged subtly in, in service of like the patriarchy just totally, totally slipped my, slipped my view. And so then I, I think that that, that was sort of like my church’s approach was like a very sort of like show don’t tell. They never outright said women can’t be trusted. They’re the lesser stacks, but they definitely like the ways in which they talked about men or women in terms of like nurturing and caring and the family and men being strong and leaders and protectors. (3m 55s): It was all this sort of like subtle reinforcement that like, definitely like wheeled its way into us, but without having to ever say like, men should be this way and, and women should be this way. And, and one is better than the other. But like the message that you walk away with is like, well, I never saw a woman preach before. Right. Like, but I, but I did, like, I, like Susan Tawa was like the, I don’t know what her title was, but like, she like helped with music and like, she would kind of talk like she was around and like, I had, like, I had relationships with female leaders, whether they were staff people or like college volunteers, but they were always like, upon reflection, like informal leader mentorship relationships, just ’cause I like gravitated towards those people. (4m 44s): They like didn’t actually have any authority over me and definitely weren’t in any sort of like decision making capacity in the organization. And so that’s just like a, a snapshot of the messages that I got from church. Yeah. And I imagine too that because there was so much gender segregated space, you’re also getting messages about gender simply by being segregated. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like yeah, like that, that is also the sneaky kind of influence too. And it, it, it feels all like, like it is true, right? That sexual orientation and gender and gender identity are like two separate things. (5m 27s): Like, and also they’re very much like wrapped up in one another that a lot of the ways in which my, like gayness or bisexuality is policed is around gendered expectations. Right. Like, I’m not like being a man in the correct way. And a lot of the ways in which that, like, that gets seen or things get processed is like via my gendered relationships with other genders. Right. Like I, I remember there was this, we took this, we rode our bikes from, from Maryland to North Carolina one summer, And I just like was friends with a lot of the girls. I would like ride ride my bike with a group of like four girls and one other guy maybe. And I remember I was at one point like sort of like lounging on a girl in the hotel, like on our last like few days in North Carolina. (6m 14s): And, And I don’t know if like the, the youth director said this to me or said this to someone about me or said it to my parents, but like, somehow it got back to me that like, someone had called me like a Casanova. ’cause I was like always with the girls And I was like, I’m just a gay boy. Like, like, but like the fact that I was like spending time with girls, like could, in this world you could only be read through like the lens of like, ladies man, which was just like fa fascinating. Yeah. I’m, I as you’re saying that, right? Like, I’m remembering my summer mission trip from hell that I talked about in, in at length and in the margins. (6m 56s): Right. And there was, I also got in trouble for hanging out primarily with the girls because I was violating gender expectations. Yeah. Right. Like, because I was visibly gender nonconforming. Something about me hanging out with the girls violated the norms of that community, even though technically I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Right. Like, I, I wasn’t hanging out with the boys, which was also frowned upon. Yeah. Right. So I, I I, And I share that because like, I, I think that this is why, this is why like gender and evangelical spaces is so fucked up, right. (7m 41s): Because it’s so, it’s almost impossible to do it. Right? Yes. I I I have a story about that also. Yeah. No matter who you are, right. Like the, you there is always these like bizarre rules that you find yourself violating without intending to because like the rules aren’t real. Yeah. Right. And they’re not, they’re, they’re like made up in some white cis man’s head Right. Of like what he thinks masculinity and femininity should look like. And so that then gets enforced on everyone else. Like, even though it’s not even real for cis folks. Yeah. And I think that that’s what’s so interesting And I it varies from person to person, right. (8m 26s): Like, like leader to leader. Because I remember in, in seventh through eighth grade, I had a girlfriend at church and we were like together a lot. I mean, we only ever, it was months before we made out. We had our first kiss at, at church camp. But like I was, I don’t know what that was doing. I was like, probably not all that into her, but like, we were at least like holding hands and had our arms around each other a lot. And I remember in like seventh or eighth grade, like once or twice, people making comments about sort of like us being like attached at the hip. And it, it was like, it was like said in kind of like a bad way. Like we were spending like too much time together or we were like too close or we were like too physically affectionate with one another and like, maybe that was like starting to border on like sinful or lustful or something. (9m 12s): But then like fast forward a few years, I’m on this bike trip and I’m like laying on a girl’s lap and that a different leader is telling is calling me like a Casanova in a positive way. And I, I I, in hindsight, I wonder if like in seventh or eighth grade, they hadn’t clocked that I was queer yet. And so being too sexual was like a bad thing. But by like 10th grade they were starting to wonder maybe I was queer. And so me being close with a woman, they wanted to sort of like Yeah. Contextualize that in sort of a like, oh, this must be romance. We’re gonna positively reward this behavior because we want, we want you to say like, oh, you can do it like you with these ladies. (9m 55s): And like Yeah. It’s just so, ugh. I was 14. Like, get off my back. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I, I think like you, I grew up in a church that like talked about gender all the time without ever talking about gender. Right. And so it was also like super sneaky and super, you know, under the radar did lots and lots of things that were gender segregated. And like as a trans kid who didn’t have language for that, I just remember always feeling out of place. Right? Yeah. Because I was expected to be in certain spaces, but then I would get in those spaces and be like, I dunno what to do in this space. (10m 36s): Like, I’m deeply uncomfortable at the 17th baby shower of the year for, you know, 20 something year olds. Like, can I please go play foosball with the boys? But, and, and then, and you know, lots of things about like leadership. There were a lot of conversations about leadership, I think especially because I was a kid that was loud and upfront and very much gravitated toward the leadership role. And I do, like, I will give my youth pastor credit, like he gave me a lot of leeway and space to be myself And I think protected me from some folks who did not want me doing those things. Yeah. (11m 16s): But I definitely also got the sense of like, yes, you can do that because you are doing music or drama or whatever less. So when you’re doing other things though though, I, I do remember when I came, I did an internship at the church that I grew up in my late in my, maybe my sophomore year of college because I was studying youth ministry and in my youth ministry classes at college, I, so I’m getting a degree in youth ministry. And every single year in almost all of the classes, they would say to the people that they assumed were women in these classes. You can get this degree, but you can never be a youth pastor. (11m 57s): So you’re letting me get a degree in youth ministry while telling me I can never use second degree. Oh my god. I’m like, oh, so you’ll take my money. But anyway, so I had to do an internship and so I went back to the church that I grew up in And I remember they let me like lead, we went on a beach retreat and they like, let me lead all of the bible study sessions for kids of like all genders. But then I got back to college And I tried to tell my, my advisors like what I had done over my summer and a, they like ignored all of the stuff that I had done and then asked me what I wanted to do when I graduated. And I was telling them like, I’m feeling called to doing like theater and, and using whatever. (12m 43s): And they’re like, oh, you know, you should really work with children. I’m like, I don’t, I don’t want to work with children. And they were like, no, but like that’s really you, like you should work with kids. And I was like, I don’t think you’ve ever seen me work with kids. No one wants me working with children. It turns out that I did actually then work with children quite a bit Yeah. In my career. But, but it was this sense of like, I I, I remember really distinctly standing in front of them saying like, this is what I feel called to. And them just ignoring that because they had in their mind of like what women did quote unquote. Yeah. And again, it was like really sneaky. You know, I, I’m thinking about like, when I was, when I was doing research for my book, I read John Eldridges Wild at Heart, which now has had its 20th anniversary. (13m 34s): It has a fancy new updated edition with even more homophobia in trans great than the original. But you know what I was so struck by in this book, you know, which has sold like 20 million copies, right? So many churches have, have done book studies around this book is that I think there are some ways that Eldridge like really names the problem of that a lot of men experience of like being bored and angry and disconnected and not knowing why. And so I was reading that and I’m like, yeah, this is great. And then he’s, his solution is like, I don’t know, go camp a lot and buy a ceremonial braveheart sword and do more dude stuff. (14m 22s): Yeah. And like that will fix you. And I just, I, I remember, you know, reading that and thinking like, how depressing would it be if you were already struggling to read this book and feel seen? And then to have the solution be like, probably the thing that you’ve already tried to do that didn’t work. Right? Yeah. Like, you know, you’re, you’ve already tried to like be a better leader in your household. I’m using air quotes or like be more spiritual or like do more dude stuff. And like that hasn’t fixed it. And so now you’re reading this book that then says, because that hasn’t fixed it, you are like failing at masculinity and you’re probably sinning too. (15m 5s): Like, it’s just such a Yeah. It’s bad for men and it’s bad for like everyone that men interact with because then like no wonder they’re angry. Yeah. I, I’ve been thinking a lot because of your book and its title, No One Taught Me How to Be a Man, like, who taught me how to be a man. And like the message I received around masculinity growing up. And I remember being like, feeling very adrift. Like there were these messages that I was getting from pop culture that was like, you should be suave and you should be like sexually active and you should be macho. And then I was getting these messages from church that were like, you should be chased and you should be like a leader, but in sort of a like servant leader humble sort of way. (15m 52s): And I was like, which like, you should be like not having any sex. You should be having lots of sex. I’m like, which one is it? And, and, And I will pre pre preface this by saying like, my dad And I have like a great relationship now, but like growing up I like didn’t like, he had like a set of things that he liked to do probably that he did with his dad. Like he fished and he played football. And so like if I was like willing to do one of those things, like we could spend quality time together, but like he didn’t know how to talk to me about like my interests. He definitely didn’t know how to talk about either of our interior worlds. Like, I even remember being like, oh, I’m like starting to like grow facial hair. Like I don’t know what to do with this. Like, I think somebody just like started stealing my dad’s disposable razors and like shaving. (16m 35s): I mean, I, I have very fine facial hair, not very much of it. So I could get away with just sort of like shaving in the shower without any shaving lotion. And then at some point, my grandma bless her heart one year for Christmas, she gave every single grandkid a razor. So like my cousin who was like pre like, did not have any facial hair and like my other, my youngest cousin and then my oldest cousin, like, had been shaving for years and years and years and probably had his own razor. Like we all got razors. And so now I was like, oh, like now I have a razor. And so like maybe at that point I started like getting my own shaving cream, but there was like a long, like many years where I was just sort of like secretly shaving, which like feels like I don’t, like why was I doing that? Like why, like, did, did Noah notice? (17m 16s): Like, it was just like weird, you know? And in my dad’s defense, I don’t think he had a very great relationship with his dad. Like his dad was also just sort of like macho. And, and so it’s, it’s I And I, And I think in the nineties and two thousands, like the message was like, well that makes you gay. Like if you don’t have a good relationship with your dad, it makes you gay. But like, I know a lot of people in the nineties who didn’t have good relationships with their dads. But also like the, the thing that has like made my dad And I have like an incredible relationship now is like us being able to like, talk about things beyond the surface level and for him to like show up and support me in like, all areas of my life and for him to like grow a little and me to grow a little. (18m 1s): And like the funny thing is now like, because we have such a good relationship, like I, I like want to go fishing with him sometimes in a way that, like when I was a kid, I just absolutely hated it. But I mean also I’m a, you know, I’m maybe more more mature now, but it’s like, because we had this sort of like mutual relationship, like it, it allows us to sort of like see each other. And so like the, the solution to like the problems of like masculinity is not to like double down on all of the things that cause the problems. Like Yeah. Harshness of becoming an island onto yourself. Not like, not being vulnerable, not collaborating. Like we, that’s just like crazy. Like all the things that cause the problems that are being proposed as solutions. (18m 41s): And I’m not like any of those queer now, but I have like a great relationship with my dad and it’s not at all because like we got a sword or like went on a men’s retreat, you know, or like, he like taught me how to read the Bible, like disciples and whatever that that means. It’s like, ’cause we care about each other and we figured out how to talk about that and we like show up for each other. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that you’re right, like the thing that I’m really advocating for in the book is like not a one size fits all depiction of masculinity, but like an opening up of like what masculinity means and can look like, because I think that that’s what’s actually healthier for folks. Yeah. Right. (19m 21s): And I think too that like, I don’t know, as someone who very much identifies as a man, I also think the solution isn’t, And I know that this is controversial in some queer spaces, like the solution also isn’t to like abolish gender, right? Yeah. Like I, I personally believe that there are always gonna be people that identify within the binary somehow, and that that’s not a bad thing, right? That, but opening up like what that means and what that looks like and how we can embody and inhabit that while also paying attention to like how we show up for people of other genders. Like that’s where the real work is. And as someone who like very much had to fight for my masculinity and to claim my identity, like I, I get really like a little crabby when people are like, you shouldn’t exist. (20m 10s): Like, we should just get rid of gender entirely. And it’s like, no, actually, like my gender actually matters quite a bit to me. And I really had to work to figure out what it means to me and how to like carry it well and hopefully in a way that like doesn’t do harm to people of other genders. And I think that there’s a lot of people that at least feel, if not comfortable, they feel like, oh, like this is a word that does, describes me, right? That this is a word that I inhabit, whether that’s masculine or feminine or man or woman. And obviously of course there are also lots of people for whom those words don’t feel right. But yeah, I I I think it’s, it’s complicated to say like, what, what does this and what can this look Like? (20m 56s): Yeah. And I mean, I feel like I have bit of a broken record here, but I just feel like trans folks in general and like trans guys more specifically, and you even more specifically have like, taught me so much about like, I like what it means to be a man, but also like what it means to be a person. Like what it means to have a body, what it means to think like critically about open-heartedly about gender. Like I, I, one of my, my first roommate in New York and one of my best friends how we met, like came out as trans while we were living together. And like then like via him, I just ended up with tons of trans guy friends and going to the a trans health conference and really sort of like thinking critically about gender and my gender and my body and like what gender affirming care looks like for trans folks and what gender affirming care looks like for cis folks and like gender euphoria and like I is wearing a dress or painting my nails, like giving myself and like wearing makeup, like giving myself permission to experiment with those things. (21m 59s): But also like, not necessarily having those things necessarily mean that I am a woman or that those parts like have to are like inherently feminine, right? Like I can be a man who wears makeup, a man who with painted nails. Yeah. Like, I think that there’s a real gift there to sort of complicating our conversations around gender, you know, and, and you talked about sort of like, there are always gonna be, you think like some people who fit within the binary And I think even calling trans guys or trans women sort of like binary, binary trans folks, right? Like, I don’t know that even that feels a little reductive that like, like if gender is a spectrum, right? (22m 39s): Like people exist on all points of that spectrum and just because someone identifies as a man and not non-binary, just because someone wears in our culture traditionally masculine clothes, like also like, doesn’t necessarily even, you know, that person is like, believes that gender is a binary or in all aspects of your, their lives as like ascribed to the gender binary, right? Like I, you know, I think about you, you’re someone who is like definitely a man, right? And also, like, you’re kind and you’re thoughtful and you’re creative and like sometimes you’re grumpy, but also there’s like a real softness to you. And I think a, those are things that are like often not ascribed to like men in our patriarchal culture. (23m 24s): And also like why shouldn’t they be male traits? And there is like, yeah, it doesn’t make you, you less of a man or those traits less masculine, but it just is sort of like a whole big picture, right? And I wanna like, take all of it into consideration. And I, what I appreciate from you and many of the trans folks that I have learned from is like, we don’t have to seed compassion to femininity and we don’t have to seed leadership to masculinity. And perhaps like some folks, and sometimes I’ve wondered like, am I non-binary or am I a gender or gender queer? Like you can have a constellation of different traits and some like, those could maybe even be separate from how you like, identify inwardly. (24m 8s): And that like gender is like so much richer than like a checkbox. And like there’s like some real value in like thinking critically about your own gender. And I will say like, there’s, I’m so excited about your book because like as a cis person, our four cis people are for people who have like mostly thought of themselves as cis or like are unsure. There’s like some real power in like learning about gender or hearing about gender and generally masculinity specifically, like from a trans person that I like, I’m thinking about being at the Philly Trans Health Conference in like circa 2009 and being like out to dinner with like 12 people and being like the only cis guy there. (24m 52s): And just sort of like the different types of conversations that get had in a, in a room full of trans people and one in one cis person. Right. Or to, or there were times where we were like, I’m pretty sure people just like assumed that I was trans because there just like, that weren’t many cis guys at the trans health conference. And So just sort of like, what does it mean, like to have people assume that you’re trans and then to like figure out how to navigate that in a respectful way, like in an honest way, but also like not in a defensive way and like what does it mean to be trans? And like what would that mean? Most people can’t like transport themselves into a room of 12 trans folks and be the el cis person there. And so I think like your book is a great moment, like a great learning opportunity for folks to sort of like, see it through, like to see the world and to see gender and to see masculinity through this sort of specific lens that I think has a really universal application. (25m 46s): I know it’s been so meaning like the work of you and other trans folks has been so meaningful to me in my own sort of like gendered and embodied experience. Yeah. And I think that that’s like the biggest thing that I hope that this book does for folks is like, just offers the opportunity to reflect. Yeah. Right? Because I think that, I’ve said this before, but like one of the great gifts of of being trans is that you get to be intentional about how you inhabit and embody your gender. Like, because nothing is assumed and for me, like no one wants me to be a man. Yeah. And so I get to like be whatever kind of man I want because like, it doesn’t really matter, right? (26m 29s): Like, yeah, people don’t expect me to be in that space anyway, so like, I’m just gonna show up how I wanna show up. But I think that that’s been a real gift of, of saying like, oh, I can be this thing without having to like, to take on any of the things that other people say I have to take on And I can just like be myself. And, And I will say like, that has gotten significantly easier now that I primarily, you know, quote unquote pass as a, as a cis person, like that was definitely harder. It was harder to like inhabit myself in my fullness when I was still early in transition and constantly being mistaken for a gender I didn’t identify as, like, that was a lot harder. (27m 15s): But now that I’ve moved past that stage, it’s like I just don’t worry now, right? Like, I don’t worry if someone’s gonna think I’m effeminate or gay or whatever, like, that doesn’t bother me. But I wanna inhabit and embody my gender in a way that feels the most comfortable to me. And I, and that’s what I want for everyone, right? Like, I want everyone to be able to walk into a room and feel like they’re not policing their own gestures, that they’re not worrying about how they look or how they’re moving their hands or what their voice sounds like, right? Like that, that they can just show up and be seen as who they are and be welcomed in those spaces. And I think that what it takes to get there is for all of us to, to approach gender with more intention, and especially for men to approach gender with more intention. (28m 7s): Yeah. I’m, I think, I think there’s like something really wholly about the like reflecting and the like questioning and the, like, sitting in the uncertainty of it all. I mean, I, I know that like when I found the word queer, found the word bisexual, right? It like, I was like, oh, that’s like something that like makes sense to me. That’s just feels like it describes who I am. That is a way, like way by which I can find other people and like it, but even, even in that, right? Like, I don’t know, I’m like technically bisexual, but sometimes, like the word gay feels like more accurate. Sometimes the word queer feels more accurate, right? Like, so I kinda like hold all those labels loosely. (28m 49s): And I feel like with gender, like I, I I hold things even more loosely that like, am I cis? Am I, am I trans? Am I a gender? Am I gender queer? Am I non-binary? Like, for me at least feels like, like coming to a hard and fast like decision around like an ident like a gendered identity that is right for me feels less important to me as does sort of like holding it all kind of lightly and asking questions and experimenting and trying things on and seeing like, if I do this, how does that feel? How do, like, if I do that, how does that feel? How can I, what qualities in people in general do I admire? (29m 32s): What qualities in men do I admire? What qualities in women do I admire? What qualities in gender queer folks do I admire? What do I wanna sort of try on for myself? And sort of existing in sort of like a state of always becoming rather than feeling like I have arrived. And you know, there’s, there’s this, I know, I forget who said it, I think it was a Jewish, a queer Jewish per person was like, you know, we, we like say there’s a blessing in Judaism for, for bread, and it’s like, blessed are you, Adam And I are God sovereign of the universe who like brings forth bread from the earth. But like, obviously like bread doesn’t like literally come from the earth where it’s like wheat and flour and you have to, you have to like make the bread. (30m 17s): And there’s this, there’s this saying of like, it’s a reminder that like we join in the co-creation of creation like with God And I, And I know you’ve talked about like your transness being this sort of like, you take an active part in co-creating yourself and your gender and your body with God. And that is something that I have like taken on for myself in a less extreme way. I’m not like trans, I’m not on hormones, I’m on medication to keep my hair from falling out, which is like, you know, gender affirming care in its own way. But like, there’s something of this sort of like active ongoing process of like creating ourselves and creating ourselves a new, and the person that I am today is different than the person that I was a year ago and five years ago and 10 years ago. (31m 0s): And like, that’s like really cool and exciting And I don’t know who I will be in 10 years from now, but I want to get there with some intentionality. And I feel like the questions that you raise in this book are gonna help me, help, help me do that. I hope so, I, I hope that this book becomes an, an invitation to deeper conversation for folks, right? That it’s, it becomes a, that it’s a starting point, not a, not another manual of like ceremonial swords and parties that instead it’s like a, hey, how do we, how do we enter into these conversations? Yeah. So if folks wanna get this, it comes out officially April 15th, Amazon in particular, and some other booksellers in general sometimes send things out early. (31m 46s): So if you pre-order it, you might actually get it earlier. So hop on there now. You can get it anywhere books are sold. If you go to Queer Theology dot com slash books, it’ll be right at the top of that page. And there’s links to Bookshop and Barnes and Noble and Amazon to help you find those links quickly. But I know we’ve said this before, but pre-sales really help with authors in general. In particular, like new authors, newer authors, authors with marginalized identities to let the publisher know, to let potential booksellers know, like, this is a book that matters. These are stories that matter. These are types of authors that people are like interested in, in taking seriously. And like fortunately is a business, right? And so like, like, yeah, like queer authors get asked to write books because other queer authors sell books. (32m 30s): And so a think that this book is gonna be really exciting for everyone who is a man or is in love with a man, or knows a man who has had to work with a man. It would probably be more useful for, for men and masculine folks, but I think really for anyone. And also an added bonus of supporting you in particular and queer and trans authors in general. So Queer Theology dot com slash books to find all the links to No One Taught Me How to Be a Man, which comes out on April 15th. And if you happen to be in Minneapolis or thereabouts on April 14th, so the day before it officially releases, I’m gonna be having a launch party at Moon Palace books in Minneapolis. (33m 9s): You’ll be able to get the book a day early and I’ll be signing, there’s gonna be some special guests and some performances. It’s gonna be a really fun event. So if you wanna come to that Moon Palace books on April 14th and masks are still required at Moon Palace, so tuck a mask in your pocket and come on out. It’s gonna be really fun. Awesome. 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 L-G-B-T-Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters. 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 Failing At Gender appeared first on Queer Theology.

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.

We’re getting into the hot topic of faith, politics, and the intersection of both in this episode! There has always been an intricate relationship between politics and faith. We discuss how our upbringing shaped some of our views on patriotism, activism, and the current political landscape, especially in relation to Christian nationalism. We also talk about how faith and activism go hand in hand and the challenges of reconciling our faith with activism. The conversation wouldn’t be complete without getting into how the legacy of Jesus is a source of inspiration for social justice work.   Takeaways Politics and faith are deeply intertwined in personal experiences. The church’s engagement with politics has evolved over time. Christian nationalism has influenced many church communities. Activism can reignite a sense of spirituality and purpose. The tension between faith and politics is a common struggle. Historical context is vital in understanding current political dynamics. The legacy of Jesus can inspire social justice efforts. Navigating moral implications of political actions is crucial. Community support is essential for those exploring faith and activism. Understanding the complexities of faith can lead to deeper connections with activism.   Chapters (05:34) Personal Experiences with Church and Politics   (10:38) The Shift from Faith to Activism   (15:46) Navigating the Tension Between Faith and Politics   (20:23) The Legacy of Jesus and Activism     Resources: 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 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT The post The Politics of Jesus appeared first on Queer Theology.

We’re joined this week by Brian’s longtime friend, inspirational artist, and glitter enthusiast, Jamie Kushner Blicher. Jamie started creating mixed-media pieces in high school and continued to do so throughout her college years at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology. She creates abstract pieces by filling the same tool that brings many families hope and rainbow babies with ink (sterile IVF needles). Since 2016, Jamie has been using her art to help bring calm and happiness to others who have gone through, or are still going through, their infertility journeys. In this conversation, Jamie shares her journey through infertility and how it led her to create art as a form of therapy. She discusses the importance of community, the power of creativity, and how her experiences have shaped her artistic process. Jamie emphasizes the significance of sharing stories and supporting one another through difficult times.    Takeaways Art can serve as a powerful form of therapy. Creativity allows for personal expression and healing. Community support is essential during challenging times. Sharing stories can foster connection and understanding. Different experiences should be embraced, not stigmatized. Finding joy in small things can help navigate tough situations. Art can be a medium for honoring difficult journeys. It’s important to let those facing challenges lead the conversation. Creating art can be a meditative and freeing process. The future of art can focus on specific communities and needs.   Chapters (00:35) Who is Jamie Kushner Blicher?  (06:15) Art as Therapy: The IVF Journey   (09:40) The Power of Art and Community   (11:10) Navigating Parenthood and Art, and Channeling Stories Through Art   (14:40) Spirituality and Community Support   (20:45) The Artistic Process   (23:13) Sharing Art and Personal Stories   (27:40) Future Aspirations for Glitter Enthusiast   (32:22) Messages for Those Facing Fertility Challenges   (36:24) Connecting with Jamie and Closing Thoughts     Resources: Website: https://glitterenthusiast.com/  IG – @glitterenthusiast Join 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   PODCAST TRANSCRIPT The post Turning Pain Into Glitter with Jamie Kushner Blicher appeared first on Queer Theology.

This week, we’re catching up on our personal lives and discussing some pretty significant milestones we’ve achieved. We also talk about our mental health journeys, and the importance of finding joy amidst the chaos of the world. Which can be really, really hard right now – we know! We’ve got an update on our upcoming book releases (exciting!) and how much we appreciate our community (ya’ll are so beautiful it makes us cry) and share some books and resources that are giving us inspiration and joy now.    Takeaways It’s important to find joy in our lives despite external chaos. Mental health is a journey that requires intentional care. Writing can be both a deeply personal and collaborative process. Polyamory offers insights that can enrich spirituality and relationships. Books can serve as a bridge for understanding complex topics. Community engagement is vital for supporting queer art and literature. The process of writing a book can evoke a range of emotions. Devotionals can be grounded in progressive theology and justice. Curiosity can transform our understanding of others. Sharing personal stories can create deeper connections in community.   Chapters (04:03) Finding Joy Amidst Chaos (06:47) The Journey of Writing: Books and Mental Health (12:13) Exploring Polyamory: Insights and Spirituality (15:43) The Process of Writing Together (17:53) Upcoming Releases: Books and Plays (22:40) Engaging with the Community: Mailing Lists and Support (25:39) Media Consumption: What We’re Reading and Watching   Resources: Join 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   PODCAST EPISODE The post Roundup: Reading, Watching, Writing, Listening appeared first on Queer Theology.

We’re joined this week by R Scott Okamoto who is a writer and musician from Los Angeles. He is passionate about AAPI identity and politics, fly fishing, sex and sexuality, cooking, and religious deconstruction. Scott is the creator and host of the Chapel Probation Podcast and the author of Asian American Apostate: Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University. In this conversation, Scott shares his transformative journey from a conservative evangelical upbringing to becoming an advocate for LGBTQIA students at Azusa Pacific University. He discusses the challenges of deconstructing his faith, the importance of community support, and the impact of evangelical culture on identity. Scott emphasizes the need for critical thinking and openness in navigating personal beliefs and experiences. He discusses his journey of deconstruction from evangelicalism, the importance of community and storytelling, and the challenges of addressing systemic issues like racism within Christianity. He emphasizes the need for ongoing personal growth and the role of music and creative expression in finding joy and connection after leaving religious spaces.    Takeaways Scott grew up in a conservative evangelical environment. His journey of deconstruction began after meeting LGBTQIA individuals. He became an advocate for LGBTQIA students at APU. Community support was crucial for students facing rejection. Evangelical culture often perpetuates harmful ideologies. Deconstruction is a complex and personal process. Critical thinking is often discouraged in evangelical settings. Sharing personal stories can foster understanding and empathy. Navigating faith and identity can be challenging for many. It’s important to embrace knowledge and openness in personal growth. Once you start moving, it’s hard to stop. Finding community is essential for continued growth. Deconstruction is not just a personal journey but a communal one. Storytelling can be a powerful tool for healing and connection. Christianity has a significant racism problem that needs addressing. Building relationships with diverse communities is crucial. It’s important to engage in uncomfortable conversations. Music can be a source of joy and connection after deconstruction. Creative projects can help explore complex topics like sexuality. Acknowledging suffering in others can lead to deeper understanding and empathy.   Chapters (03:56) Journey of Deconstruction at APU   (07:22) Community and Support for LGBTQIA Students   (13:21) The Impact of Evangelical Culture on Identity   (16:01) Navigating Deconstruction and Its Challenges   (21:10) Encouraging Critical Thinking and Openness   (28:12) Final Thoughts and Reflections   (29:04) Navigating Deconstruction and Personal Growth   (31:10) The Challenge of Moving Beyond Evangelicalism   (33:27) Finding Community in Deconstruction   (37:44) The Power of Storytelling and Connection   (42:35) Addressing Racism in Christianity   (47:51) Future Projects and Creative Endeavors   Resources: Asian American Apostate: Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University by R Scott Okamoto Chapel Probation Podcast Learn more about Scott at https://www.rscottokamoto.com/  Join 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 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT The post It Comes Back to Community: An Interview with R. Scott Okamoto appeared first on Queer Theology.

In this episode, we delve into the complexities of sex positivity within a spiritual context. We explore the damaging messages received from religious institutions regarding sexuality, the impact of purity culture, and the ongoing journey of self-discovery and healing. Our conversation emphasizes the importance of understanding one’s own desires, navigating shame, and fostering a community that embraces sex positivity. We also get into practical steps for healing and the significance of embodying a positive relationship with one’s body and sexuality.   Takeaways The conversation highlights the absurd messages about sex from religious backgrounds. Purity culture can create lasting shame and confusion around sexuality. It’s essential to differentiate between healthy attraction and harmful lust. Healing from sexual shame is an ongoing process that requires self-reflection. Community support is vital in navigating sexual and spiritual journeys. Understanding one’s own values around sex is crucial for personal growth. Sex positivity can coexist with spirituality in a healthy way. The impact of societal norms on individual sexual expression is profound. Engaging in open conversations about sex can help dismantle shame. Embodying a positive relationship with one’s body is essential for overall well-being.   Chapters (02:31) Exploring Church Messages on Sex   (06:31) The Impact of Purity Culture   (10:21) Navigating Shame and Sexuality   (14:35) Understanding Lust and Attraction   (18:30) Positive Experiences and Community   (22:36) The Ongoing Journey of Self-Discovery   (26:36) Practical Steps for Healing and Growth   (30:26) Becoming a Beacon of Sex Positivity   (34:42) The Interconnection of Body and Sexuality    Resources: Join the workshop: Sex-Positive Sexuality Join 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 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT The post From Shame To Pride appeared first on Queer Theology.

We’re going back to the Gospel of Paul and exploring Colossians 3:1-17 through a queer lens, discussing the implications of Paul’s teachings on identity, sexuality, and community. It is so  important to understand the context of Paul’s letters and how they can be applied to contemporary issues of queer identity and spirituality. There is such a  need for compassion, kindness, and the recognition of individual identities within the framework of faith, ultimately calling for a more inclusive and loving community. Takeaways The passage from Colossians has been used against queer individuals. Understanding the context of Paul’s letters is crucial for interpretation. Queer identities are integral to our understanding of spirituality. We must not let homophobic interpretations dictate our faith. Paul’s teachings call for a higher standard of behavior in community. Our identities matter to God and should be celebrated. Living out our values in relationships is essential for healing. Compassion and kindness are vital in our interactions with others. We are invited to build a new world that respects dignity and love. The journey of faith includes recognizing and valuing our unique experiences. Chapters (00:00) Exploring Colossians 3: A Queer Perspective   (02:39) Understanding Paul’s Intentions   (05:00) The Intersection of Identity and Faith   (12:17) Queerness and the Divine   (17:14) Living Out Our Values in Relationships   (25:24) A Benediction for New Beginnings     Resources: Join the workshop: Sex-Positive Sexuality Join 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 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT The post Taking The Sting Out Of Paul (Colossians 3:1-17) appeared first on Queer Theology.

We’re back to explore the intricate relationship between spirituality and sexuality! We share our personal journeys, societal challenges, and the importance of integrating these aspects of identity to reframe how to view sexuality. We also delve into the complexities of desire, agency, and the political implications of sexual oppression. Shame and desire intertwine within theological contexts, which makes it all the more important to integrate one’s faith with their sexual identity and experiences. There is an unmistakable sacredness to sexuality and it can lead to transcendent experiences.   Takeaways Sexuality and spirituality can be integrated for deeper insights. The journey of understanding one’s sexuality is often fraught with challenges. Desire is often suppressed by societal and religious narratives. Governments target sexual minorities to maintain control. Personal sexual healing is a form of political resistance. Communication about desires is crucial in relationships. Vulnerability is necessary for authentic connections. Queer joy and pleasure are vital, even in difficult times. The work on self can enhance community organizing efforts. Celebrating sexual autonomy is both personal and communal. The work of unhooking from shame is often theological. Desire and shame are deeply intertwined with spirituality. Our beliefs about bodies and sexuality shape our ethics. Integration of theology and ethics is crucial for a fulfilling life. Sexuality can be a pathway to experiencing the divine. The Bible contains rich sexual language that reflects divine relationships. Transcendence can be found in intimate connections with others. Experiences of sexuality can be sacred and holy. First sexual experiences can be meaningful in various ways. Gratitude for past experiences can lead to healing.   Chapters (02:49) The Journey of Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality (06:00) Desire, Agency, and Control (08:52) Political Implications of Sexuality (11:55) Communication and Vulnerability in Relationships (15:11) The Intersection of Queerness and Spirituality (17:00) The Intersection of Sex, Shame, and Spirituality (19:52) Theological Contexts and Personal Experiences (25:47) Sexuality as a Path to Transcendence (30:04) Closing Reflections and Prayer   Resources: Join 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 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT The post The Sex and Spirit Connection appeared first on Queer Theology.