Dear Maria, I stumbled across you on Substack and have been following this incredible journey of yours for a little while. Like others in the comments here, I know it's not my place to proselytize or try to convince you of anything, because each person's journey is so precious and unique. In response to the question with which you titled this piece, I will be bold enough to ask, have you ever encountered Orthodox Christianity? I couldn't find any depth in the Protestantism I was raised in, and even a sincere attempt at Catholicism left me searching for something wilder, closer to the heart, more "pagan" so to speak. My husband dragged me to an Orthodox liturgy (kicking and screaming, essentially) and I was shocked to find a community of real people with real flaws who really love each other. I've seen so many versions of Christianity that organize themselves around some battle -- culture wars or infighting or something -- but never before Christians who just lived as Christians and fought the battle against their own darkness. As I looked deeper, I realized that this was the version of Christianity that had never been shaped by rationalism or modernity, that was still as wild and connected to the earth as paganism. Certainly not every parish will be like the one I attend but if you wanted to dip your toe in, Paul Kingsnorth or Martin Shaw might be good places to start.
Thank you Kathleen! I've been following Paul for a while and just came across Mark right now. I've heard great things about the Orthodox Church, but mostly from people living in the US I think? I don't think I know anyone who attends the Orthodox Church in my country.
There is an old woman at my church, about 90. Her face is wrinkled and her movements are stiff. She is the wife of the priest who died last year, her partner of over 60 years.
We had a new younger couple visit, and when they met her they decided to stay. (Pearl, she goes by. Beautiful name.) She greeted them with a smile, and embraced them and kissed them on the cheek and called them "sweetie". She asked where they were from and told them they were welcome.
These are small things. They sound so ordinary. But she does them in such a holy way. You can feel the love radiate off of her. I'm sure her body hurts. I'm sure she will die in not so many more years. But she is focused on other people, not herself. She is not scared of death. She has a peaceful heart and is faithful to the Lord.
When my baby son was born, I brought him to her to meet and to kiss. There is no formal authority for a priest's widow to bless. But I can smell holiness when the scent is strong enough, and I want her blessing on my child.
Could we all be like this? Could we all achieve such a refreshing demeanor, gentle and loving? Is this what it looks like to have the Holy Spirit?
Christianity is a religion of the heart. And the church, properly conceived, is a factory for the production of beautiful souls. Good luck on finding your place, and becoming all that you could be.
What a beautiful soul this woman must be! I don’t know many elders that I aspire to be like as I grow up, but she certainly sounds like this kind of a person ❤️
I am rooting for you! I hope you find it and narrate the journey 🙏❤️😊
I share this desire. One of my callings is to cultivate this type of community. There is a form of “church” in my life that is in the mustard seed stage, where I seek out and I nurture connections with others who share my desire. It doesn’t look like much, and it certainly doesn’t conform to our ideas of church, with stained glass or even a building. But it is growing roots. And maybe someday it will be a tree that birds can perch in. May you find your perch!
Kim, I loved your creation story so much. A very similar version has been on my mind for a while now, with Adam and Eve leaving the safe paradise of their Mother's womb to venture out into the broader world. I'd love to chat about this with you some day. It feels like there's something here waiting to be discovered.
I have an idea of where you're supposed to be, but it may not be my place to say.
Suffice it to say I think you're headed in the right direction and speak for a lot of people right now!
In James 1:5 we read if any of you lack wisdom, ask of God. Pray to God in the name of Jesus Christ for the answer, cry out with boldness and ask God to lead you to this church. If there be a God then surely He will answer your faith. Be willing to go to the weirdest place, wherever He says to go. I'll keep you in my prayers. Hang onto hope in this! Christ lives! May we all soon find each other as disciples of Him.
Thank you Plasma! I've truly been to the weirdest places on this journey already, and I'm not afraid to go to even weirder places still, but something tells me what I'm looking for might be closer than I could have guessed. I'll keep you posted!
🗣️ Amen!!!!! A beautiful vision. I’m so so blessed to be part of a church like this, and I hope you find yours 💕 the church will always be imperfect until glory - but she is beloved, she is being made new all the time, and she is made of us.
Maria it sure looks like I will have to binge read all of your posts because we are on the same path at the same time. It is a painful process but your heart is the homing signal calling you to Christ. I discovered Lydia’s story in Acts 16 and that has birthed a lot in my life including the Substack about the journey. 🙏🏽💜
It's incredible, isn't it? It seems like so many people are suddenly wrestling with these things now at the same time. I don't think I've ever paid attention to Lydia, I'll make sure to check her story out ❤️
I really hope you find a church that is overflowing with love in this way.
I don’t mean to criticize you or patronize you but some of the things you say sometimes worry me. I speak as someone who was a part of the charismatic movement and first hand discovered that demons will and do take advantage of unsuspecting Christians who are part of churches that prioritize spiritual experience over spiritual truth. It like…ruined my life and was one of the most emotionally painful things I ever experienced. There is a lot of orthodox literature on the theological explanation of why this is a common experience, and many anctedotes as well of spiritual deception. I don’t want this or anything close to it for you!
Your searching for a version of Christianity that you could love, I fear, has the potential to lead you down the wrong path. It is entirely human, valid, and self-respecting to want to seek out a church that is not condemning and loves God and each other. If what you mean by “a version of Christianity” is how people in a church (catholic or orthodox preferably as they are the safest) relate to God and each other then I would no longer be worried.
But if you’re seeking a church or community that alters the faith to make its members feel comfortable I fear I’ve already seen the real cost of that. I hope this makes sense and doesn’t come across as condescending. I really just don’t want anyone to experience what I did!!!
I've had this conversation with my mom many times, and I know that just like my mom you wish me nothing but the best. I don't know if I have the right words to get my point across, but I'll try it anyway.
You know that scene in Moana where she reaches out with love to a raging fiery demon, and that demon suddenly gets transformed into a gentle goddess showering her with blessings? My experience with the spirit world has been very much like that.
For as long as I saw any spirits trying to reach me as the enemy, that's how they would present themselves. Then I took a part in rituals and ceremonies from other non-Christian traditions, where such contacts are nothing out of ordinary, and there are long traditions of best practices built around that.
If I were to seek spiritual experiences, Christian churches would be probably the last place where I would look for them. Most Christians are probably better off without this kind of stuff. However, the kind of people who get visited by spirits for some reason seem to do so regardless of their faith. I had loved ones who never strayed from official church teachings and dogma, and were still haunted by demons in their final days. Looking back, I really wish they had some other interpretations of what was happening available to them.
I don’t think it’s worth arguing intellectually on why I think you’re wrong. I was not converted to the orthodox Christian worldview because it was just explained to me and I adopted it.
What I can do, is offer my testimony of the real evil that is out there and how I made sense of my experience.
I would encourage you to also seek out other testimonies as well as intellectual treatises by orthodox Christian’s before you make a decision on what you end up doing.
My experience is not rare. It is very common for people who end up in the occult world, or even the charismatic Christian movement, to end up converting after experiencing a “fall” — something that is really damaging, and brought on by spiritual delusion as result of the influence of a spirit. Many people actually end up committing suicide because it is so devastating. By Gods grace I was given the humility to accept that I had been wrong and did not know Him, and the strength to bear that pain.
To realize i was in communion with a demon, after receiving so many blessings, love, and these feelings I had been seeking out — it felt like true acceptance from this demon — for the first time in my entire life.. well, there has only been one event that was more painful for me than that, and it was going no contact with my family, which is what spurred on my spiritual seeking in the first place. It was a devastating loss. I cannot stress enough how awful it was.
Okay, so what happened? I’ll try to be brief.
1) stage 1: I was friends with a twitter guy who was very into IFS. I started practicing this, believing it would lead me to salvation (salvation means healing, not just going to heaven).
There were several experiences where it WAS healing, I gained a lot of self knowledge, and I attribute a lot of my continued self awareness to peering into my depths.
This honey moon phase lasted like 6 months, with extreme and intensive effort. I wasn’t working at the time, believing I needed to fix myself first.
2) stage two: Those experiences went from liberating in the beginning to trapping near the end.
I experienced at one point what is called “blending” in IFS. This is suspiciously very similar to inflation in jungain therapy, which was Jung’s way of psychologizing spirit possession. I am not entirely sure what I believe regarding IFS parts anymore. It is probable that they are spirits who wish to portray themselves as us, so that we seek healing inside of ourselves and not through the church.
This was brought on by a “kundalini awakening experience” that I had after doing yoga at my gym. I ended up seeing and speaking with spirits that claimed to be my future self, I saw “visions” in my mind for 4 hours or so, and was overwhelmed with extreme emotions surrounding the things I had suffered in life.
This stage happened about 2.5 years after my spiritual seeking began. I was atheist at the time. I was in a state where I was possessed by “my infant self” and was in a state of terror constantly, completely irrationally. It was like being paralyzed emotionally. I could hardly do anything except lay around. Highly possible it was brought on by spirit possession, not “blending” as IFS portrays these experiences.
This lasted 4 months.
3) stage 3: I accidentally opened the door even further to spirits of darkness, not knowing what I was doing. I was totally convinced of the IFS mindset of what I was experiencing.
In my state of desperation as a result of this “blending,” I sought help from a traditional reiki professional. Worse than that, I had no clue that reiki professionals who train in Japan have been influenced by theosophy, the occult movement who’s motto is “do as thou wilt” and believes Satan to be the hero of the Bible.
I also signed up for an Akashic records reading, which comes from theosophy.
The reiki professional shocked me, because I was an atheist, by describing what I was seeing in my minds eye WITHOUT me telling her what I was seeing. We saw the same things, at the same time.
She introduced me to a 3 year old part (more evidence that parts are foreign, not just an element of the individuals psyche) and said that if I were to commune with this part I would become playful.
More influential, and more wicked, was that she introduced me to “my soul.” This was, in her view, my eternal self, the part of me that sent me to earth so it may evolve.
It appeared like an old wise woman, surrounded by a felid of flowers and a halo. In other words, it appeared to me as a spirit of light.
She also taught me how to “commune with the soul” which I began to do in earnest.
At this point, my materialistic framework had been shattered. There was no way to describe this experience by materialistic terms without being ultimately dismissive of the experience.
Stage 4: I communed with the soul, particularly through sound meditation and yoga at my gym.
Shortly after meeting (about a month later) this spirit, I met it again during a slow yoga class and it guided me through “freeing” my infant self from its terror. The way by which this happened is I “created” a home for my infant self and took it away from an area full of storms and beasts.
After that, the “blending” (as I type this, I am more and more convinced it was possession) ended and I felt very free.
Stage 5: I sought communion with this spirit but I kept having experiences that were surprising to me. For example, at one point, I questioned the “soul” about its true nature and after a ton of questioning, it revealed itself as an angry, spiteful, baboon — just an image that flashed for a second. When I questioned it on this, It said it can only be evil to those who wish me harm, and not to me, because I am the “soul” and it is me.
Then, after this questioning, it said i was clinging to it too hard and appeared to fly away into the heavens as if it was an angel.
Either way, I felt more and more scared by the idea that a separate entity was me, that I was not fully in control of my life, that my life did not belong to myself but to a being that claimed to want me only to self actualized and then revealed itself as evil.
During this time, I also experienced more experiences with spirits, the primary one that Jung would call archetypal is one that seemed to be “my animus.” This just led to further confusing, and quite frankly, no healing whatsoever. I found Jung’s red book, his writings on kundalini, and they explained my experiences. But that just led me further into deception.
Stage 6: for a myriad of reasons, perhaps predominantly because I was interested in Jung and my materialist framework had been shattered and I was scared of what I was experiencing, I became intellectually curious about religions, having no clue about anything. I thought I might become a Jew or a Christian and that they were equal.
Either way, I eventually stopped seeking out spiritual experiences because they were odd and didn’t seem to do me any good. I started going to a nondenominational church, mostly because it was an 8 min walk away.
This church encouraged us to seek out spiritual experiences, to seek out the “voice of God.”
Eventually I did, and so I had them.
This stage lasted about another 4 months.
Stage 7: I’m kind of an all or nothing person. Once I had those experiences, I remained some what skeptical of them.
Then something happened where the pastor was talking about the need to commit yourself to Christ, over your commitment to worldly things like career, and this struck me to my bones, especially the passage in Matthew — whoever looks for themselves will lose themselves, whoever loses themselves will find themselves.
I became extremely committed to “Christ,” giving up my work at the spirits command, praying 4-6 hours a day in a beautiful catholic cathedral.
I had experiences that are confirmed by the catholic church as legitimately from god but not by the Orthodox Church. I experienced a miracle where my TMJ was fixed after years of pain, having had a “vision” of Christ’s finger touching my jaw. I experienced the “rapture” st. Teresa of aliva experienced.
Over time, the demands of this false Christ intensified. It claimed that I was chosen by God to prophecize to my community (something the nondenominational church believes god does — selects certain people to say his words to others). I was given prophecies surrounding the election and the hurricane that devastated a lot of the U.S.
Throughout this time, my church members confirmed my experiences. No one thought I might’ve been in the throws of prelest by a demon. I even went to the church directly for help both committing myself to Jesus, which led me to seeking out commune with this spirit they believed to be Jesus by their direction, and rejection of the “soul” — by which I experienced a false exorcism, seeing the “soul” put in chains. I also even sought help from them with discernment on if i was truly in communion with God.
Eventually, I was asked by the spirit to do a fast for 7 days and I did. As scripture warns, Satan uses scripture to manipulate us. Protestants believe we can read the Bible and know what it means. Well. Clearly I am a testimony against that. I was lead into a very grave sin by this spirit, one that hurt the people closest to me.
I remained in spiritual delusion after committing this sin for about a week before I realized that indeed it had been a spirit. Ironically, someone in my life “received a prophecy from God” that this would happen and told me that jezebel would attack me. When she said the name jezebel, the room went cold and the hair on my arms stood on their ends. I prayed reverently to hear from God I was deceived, and the answer I heard back repeatedly was no, but eventually I heard “you have been deceived.
Well, I’m still recovering from all that, frankly. All and all, that was 4 years of my life spent in communion with demons.
Will follow up with how I made sense of this experience.
After all of this, I went to see an orthodox priest at the recommendation of a friend. He anointed me with oil, told me to stop listening to the demons, taught me to do the sign of the cross, and taught me to pray the Jesus prayer.
The voices of the spirits stopped within 3 days.
Only orthodoxy can provide a coherent explanation of why this happens. We can only have spiritual experiences to this degree as a result of attaining to spiritual perfection. This means the elimination of the passions and sin within us. Only through the removal of the darkness in our own souls can the Holy Spirit reside within us.
For every spiritual gift, Satan has counterfeits. We must be wary of this truth. He appears as an angel of light. He will offer us the world in exchange for our ultimate death and destruction.
All of my friends who had a “relationship with God” and this church were likewise under spiritual deception. However, only a few were as deceived as I was. One of them became very wealthy through art at the direction of “Jesus.” (Another thing I experienced near the end, the spirit commanded me to paint and told me I would be very successful). Another received prophecies that came true.
But what’s far more common is the experience of what is understood as “fancy” in orthodoxy. One does not have the extreme spiritual experiences I did without seeking them out and being very committed to the search for them. Most people don’t do this, they have jobs, they have lives, they seek instead to pray and hear from God when they can.
But when they do hear from god they have “feel good” and “healing”experiences or even experiences that seem sanctifying that do not lead to salvation or true healing which is to be transformed to be Christ like in the interior of a persons being. That only happens through the church.
An example I can give is of a friend who “heard from God” that he was a very colorful person and should feel more comfortable showing his colors to others. This had a very positive effect on his life. He became more personable, more sociable.
But that does not lead to the true experience of joy or peace of the Holy Spirit which relies purely on the Holy Spirit residing within us. It was not sanctifying, it relied on a bolstering of his ego.
This friend I am speaking about, and all of my friends, though under deception, are extremely earnest Christian’s. They believe themselves to be pious, and they are in a sense, in the way our church has taught us to be.
But that is precisely the evil. These people do not know what they are doing, they are worshipping the antichrist. Not even the pastors know this, they earnestly seek to bring people to Christ. None of them are evil or wicked. It’s a devastating realization that people can be so easily deceived in the pursuit of earnest faith and love of God.
This is why the church dogma is so important. It’s why we can’t decide who God is for ourselves. God is of one nature, there is only one true claim to who he is. Any deviation from the true understanding of God will alter who we worship and what we perceive as the spiritual path. This is most obvious in the charismatic movement.
I highly, highly, highly recommend that you read orthodoxy and the religion of the future. It’s a challenging read, but it illuminated the darkness behind these “positive” spiritual experiences I had. I hope you read it and it adds depth to my own testimony.
I say all of this only because I understand where you are coming from and I have come out of the other side of that mindset. I have immense empathy for you. I had a catholic mother who only used the faith against me, criticizing me for sins without becoming sanctified herself. This made me hate the faith and conceive of Christianity in an entirely negative way. It is not an easy thing to overcome.
It sounds like your church community in general was Christian in name but divorced from the interior transformation we seek on the spiritual path. A woman seeking to deny the self through sacrifice to the husband’s will in a spirit of resentment or prideful identity, for instance, is not at all what God actually wants. Nor is it sanctifying.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I would really encourage you to seek out understanding of how your church may have failed you, identify the errors they made in their own conception of Christ, and then seek a community that is aligned with the true nature of God. From what I can tell, it is not God who failed you, but your community. And it is okay if that sent you down a path of seeking, or full of doubt, or anger or anything at all. All God wants is to have you back.
Thank you Laura for writing this all up. It might take me a while to take it all in, but for now I'll just say I'm so happy to hear you finally found a place where your heart is at peace.
So I want to think carefully about how I reply, and I’ll try my best and return to this..
What I can say right now is we had very similar experiences though in reverse. I started with the occult world and became Christian after it destroyed my life, and yeah I did actually perceive those spirits as “good,” because that’s how they appeared to me…
I will come back to this later tho so don’t bother responding rn. I slept 2 hours last night and don’t want to say anything mean or insensitive on accident 🫡
Yes, it's fascinating how we're coming from opposite directions, with a lot of similar experiences but in reverse. I don't know much about the occult, but everyone I know who identifies with this label doesn't seem to me like a good role model for what I want out of life. However, I've met incredibly wise people coming from all sorts of lineages and traditions, Christian yes, but also yoga, Zen, or various Native American or Amazonian tribes.
Laura -- I've had and seen a lot of similar experiences and now operate under very much similar cautions. Kudos, you phrased it well. The devil can manipulate us through interesting or obscure knowledge, beautiful and loving experiences, claiming to want our 'good' (but really, it's a lesser good than the greatest good). Only surrender and obedience to God is true protection for our souls & lives. It's a fire of protection, no charismatic slippery words can slip past it, but we have to let go of the things not of God (otherwise we can't enter/ we get burned too). Jesus' highest virtue was not His intelligence but His obedience & trust in God the Father. Same goes for Virgin Mary.
Also agreed that Protestants collapsed necessary theological tensions (that kept truths alive), rituals, etc -- Catholic and Orthodox traditions are best in giving us tools to navigate the paradoxes of faith and life. To keep & grow in right relationship with God, with each other, with ourselves, with the world.
It's interesting that you gave Jesus as an example of obedience to God, because it took Him so far from the established orthodoxy at that time that the priests literally got Him killed. So at least in His case and possibly also early Apostles obeying God's will and obeying the established religious hierarchy did not exactly align.
I’m not formally trained in theology, but we can look at the story of the woman caught in adultery for insight into how Christ fulfilled the Law by revealing its true purpose.
According to the Law of Moses, a woman caught in adultery was to be stoned. Yet Christ says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Christ Himself was without sin, and by that logic, He alone had the authority to condemn her. Instead, he says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”
This seems confusing. In Orthodox understanding, when we say Christ fulfilled the Law, we mean that He brought the Law to its fullness.
The Law was never an end in itself. It was a preparation, leading Israel toward communion with God. In Christ, that communion is now possible.
Through His death and resurrection, Christ creates the New Covenant, not built on grace, repentance, and the healing of the soul. The Law said “stone the sinner,” but Christ, who is the Lawgiver Himself, says “repent and be healed.”
Many of the religious leaders of Israel did not recognize Christ because they had come to treat the Law as the ultimate good, rather than as a means of drawing near to the living God. That’s why Christ criticizes the Pharisees so severely. They had inverted the hierarchy, placing the letter of the Law above the love and mercy of God.
So it’s not that Jesus came to oppose religious authority. He came to fulfill it, to correct its distortions, and to reorient the people of God toward their true purpose: union with Him. And indeed we are only able to commune with God after his death and resurrection.
Also worth mentioning that the Orthodox Church is the body of Christ with Christ himself being the head. So to obey the church is to obey Christ. It is a mystical thing, the Holy Spirit guides the church.
I am with you on this journey. Having experienced Easter three times in a beautiful, beautiful place, I’m willing to accept Him into my life. That also means to join a community but I’m not looking at becoming converted, I want to be welcomed as who I am. Is there a church that I’m looking for? Is it Him I’m looking for? Is it His love that I’m longing? Or just my own?
It's quite a paradox, isn't it? I am definitely open to being touched and changed, but only by someone who already accepts me as I am now and does not insist that the change happens in any particular shape or form. I want to belong, but as a whole being among other whole beings who respect one another's individuality. Is this too much to ask?
It's possible! I wish you luck. I am extremely grateful to have found a church that truly fits that hole in my life and my heart and soul. Frankly I doubt I would've converted to Christianity in the first place if I didn't.
Sadly many many churches out there... don't really fit the bill, for various reasons. But that's ok! God will reward your genuine seeking if you let Him. :)
Hey, I've found a really deep resonance with Cynthia Bourgeault, and to a slightly lesser extent Thomas Keating - her maps on the imaginal realm, the trinity, and her interpretations of Christ and how his radically nondual teachings were misinterpreted more or less from the beginning all make a lot of sense to me, and speak to both my mind and heart...
Also have been really enjoying learning more Neoplatonism, and seeing how that informed Christian Neoplatonism, seems like a really coherent core version of Christianity with a bit less vulnerability to fundamentalism and stronger links to other philosophies and contemplative traditions.
Though these also may not quite be what you're looking for as they're not necessarily super kid/family-oriented versions of the Christian world... I dunno, I've got similar longings in that area (for some sort of wholesome, resonant Church that can ground family life and community) that I haven't figured out how to meet just yet
I resonate with this with every fibre of my being! And, what is this image? (Please say it's not AI!) It's so very beautiful, it feels like something I dreamed when I was a child... I have a book filled with sketches of a church I wanted to build when I was little, where the pillars were trees and the organic melded with the stained glass window and beautifully carved stone...
Thank you Sophie, glad to hear this resonates! I did make this image with AI, I tried to paint a forest church for many years now, but I'm not a very skilled painter. Now I finally have a tool to express what's been on my mind.
Well, I think this is doubly beautiful because what can be more beautiful than having your mind changed about something unexpectedly?! This is the first AI image I've come across that has driven home the idea that AI can be a tool at the service of human imagination, rather than something that degrades/dehumanises my sense of the artist's role. (Admittedly I haven't really been looking, because I had a natural inclination to be suspicious AI art.) Thank you for the beautiful piece, and for the beautiful art! It's wonderful following along your journey.
There is a community of called Ananda Sangha; you may find them unique in the way they worship Christ. Their way is of inner communion with Christ, with God, with Divine Mother..
I am! I go to a kinda standard, small, cozy little nondenominational church.
I don’t fit 🥲. But I can’t imagine going church searching again right now, so I’m just kind of doing my best to adjust my attitude 😅. (I’m tired, grandpa 🫠💜)
Just out of curiosity, why do you say "a version of Christianity" rather than "a religion"? What is specifically Christian about what you are looking for?
I could give a bunch of rational reasons for this: that it's the majority religion in our area, it's our cultural legacy which my kids will have to make sense of anyway, that this is how they'll bond with our family and their neighbors, that it aspires to be a universal religion uniting all people together. But ultimately none of this matters as much as... a strange longing of my heart, if that makes sense? I didn't want to get anywhere near the Christian God for the last 15 years, and now I do, and I'm probably more surprised by this than anyone.
Thanks for the context! I converted to Catholicism then deconverted from it; now my wife (who's atheist) wants us to baptize our baby so she can go to a nearby classical Montessori Catholic school that's a bit on the trad side of things. I have mixed thoughts and feelings about the matter. I have numerous intellectual and personal problems with Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. But the books that have shaped me most deeply are the Bible, Till We Have Faces, and The Return of the Prodigal Son, and I'd like to pass on the cultural context that makes appreciating those possible. Politically and ethically I'm libertarian, which is the exact opposite of Catholic social teaching. But I find myself less opposed to it than the alternative in the Boston area, which is a self-righteous ideological veneer on relentless careerism.
Dear Maria, I stumbled across you on Substack and have been following this incredible journey of yours for a little while. Like others in the comments here, I know it's not my place to proselytize or try to convince you of anything, because each person's journey is so precious and unique. In response to the question with which you titled this piece, I will be bold enough to ask, have you ever encountered Orthodox Christianity? I couldn't find any depth in the Protestantism I was raised in, and even a sincere attempt at Catholicism left me searching for something wilder, closer to the heart, more "pagan" so to speak. My husband dragged me to an Orthodox liturgy (kicking and screaming, essentially) and I was shocked to find a community of real people with real flaws who really love each other. I've seen so many versions of Christianity that organize themselves around some battle -- culture wars or infighting or something -- but never before Christians who just lived as Christians and fought the battle against their own darkness. As I looked deeper, I realized that this was the version of Christianity that had never been shaped by rationalism or modernity, that was still as wild and connected to the earth as paganism. Certainly not every parish will be like the one I attend but if you wanted to dip your toe in, Paul Kingsnorth or Martin Shaw might be good places to start.
Thank you Kathleen! I've been following Paul for a while and just came across Mark right now. I've heard great things about the Orthodox Church, but mostly from people living in the US I think? I don't think I know anyone who attends the Orthodox Church in my country.
There is an old woman at my church, about 90. Her face is wrinkled and her movements are stiff. She is the wife of the priest who died last year, her partner of over 60 years.
We had a new younger couple visit, and when they met her they decided to stay. (Pearl, she goes by. Beautiful name.) She greeted them with a smile, and embraced them and kissed them on the cheek and called them "sweetie". She asked where they were from and told them they were welcome.
These are small things. They sound so ordinary. But she does them in such a holy way. You can feel the love radiate off of her. I'm sure her body hurts. I'm sure she will die in not so many more years. But she is focused on other people, not herself. She is not scared of death. She has a peaceful heart and is faithful to the Lord.
When my baby son was born, I brought him to her to meet and to kiss. There is no formal authority for a priest's widow to bless. But I can smell holiness when the scent is strong enough, and I want her blessing on my child.
Could we all be like this? Could we all achieve such a refreshing demeanor, gentle and loving? Is this what it looks like to have the Holy Spirit?
Christianity is a religion of the heart. And the church, properly conceived, is a factory for the production of beautiful souls. Good luck on finding your place, and becoming all that you could be.
What a beautiful soul this woman must be! I don’t know many elders that I aspire to be like as I grow up, but she certainly sounds like this kind of a person ❤️
I am rooting for you! I hope you find it and narrate the journey 🙏❤️😊
I share this desire. One of my callings is to cultivate this type of community. There is a form of “church” in my life that is in the mustard seed stage, where I seek out and I nurture connections with others who share my desire. It doesn’t look like much, and it certainly doesn’t conform to our ideas of church, with stained glass or even a building. But it is growing roots. And maybe someday it will be a tree that birds can perch in. May you find your perch!
Kim, I loved your creation story so much. A very similar version has been on my mind for a while now, with Adam and Eve leaving the safe paradise of their Mother's womb to venture out into the broader world. I'd love to chat about this with you some day. It feels like there's something here waiting to be discovered.
I have an idea of where you're supposed to be, but it may not be my place to say.
Suffice it to say I think you're headed in the right direction and speak for a lot of people right now!
In James 1:5 we read if any of you lack wisdom, ask of God. Pray to God in the name of Jesus Christ for the answer, cry out with boldness and ask God to lead you to this church. If there be a God then surely He will answer your faith. Be willing to go to the weirdest place, wherever He says to go. I'll keep you in my prayers. Hang onto hope in this! Christ lives! May we all soon find each other as disciples of Him.
Thank you Plasma! I've truly been to the weirdest places on this journey already, and I'm not afraid to go to even weirder places still, but something tells me what I'm looking for might be closer than I could have guessed. I'll keep you posted!
🗣️ Amen!!!!! A beautiful vision. I’m so so blessed to be part of a church like this, and I hope you find yours 💕 the church will always be imperfect until glory - but she is beloved, she is being made new all the time, and she is made of us.
Maria it sure looks like I will have to binge read all of your posts because we are on the same path at the same time. It is a painful process but your heart is the homing signal calling you to Christ. I discovered Lydia’s story in Acts 16 and that has birthed a lot in my life including the Substack about the journey. 🙏🏽💜
It's incredible, isn't it? It seems like so many people are suddenly wrestling with these things now at the same time. I don't think I've ever paid attention to Lydia, I'll make sure to check her story out ❤️
Yes, yes, yes.
I really hope you find a church that is overflowing with love in this way.
I don’t mean to criticize you or patronize you but some of the things you say sometimes worry me. I speak as someone who was a part of the charismatic movement and first hand discovered that demons will and do take advantage of unsuspecting Christians who are part of churches that prioritize spiritual experience over spiritual truth. It like…ruined my life and was one of the most emotionally painful things I ever experienced. There is a lot of orthodox literature on the theological explanation of why this is a common experience, and many anctedotes as well of spiritual deception. I don’t want this or anything close to it for you!
Your searching for a version of Christianity that you could love, I fear, has the potential to lead you down the wrong path. It is entirely human, valid, and self-respecting to want to seek out a church that is not condemning and loves God and each other. If what you mean by “a version of Christianity” is how people in a church (catholic or orthodox preferably as they are the safest) relate to God and each other then I would no longer be worried.
But if you’re seeking a church or community that alters the faith to make its members feel comfortable I fear I’ve already seen the real cost of that. I hope this makes sense and doesn’t come across as condescending. I really just don’t want anyone to experience what I did!!!
I've had this conversation with my mom many times, and I know that just like my mom you wish me nothing but the best. I don't know if I have the right words to get my point across, but I'll try it anyway.
You know that scene in Moana where she reaches out with love to a raging fiery demon, and that demon suddenly gets transformed into a gentle goddess showering her with blessings? My experience with the spirit world has been very much like that.
For as long as I saw any spirits trying to reach me as the enemy, that's how they would present themselves. Then I took a part in rituals and ceremonies from other non-Christian traditions, where such contacts are nothing out of ordinary, and there are long traditions of best practices built around that.
If I were to seek spiritual experiences, Christian churches would be probably the last place where I would look for them. Most Christians are probably better off without this kind of stuff. However, the kind of people who get visited by spirits for some reason seem to do so regardless of their faith. I had loved ones who never strayed from official church teachings and dogma, and were still haunted by demons in their final days. Looking back, I really wish they had some other interpretations of what was happening available to them.
I don’t think it’s worth arguing intellectually on why I think you’re wrong. I was not converted to the orthodox Christian worldview because it was just explained to me and I adopted it.
What I can do, is offer my testimony of the real evil that is out there and how I made sense of my experience.
I would encourage you to also seek out other testimonies as well as intellectual treatises by orthodox Christian’s before you make a decision on what you end up doing.
My experience is not rare. It is very common for people who end up in the occult world, or even the charismatic Christian movement, to end up converting after experiencing a “fall” — something that is really damaging, and brought on by spiritual delusion as result of the influence of a spirit. Many people actually end up committing suicide because it is so devastating. By Gods grace I was given the humility to accept that I had been wrong and did not know Him, and the strength to bear that pain.
To realize i was in communion with a demon, after receiving so many blessings, love, and these feelings I had been seeking out — it felt like true acceptance from this demon — for the first time in my entire life.. well, there has only been one event that was more painful for me than that, and it was going no contact with my family, which is what spurred on my spiritual seeking in the first place. It was a devastating loss. I cannot stress enough how awful it was.
Okay, so what happened? I’ll try to be brief.
1) stage 1: I was friends with a twitter guy who was very into IFS. I started practicing this, believing it would lead me to salvation (salvation means healing, not just going to heaven).
There were several experiences where it WAS healing, I gained a lot of self knowledge, and I attribute a lot of my continued self awareness to peering into my depths.
This honey moon phase lasted like 6 months, with extreme and intensive effort. I wasn’t working at the time, believing I needed to fix myself first.
2) stage two: Those experiences went from liberating in the beginning to trapping near the end.
I experienced at one point what is called “blending” in IFS. This is suspiciously very similar to inflation in jungain therapy, which was Jung’s way of psychologizing spirit possession. I am not entirely sure what I believe regarding IFS parts anymore. It is probable that they are spirits who wish to portray themselves as us, so that we seek healing inside of ourselves and not through the church.
This was brought on by a “kundalini awakening experience” that I had after doing yoga at my gym. I ended up seeing and speaking with spirits that claimed to be my future self, I saw “visions” in my mind for 4 hours or so, and was overwhelmed with extreme emotions surrounding the things I had suffered in life.
This stage happened about 2.5 years after my spiritual seeking began. I was atheist at the time. I was in a state where I was possessed by “my infant self” and was in a state of terror constantly, completely irrationally. It was like being paralyzed emotionally. I could hardly do anything except lay around. Highly possible it was brought on by spirit possession, not “blending” as IFS portrays these experiences.
This lasted 4 months.
3) stage 3: I accidentally opened the door even further to spirits of darkness, not knowing what I was doing. I was totally convinced of the IFS mindset of what I was experiencing.
In my state of desperation as a result of this “blending,” I sought help from a traditional reiki professional. Worse than that, I had no clue that reiki professionals who train in Japan have been influenced by theosophy, the occult movement who’s motto is “do as thou wilt” and believes Satan to be the hero of the Bible.
I also signed up for an Akashic records reading, which comes from theosophy.
The reiki professional shocked me, because I was an atheist, by describing what I was seeing in my minds eye WITHOUT me telling her what I was seeing. We saw the same things, at the same time.
She introduced me to a 3 year old part (more evidence that parts are foreign, not just an element of the individuals psyche) and said that if I were to commune with this part I would become playful.
More influential, and more wicked, was that she introduced me to “my soul.” This was, in her view, my eternal self, the part of me that sent me to earth so it may evolve.
It appeared like an old wise woman, surrounded by a felid of flowers and a halo. In other words, it appeared to me as a spirit of light.
She also taught me how to “commune with the soul” which I began to do in earnest.
At this point, my materialistic framework had been shattered. There was no way to describe this experience by materialistic terms without being ultimately dismissive of the experience.
Stage 4: I communed with the soul, particularly through sound meditation and yoga at my gym.
Shortly after meeting (about a month later) this spirit, I met it again during a slow yoga class and it guided me through “freeing” my infant self from its terror. The way by which this happened is I “created” a home for my infant self and took it away from an area full of storms and beasts.
After that, the “blending” (as I type this, I am more and more convinced it was possession) ended and I felt very free.
Stage 5: I sought communion with this spirit but I kept having experiences that were surprising to me. For example, at one point, I questioned the “soul” about its true nature and after a ton of questioning, it revealed itself as an angry, spiteful, baboon — just an image that flashed for a second. When I questioned it on this, It said it can only be evil to those who wish me harm, and not to me, because I am the “soul” and it is me.
Then, after this questioning, it said i was clinging to it too hard and appeared to fly away into the heavens as if it was an angel.
Either way, I felt more and more scared by the idea that a separate entity was me, that I was not fully in control of my life, that my life did not belong to myself but to a being that claimed to want me only to self actualized and then revealed itself as evil.
During this time, I also experienced more experiences with spirits, the primary one that Jung would call archetypal is one that seemed to be “my animus.” This just led to further confusing, and quite frankly, no healing whatsoever. I found Jung’s red book, his writings on kundalini, and they explained my experiences. But that just led me further into deception.
This lasted maybe 3-5 months.
Stage 6: for a myriad of reasons, perhaps predominantly because I was interested in Jung and my materialist framework had been shattered and I was scared of what I was experiencing, I became intellectually curious about religions, having no clue about anything. I thought I might become a Jew or a Christian and that they were equal.
Either way, I eventually stopped seeking out spiritual experiences because they were odd and didn’t seem to do me any good. I started going to a nondenominational church, mostly because it was an 8 min walk away.
This church encouraged us to seek out spiritual experiences, to seek out the “voice of God.”
Eventually I did, and so I had them.
This stage lasted about another 4 months.
Stage 7: I’m kind of an all or nothing person. Once I had those experiences, I remained some what skeptical of them.
Then something happened where the pastor was talking about the need to commit yourself to Christ, over your commitment to worldly things like career, and this struck me to my bones, especially the passage in Matthew — whoever looks for themselves will lose themselves, whoever loses themselves will find themselves.
I became extremely committed to “Christ,” giving up my work at the spirits command, praying 4-6 hours a day in a beautiful catholic cathedral.
I had experiences that are confirmed by the catholic church as legitimately from god but not by the Orthodox Church. I experienced a miracle where my TMJ was fixed after years of pain, having had a “vision” of Christ’s finger touching my jaw. I experienced the “rapture” st. Teresa of aliva experienced.
Over time, the demands of this false Christ intensified. It claimed that I was chosen by God to prophecize to my community (something the nondenominational church believes god does — selects certain people to say his words to others). I was given prophecies surrounding the election and the hurricane that devastated a lot of the U.S.
Throughout this time, my church members confirmed my experiences. No one thought I might’ve been in the throws of prelest by a demon. I even went to the church directly for help both committing myself to Jesus, which led me to seeking out commune with this spirit they believed to be Jesus by their direction, and rejection of the “soul” — by which I experienced a false exorcism, seeing the “soul” put in chains. I also even sought help from them with discernment on if i was truly in communion with God.
Eventually, I was asked by the spirit to do a fast for 7 days and I did. As scripture warns, Satan uses scripture to manipulate us. Protestants believe we can read the Bible and know what it means. Well. Clearly I am a testimony against that. I was lead into a very grave sin by this spirit, one that hurt the people closest to me.
I remained in spiritual delusion after committing this sin for about a week before I realized that indeed it had been a spirit. Ironically, someone in my life “received a prophecy from God” that this would happen and told me that jezebel would attack me. When she said the name jezebel, the room went cold and the hair on my arms stood on their ends. I prayed reverently to hear from God I was deceived, and the answer I heard back repeatedly was no, but eventually I heard “you have been deceived.
Well, I’m still recovering from all that, frankly. All and all, that was 4 years of my life spent in communion with demons.
Will follow up with how I made sense of this experience.
After all of this, I went to see an orthodox priest at the recommendation of a friend. He anointed me with oil, told me to stop listening to the demons, taught me to do the sign of the cross, and taught me to pray the Jesus prayer.
The voices of the spirits stopped within 3 days.
Only orthodoxy can provide a coherent explanation of why this happens. We can only have spiritual experiences to this degree as a result of attaining to spiritual perfection. This means the elimination of the passions and sin within us. Only through the removal of the darkness in our own souls can the Holy Spirit reside within us.
For every spiritual gift, Satan has counterfeits. We must be wary of this truth. He appears as an angel of light. He will offer us the world in exchange for our ultimate death and destruction.
All of my friends who had a “relationship with God” and this church were likewise under spiritual deception. However, only a few were as deceived as I was. One of them became very wealthy through art at the direction of “Jesus.” (Another thing I experienced near the end, the spirit commanded me to paint and told me I would be very successful). Another received prophecies that came true.
But what’s far more common is the experience of what is understood as “fancy” in orthodoxy. One does not have the extreme spiritual experiences I did without seeking them out and being very committed to the search for them. Most people don’t do this, they have jobs, they have lives, they seek instead to pray and hear from God when they can.
But when they do hear from god they have “feel good” and “healing”experiences or even experiences that seem sanctifying that do not lead to salvation or true healing which is to be transformed to be Christ like in the interior of a persons being. That only happens through the church.
An example I can give is of a friend who “heard from God” that he was a very colorful person and should feel more comfortable showing his colors to others. This had a very positive effect on his life. He became more personable, more sociable.
But that does not lead to the true experience of joy or peace of the Holy Spirit which relies purely on the Holy Spirit residing within us. It was not sanctifying, it relied on a bolstering of his ego.
This friend I am speaking about, and all of my friends, though under deception, are extremely earnest Christian’s. They believe themselves to be pious, and they are in a sense, in the way our church has taught us to be.
But that is precisely the evil. These people do not know what they are doing, they are worshipping the antichrist. Not even the pastors know this, they earnestly seek to bring people to Christ. None of them are evil or wicked. It’s a devastating realization that people can be so easily deceived in the pursuit of earnest faith and love of God.
This is why the church dogma is so important. It’s why we can’t decide who God is for ourselves. God is of one nature, there is only one true claim to who he is. Any deviation from the true understanding of God will alter who we worship and what we perceive as the spiritual path. This is most obvious in the charismatic movement.
I highly, highly, highly recommend that you read orthodoxy and the religion of the future. It’s a challenging read, but it illuminated the darkness behind these “positive” spiritual experiences I had. I hope you read it and it adds depth to my own testimony.
I say all of this only because I understand where you are coming from and I have come out of the other side of that mindset. I have immense empathy for you. I had a catholic mother who only used the faith against me, criticizing me for sins without becoming sanctified herself. This made me hate the faith and conceive of Christianity in an entirely negative way. It is not an easy thing to overcome.
It sounds like your church community in general was Christian in name but divorced from the interior transformation we seek on the spiritual path. A woman seeking to deny the self through sacrifice to the husband’s will in a spirit of resentment or prideful identity, for instance, is not at all what God actually wants. Nor is it sanctifying.
I understand where you’re coming from, but I would really encourage you to seek out understanding of how your church may have failed you, identify the errors they made in their own conception of Christ, and then seek a community that is aligned with the true nature of God. From what I can tell, it is not God who failed you, but your community. And it is okay if that sent you down a path of seeking, or full of doubt, or anger or anything at all. All God wants is to have you back.
Thank you Laura for writing this all up. It might take me a while to take it all in, but for now I'll just say I'm so happy to hear you finally found a place where your heart is at peace.
Thank you!! And yes totally reasonable. It’s a lot for ME to take in lol and I experienced it
So I want to think carefully about how I reply, and I’ll try my best and return to this..
What I can say right now is we had very similar experiences though in reverse. I started with the occult world and became Christian after it destroyed my life, and yeah I did actually perceive those spirits as “good,” because that’s how they appeared to me…
I will come back to this later tho so don’t bother responding rn. I slept 2 hours last night and don’t want to say anything mean or insensitive on accident 🫡
Yes, it's fascinating how we're coming from opposite directions, with a lot of similar experiences but in reverse. I don't know much about the occult, but everyone I know who identifies with this label doesn't seem to me like a good role model for what I want out of life. However, I've met incredibly wise people coming from all sorts of lineages and traditions, Christian yes, but also yoga, Zen, or various Native American or Amazonian tribes.
Hope you can get some rest soon!
Laura -- I've had and seen a lot of similar experiences and now operate under very much similar cautions. Kudos, you phrased it well. The devil can manipulate us through interesting or obscure knowledge, beautiful and loving experiences, claiming to want our 'good' (but really, it's a lesser good than the greatest good). Only surrender and obedience to God is true protection for our souls & lives. It's a fire of protection, no charismatic slippery words can slip past it, but we have to let go of the things not of God (otherwise we can't enter/ we get burned too). Jesus' highest virtue was not His intelligence but His obedience & trust in God the Father. Same goes for Virgin Mary.
Also agreed that Protestants collapsed necessary theological tensions (that kept truths alive), rituals, etc -- Catholic and Orthodox traditions are best in giving us tools to navigate the paradoxes of faith and life. To keep & grow in right relationship with God, with each other, with ourselves, with the world.
It's interesting that you gave Jesus as an example of obedience to God, because it took Him so far from the established orthodoxy at that time that the priests literally got Him killed. So at least in His case and possibly also early Apostles obeying God's will and obeying the established religious hierarchy did not exactly align.
Yeah you’re bringing up a reasonable tension.
I’m not formally trained in theology, but we can look at the story of the woman caught in adultery for insight into how Christ fulfilled the Law by revealing its true purpose.
According to the Law of Moses, a woman caught in adultery was to be stoned. Yet Christ says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Christ Himself was without sin, and by that logic, He alone had the authority to condemn her. Instead, he says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”
This seems confusing. In Orthodox understanding, when we say Christ fulfilled the Law, we mean that He brought the Law to its fullness.
The Law was never an end in itself. It was a preparation, leading Israel toward communion with God. In Christ, that communion is now possible.
Through His death and resurrection, Christ creates the New Covenant, not built on grace, repentance, and the healing of the soul. The Law said “stone the sinner,” but Christ, who is the Lawgiver Himself, says “repent and be healed.”
Many of the religious leaders of Israel did not recognize Christ because they had come to treat the Law as the ultimate good, rather than as a means of drawing near to the living God. That’s why Christ criticizes the Pharisees so severely. They had inverted the hierarchy, placing the letter of the Law above the love and mercy of God.
So it’s not that Jesus came to oppose religious authority. He came to fulfill it, to correct its distortions, and to reorient the people of God toward their true purpose: union with Him. And indeed we are only able to commune with God after his death and resurrection.
Also worth mentioning that the Orthodox Church is the body of Christ with Christ himself being the head. So to obey the church is to obey Christ. It is a mystical thing, the Holy Spirit guides the church.
Yes, absolutely. Satan offered Jesus the world in a way that would not have led to the defeat of death or sin.
This is exactly what Satan does to us on an individual level.
I am with you on this journey. Having experienced Easter three times in a beautiful, beautiful place, I’m willing to accept Him into my life. That also means to join a community but I’m not looking at becoming converted, I want to be welcomed as who I am. Is there a church that I’m looking for? Is it Him I’m looking for? Is it His love that I’m longing? Or just my own?
It's quite a paradox, isn't it? I am definitely open to being touched and changed, but only by someone who already accepts me as I am now and does not insist that the change happens in any particular shape or form. I want to belong, but as a whole being among other whole beings who respect one another's individuality. Is this too much to ask?
It's possible! I wish you luck. I am extremely grateful to have found a church that truly fits that hole in my life and my heart and soul. Frankly I doubt I would've converted to Christianity in the first place if I didn't.
Sadly many many churches out there... don't really fit the bill, for various reasons. But that's ok! God will reward your genuine seeking if you let Him. :)
Hey, I've found a really deep resonance with Cynthia Bourgeault, and to a slightly lesser extent Thomas Keating - her maps on the imaginal realm, the trinity, and her interpretations of Christ and how his radically nondual teachings were misinterpreted more or less from the beginning all make a lot of sense to me, and speak to both my mind and heart...
Also have been really enjoying learning more Neoplatonism, and seeing how that informed Christian Neoplatonism, seems like a really coherent core version of Christianity with a bit less vulnerability to fundamentalism and stronger links to other philosophies and contemplative traditions.
Though these also may not quite be what you're looking for as they're not necessarily super kid/family-oriented versions of the Christian world... I dunno, I've got similar longings in that area (for some sort of wholesome, resonant Church that can ground family life and community) that I haven't figured out how to meet just yet
I resonate with this with every fibre of my being! And, what is this image? (Please say it's not AI!) It's so very beautiful, it feels like something I dreamed when I was a child... I have a book filled with sketches of a church I wanted to build when I was little, where the pillars were trees and the organic melded with the stained glass window and beautifully carved stone...
Thank you Sophie, glad to hear this resonates! I did make this image with AI, I tried to paint a forest church for many years now, but I'm not a very skilled painter. Now I finally have a tool to express what's been on my mind.
Well, I think this is doubly beautiful because what can be more beautiful than having your mind changed about something unexpectedly?! This is the first AI image I've come across that has driven home the idea that AI can be a tool at the service of human imagination, rather than something that degrades/dehumanises my sense of the artist's role. (Admittedly I haven't really been looking, because I had a natural inclination to be suspicious AI art.) Thank you for the beautiful piece, and for the beautiful art! It's wonderful following along your journey.
There is a community of called Ananda Sangha; you may find them unique in the way they worship Christ. Their way is of inner communion with Christ, with God, with Divine Mother..
https://youtu.be/GWoHPru2dZc?t=226
Lyrics
When human hopes toward Thee aspire,
Dark woods of grief are set afire!
Beyond all reach of earthly skill:
Thy love alone our hearts can fill.
Christ’s light that shone on earth from heaven
Opened for us the inner door.
To all who love, the gift is given:
Joy and freedom evermore!
You have described the exact desire of my heart, as well 😮💨❤️🩹
So good to hear I'm not the only one ❤️ Following you on Twitter I thought you were active in some local church, right? What kind of a church is that?
I am! I go to a kinda standard, small, cozy little nondenominational church.
I don’t fit 🥲. But I can’t imagine going church searching again right now, so I’m just kind of doing my best to adjust my attitude 😅. (I’m tired, grandpa 🫠💜)
Just out of curiosity, why do you say "a version of Christianity" rather than "a religion"? What is specifically Christian about what you are looking for?
I could give a bunch of rational reasons for this: that it's the majority religion in our area, it's our cultural legacy which my kids will have to make sense of anyway, that this is how they'll bond with our family and their neighbors, that it aspires to be a universal religion uniting all people together. But ultimately none of this matters as much as... a strange longing of my heart, if that makes sense? I didn't want to get anywhere near the Christian God for the last 15 years, and now I do, and I'm probably more surprised by this than anyone.
Thanks for the context! I converted to Catholicism then deconverted from it; now my wife (who's atheist) wants us to baptize our baby so she can go to a nearby classical Montessori Catholic school that's a bit on the trad side of things. I have mixed thoughts and feelings about the matter. I have numerous intellectual and personal problems with Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. But the books that have shaped me most deeply are the Bible, Till We Have Faces, and The Return of the Prodigal Son, and I'd like to pass on the cultural context that makes appreciating those possible. Politically and ethically I'm libertarian, which is the exact opposite of Catholic social teaching. But I find myself less opposed to it than the alternative in the Boston area, which is a self-righteous ideological veneer on relentless careerism.
May God bless your search with a clear answer, just for you, wherever in the world you live.
I read down the list of your wishes--your needs, really-- and said yes, yes, yes. I have these, except no cathedrals.
God will provide for you.