Love this and find it very relatable. I've been reengaging with Christianity in the past couple of months with a very different focus than the religion of my upbringing - I've read a few books by Christian mystics and Quakers. I found a kids illustrated bible book that is adorable - "The Book of Belonging". I've also been enjoying attending Sunday services at a local Episcopal church with my toddler and even started to pray as a family. I still have so much baggage with concepts like God and Jesus, but engaging with all of this in a new way has been really nice
Thanks for the book recommendation, I haven't heard about this one before! How does your toddler find the church services? My daughter only attended Mass during a few weddings and funerals, and she started acting up pretty fast. I guess it takes some practice for children to be able to attend.
He actually goes to the nursery! He's under 2, I think the nursery is for 0-5. I see young kids in the service with their parents, too, so it feels like open to either way.
I can also recommend "The Universal Christ" by Richard Rohr as an adult oriented book that might interest you.
Wow, religious life in the US seems so different than what we have here! For all the years I've spent actively involved in the church there were no nurseries, no potlucks, no meal trains. Seems like a completely different world!
This is so beautifully written, thank you for sharing. It's so interesting how differently something can land on different ears - my Catholic faith feels tender and mysterious and lovely to me, but I can see how different it felt to you and why you're searching. I think you'd really enjoy and be interested in Elizabeth Oldfield's book Fully Alive - it explores so many of the themes you bring up here. And, Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen has been such a hugely important book for me in recent years. Sending love for your quest, from a fellow questing soul.
Thank you for your kind words and for the book recommendation. Adding it to my reading list.
Did you grow up Catholic too? I recently heard how Catholic teachings around sin are liberating for adults with some life experience but can often be really hard on children, and I can totally see how this could be the case.
I did grow up Catholic but with exceptional parents - converts in their late twenties, very open (never would have reacted the way your mum did for example, much more like your approach to anger, let me feel all the feelings), very gentle, did things their own way very intuitively... I see now as a parent myself how special what they gave me was, how hard to do, and how unusual for their generation, whatever your faith background. I knew that I was safe with them, always, and could feel how friends (whether their parents had a faith or not) didn't have that to the same degree with their parents... Which makes me wonder if it's much more of a generational thing than a faith based thing. That being said, I totally agree, we do have to be so careful how we explain the concept of sin to kids and perhaps are only now realising how careful we need to be here, in our generation. I'm constantly looking back to my childhood trying to figure out what my parents did, how they taught me, to facilitate what I experienced/experience now. I ask mum regularly and she can't really answer 😅 sadly my dad died 11 years ago so I can't ask him, but I ask him to help me from where he is being held in love in eternity every day. ❤️🔥
Thank you for sharing this piece!! I was not raised in the church but relate to a lot of your experience. As a teen convert I ended up in dysfunctional evangelical churches that messed with my relationship with God, myself, and other people in ways I’m still recovering from.
My dream would be to find an emotionally intelligent, non-cultish house church. I think there’s something about the scale and structure of institutional religious communities that makes healthy relationships really difficult.
That being said, my husband, son and I have started experimenting with going to a “regular” church in our little town. Right now it’s going ok, but I’m waiting to see how they feel when they find out about my unconventional beliefs about sin, power, and the nature of love/God…
I feel like I've gone through a similar thought process as you've detailed here -- except raised as Protestant. I remember assisting in VBS schools and "preaching" to kids when I was in youth group and feeling really uncomfortable with the verbiage of it all -- we were told to tell kids, "Have you ever lied? Well then you're guilty of breaking all the commandments, and if you died tonight you'd go to hell -- but if you say this prayer and ask Jesus into your heart TODAY you'll be in heaven with God instead" and then of course kids would say the prayers they'd tally up the number of souls they saved every year at VBS. I'd ask, "Aren't we supposed to be learning from the children, not condemning them?" Which resulted me in not being permitted to be alone with the kids even though I was the only one with siblings and who had any experience teaching children in general.
I also get what you mean about anger -- I've dealt with a lot of kids who have anger issues, and while you can correct the behavior, it's a little harder dealing with the attitude. Often these kids are going through something hard and they need to be able to feel what they're feeling in a safe way -- while still understanding that they can't manipulate or abuse others because of how they feel. The way I felt I could help them best was by always remaining calm, never yelling or screaming back, disciplining only if it got out of line, and not reacting in the way that they might "expect". In every single case these children mellowed out and became sweet and empathetic children. My parents never yelled at me in any way, and I never realized how damaging this is for children until I went to live with a family that constantly yelled. I was an adult by then, but still had difficulty interacting with people who got too angry after that for awhile -- and their poor children were very, very messed up. It was the most stressful environment I've ever been in.
I'm now married to a Catholic man, and the Church certainly has issues from all I can tell as someone who will be converting soon, but I also feel like it's much more accepting of children and femininity in a way I never felt in any other church. For years I felt a little bitter toward the church I'd gone to for various "unchristian" behaviors as I perceived it all to be, and so I "church-hopped for years not really looking for another place to be, just observing the differences between all the churches available around me. Through that I found I was most certainly religious, but not necessarily drawn to any specific church. This has only changed now that I'm married and expecting our first child and feeling ready to have a secure place to have our children learn about God and life and religioun.
“ ‘Aren't we supposed to be learning from the children, not condemning them?’ Which resulted me in not being permitted to be alone with the kids” — that’s heartbreaking!
You might really enjoy looking at Maria Montessori's work on religious education... she was a devout Catholic and she and some co-workers created a whole system of religious education, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, that is very, very different from the body- and creation-negative, sin-centric framework that you experienced.
My only other big observation is that I believe Christianity is not identical with that negative vision of it! Not just believe, I know... It just takes work -- study, existential struggle, determination -- to find a different vision and bring it to life in one's heart.
Thank you, this is an excellent idea! I didn't know she wrote about religion too.
I know there's much more to Christianity than what I experienced in my peculiar bubble, although my entire country seems to be a sort of such bubble in a way. Hopefully one day I'll encounter a version that does not require me to disown parts of myself. I don't know if such version exists or is even possible, but I'm curious to find out.
That last part is what Christianity is though. It's relational to where we're at, but it reconciles us upwards. This is why man was created dirt + spirit that became soul. It's also why in the beatitudes Christ says "be perfect" (Matthew 5:48) and "blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). They both become the same thing when you give yourself up to Christ. I think Romans 6:22 does a good job capturing it, but galatians 5:22-23 with romans 13:3 did it for me. It's perpetual resurrection. Anyways good article. Hope everything is fine.
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
I relate to so much of this! I was raised in a hardcore Reformed Baptist church (my dad was the pastor), and there was a big emphasis on Calvinist teaching about the total depravity of humanity and the anger of God. I remember being terrified of hell from a very young age, and would desperately pray to be saved. But God felt very distant and angry, and the emphasis was very much on relating to God in an intellectual way, learning about theology and attending Bible studies, making sure you had the right ideas about God rather than about actually knowing God. I abandoned Christianity completely in my 20s and was “spiritual but not religious” for about five years. I travelled all over the world got really into ashtanga yoga and loved the feeling of moving meditation that it gave me. Then I met my now husband and settled down and we got married and had a baby. And it just exploded all my ideas about pretty much everything 😅 I was totally unprepared for the physicality of motherhood, and the degree of embodiment it demanded. Suddenly all my ideas about autonomy and independence evaporated like a puff of smoke and I had to grapple with the stark reality of how much my baby needed me. I did end up feeling pulled back towards Christianity, but not the denomination I grew up in. It was actually the Theotokos/Virgin Mary who was my gateway back into faith, I felt like she was pursuing me for a while and I carried a set of rosary beads around like a lucky charm for months before I began trying to pray to her.
Long story short I’ve ended up at an Eastern Orthodox Church. One of the things that attracted me was the idea of Theosis, that humans can actually know God and become like God in a real sense. Which was totally new to me. And their emphasis on the goodness of the physical world was refreshing.
Thank you for sharing your experience in this beautiful piece, motherhood is a wild ride that’s for sure.
What a beautiful story ❤️ Autonomy and independence is probably a necessary part of growing up, but there's just so much more that life has to offer.
Are you still involved in yoga or some other sort of moving meditation? I recently met a Catholic mom who was also a yoga teacher and was quite surprised, I thought these two don't usually go together.
This is a huge red flag (and one of my greatest pet peeves) if anyone suggests yoga and [insert religious denomination] don’t go together. Yoga is a part of Hinduism but is not, in itself, a religion. What you describe in your piece makes me immediately think of yoga and Eastern practices. The issue with these practices is that the community aspect doesn’t manifest in church form and so that community piece is harder to come by that you’re searching for. I personally found community in yoga studios but when my practice matured, the studios no longer fit for me and there was no real spiritual community (it was always centered around the physical). Plus there is the cost (I have worked in “yoga world” my entire career so it was always free for me but it’s pricey.) But on a spiritual note, much of what you speak to around the beliefs you’ve come to on your own can actually be found in tantric philosophy, which of course has a specific (totally misunderstood) connotation in the West and would most likely be immediately dismissed as sinful by most Western religious communities (this is merely a power play, which has always been my personal struggle with organized religion in general—they’re seeking to control). I totally understand your quest for community and that it can most easily be found in the church—I have many friends who have found great solace in their church communities from many different denominations (including Mormon and Catholic). I would encourage you to keep searching for a community that fulfills your need for connection but that also accepts and is open to all sorts of ideas from around the world. There is a famous quote in yoga from the Vedas: “the Truth is one; the wise call it by many names.” Anyway, I wish you luck! Motherhood is a wild, isolating ride.
Yeah I'm lucky that my yoga teacher is too a mom of little kids, but even she finds it hard to find ways to include kids in the community that's grown around her studio. We took our daughters on a bunch of retreats together, but it was mostly dads taking care of them during sessions. You are right that price matters a lot too!
My most charitable interpretation of when people say their religion doesn't go together with yoga, is either 1) I don't know where exactly these practices originate from and what was their intended purpose so I'd rather be safe, or 2) this world and physical bodies are a mere distraction from spiritual pursuits rather than an integral part of them. Which I understand on some level, but personally I'm interested in religious life that's open to learning from all people and traditions, and deeply rooted in the physical world and bodies.
I don’t practice ashtanga anymore, I found it wasn’t something I could do for just 15 or 20 minutes, which is typically how long I get undisturbed. But I do still practice yoga on and off, I try and do a couple of short practices each week but tbh sometimes I will go weeks without getting on my mat. I’m not sure what the orthodox position is on yoga, I should probably ask our priest about it!
"Can these two not just coexist, but love and support each other, lift each other up in a passionate union? I try to imagine a church that would honor and celebrate a marriage of holy masculine and feminine, but it feels like reinventing the whole Cosmos from scratch."
"These two" are called justice and mercy and they are complementary. The Greeks used to philosophize about them being at odds with one another. Christianity was the first to see that they are integrated with each other.
Justice is fundamental and gives each person what they are due. Rules and laws are necessary to ensure this and so are consequences if they are broken. Consequences are both a deterrence to breaking the law/rule and what is due the person who breaks them. When laws and rules are broken, a debt is incurred to the person or to society who was harmed as a result. "You must strive to do better" is a matter of justice. We all benefit from those around us striving to do better and we benefit others when we strive to do better as well. Justice, however, will not do away with compassion and leniency because then it's just "an eye for an eye."
Mercy will go beyond what a person is due. It will recognize the weakness or circumstances that may have caused someone to break rules/laws or recognize that the behavior is out of the order of their usual character. Mercy, not being opposed to justice will recognize and point out the justice that is due but will also show compassion and leniency. Mercy says "I don't condemn you to the consequences due.," (it may give a consequence less than what is due or no consequence at all) but it also says, "Go and sin no more."
"Stop, I won't let you hit me. “If you’re so angry that you feel like you must hit something, go and hit that pillow instead” is both justice and mercy.
A stern command is given without hitting back and recognition that she doesn't possess the words or maturity to control her outburst. She is given permission to use an acceptable outlet for her frustration.
What if she continued to hit instead of stomping her feet? What if hitting is becoming a bad, recurring habit for dealing with anger? At that point, it might be a mercy to give a consequence because for her to not learn how to better deal with her anger may lead to more dire societal imposed consequences later.
The disagreement between you and your mother was the tension between differing views on where to draw the line between giving what is due and how much mercy to show.
A good church will teach both justice and mercy. Personally, I have found that in the Catholic Church but I also realize that other human beings can have a profound impact on our understanding of Her and what She teaches.
Thank you for explaining this in detail! For some reason the word mercy does not sound like a loving embrace to me at all, I'd rather be given justice than whatever I understood as mercy when I was a kid. Do you have some favorite books or articles where I could read more about it?
I've found that many concepts about the faith were either misunderstood because I was not yet capable of grasping them or were poorly explained by others who may not have understood them fully. As adults, we can sometimes find our understanding stuck at a very elementary level from how we interpreted something as a child.
I left the Church in my late teens and early twenties because there were many things that didn't make sense to me. I dabbled a little in New Age type beliefs but I sensed something was missing there as well. I felt a need to decide whether I was going to accept or reject the faith I was raised in. I began with reading books written by converts to the faith to learn what they saw from the outside looking in. I was astounded at the depth, breadth, and beauty of what they found in the Church and at how much I really didn't know even though I attended Catholic school. I ordered a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to try to fill in the gaps of both my education and my understanding. I found that extremely useful.
My Substack is literally all about this journey. I left faith for a time and did all the spiritual things. I thought it was a lovely playground until it wasn’t and it turned on me. That is how I realized darkness is real just as the light is real. I came to realize that I was following false light and it wasn’t what it appeared like on the surface. I made my way back to God and everything clicked into place. Truth crashed into me like a tidal wave. I follow the Bible and Jesus now. Still trying to find the right church but the completeness and peace I’ve found in Him, nothing compares to.
I do think we inherit the curse of sin from the garden, but I also think little children do many things because of their normal development and shouldn’t be shamed for these things. I am a gentle parent, I allow my children to express all of their feelings while still holding boundaries.
The Catholic Church (and for that matter many Protestant denominations as well) adds in many man made rules and can make things works based. God doesn’t need us to strive in order to earn His favor. He loves us completely and unconditionally. He has guidelines to protect us, just as I wouldn’t let a toddler run into the street, knowing the dangers. But even if we choose our own way, even if we walk away from Him, He never stops loving us. His love is so great, so beautiful and far reaching.
Our bodies are beautiful. God created them. He created intimacy, sunsets, babies, flowers, and laughter. This world is imperfect in its current state, but it is also beautiful. And God has promised He will make everything new. It will all be redeemed. For now we exist in this beautiful in between, taking the beauty with the pain. His song is written on our hearts and we will always find ourselves drawn back to Him.
If you truly seek truth and a solid foundation, seek Him. Ask Him to reveal Himself. He promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him.
Also, it all comes down to who Jesus is. Spirituality and Christian mysticism will say He is an ascended master, or a great teacher. That He came to teach us Christ consciousness. As long as He is a way but not THE way, it’s accepted. Yet Jesus Himself said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He spoke this to me in a time in my life where I believed something entirely different.
Not all angels are of God. Fallen angels can appear as light. Jesus is the gate and when we circumvent Him and find other means to the supernatural we can be deceived by the shiny imitations that at the end of the day are a magician’s trick, smoke and mirrors. Beautifully deceptive, but not the truth. I’d rather have sobering truths than beautiful lies at the end of the day. But there’s a cost, a surrender to letting go of a worldview. Yet what comes after is far better and well worth the cost.
You should check Lama Tsutrim Allione’s works. She’s a spiritual leader who has kids and has written books about women in spirituality, but is also coming from an Asian spiritual background.
What you describing with conservatism leading to big families and spiritual but not religious leading to divorces is very interesting. I think it’s because conservatism puts this idea that the needs of the family are to be prioritized above the needs of individual. Personal happiness is not goal in that setting. And spiritual, but not religious is a kind of a new western thing which has the western values of individualism embedded in it, so it’s natural to prioritize personal well-being above the needs of the family and the clan. The causality makes perfect sense.
Yes, individualism is definitely a big part of it, and it probably arose as an overcorrection for Christian insistence on self-sacrifice. There must be some middle ground here, but I have not yet seen good examples of how this could look like.
"The conversation I had with my mom about anger reminded me what my other problem could be. I really struggle with the concept of sin when applied to little kids. Growing up like this taught me nothing but wallowing in guilt, gave me no tools to actually deal with my anger or despair in a way that didn’t hurt anyone."
Yeah this is a horribly Western view - this idea that sin is some horrible debt we owe to God, and we are bad for it. Hate to see it.
The Orthodox tend to see the church more as a hospital than a place of penance.
Hi, there! I’m a mother of six, still married to the kids father, and I am spiritual not religious. My oldest will turn 15 this year. I am in a group with my kids for secular homeschoolers with many larger (4+ kids) families who are also spiritual - and have solid marriages. I have seen some of the biggest marriage explosions or uncovered hidden affairs and such by religious and spiritual alike. Humans are humans. It never helps to try and box in a set of people. If you are Christian leaning - excellent! Happy you are finding your path. The broad assumption that the spiritual end up in broken marriages is not the norm you believe it to be.
Apologize if that came across as a sweeping statement, these were the families that came to my mind when I thought about people I know in real life. There are some large secular / spiritual / not religious families among my Twitter friends, and oddly enough most of them homeschool their kids too! Mad respect for raising and teaching 6 children, I'd love to be half as organized as people who do this, but I guess I won't be able to get there without having more children first 🙂
I have been imagining a new way of doing church too, for many of the same reasons I am reading here. I have found my people in a United Methodist church with a gay pastor and a slightly new age woman who’s been running the show for almost 30 years. It is wonderful, but I also desire to plant a new type of church that is reimagining just the type of balance between masculinity and femininity you describe. My alternate creation story is like the foundational text.
Love this and find it very relatable. I've been reengaging with Christianity in the past couple of months with a very different focus than the religion of my upbringing - I've read a few books by Christian mystics and Quakers. I found a kids illustrated bible book that is adorable - "The Book of Belonging". I've also been enjoying attending Sunday services at a local Episcopal church with my toddler and even started to pray as a family. I still have so much baggage with concepts like God and Jesus, but engaging with all of this in a new way has been really nice
Thanks for the book recommendation, I haven't heard about this one before! How does your toddler find the church services? My daughter only attended Mass during a few weddings and funerals, and she started acting up pretty fast. I guess it takes some practice for children to be able to attend.
He actually goes to the nursery! He's under 2, I think the nursery is for 0-5. I see young kids in the service with their parents, too, so it feels like open to either way.
I can also recommend "The Universal Christ" by Richard Rohr as an adult oriented book that might interest you.
Wow, religious life in the US seems so different than what we have here! For all the years I've spent actively involved in the church there were no nurseries, no potlucks, no meal trains. Seems like a completely different world!
This is so beautifully written, thank you for sharing. It's so interesting how differently something can land on different ears - my Catholic faith feels tender and mysterious and lovely to me, but I can see how different it felt to you and why you're searching. I think you'd really enjoy and be interested in Elizabeth Oldfield's book Fully Alive - it explores so many of the themes you bring up here. And, Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen has been such a hugely important book for me in recent years. Sending love for your quest, from a fellow questing soul.
Thank you for your kind words and for the book recommendation. Adding it to my reading list.
Did you grow up Catholic too? I recently heard how Catholic teachings around sin are liberating for adults with some life experience but can often be really hard on children, and I can totally see how this could be the case.
I did grow up Catholic but with exceptional parents - converts in their late twenties, very open (never would have reacted the way your mum did for example, much more like your approach to anger, let me feel all the feelings), very gentle, did things their own way very intuitively... I see now as a parent myself how special what they gave me was, how hard to do, and how unusual for their generation, whatever your faith background. I knew that I was safe with them, always, and could feel how friends (whether their parents had a faith or not) didn't have that to the same degree with their parents... Which makes me wonder if it's much more of a generational thing than a faith based thing. That being said, I totally agree, we do have to be so careful how we explain the concept of sin to kids and perhaps are only now realising how careful we need to be here, in our generation. I'm constantly looking back to my childhood trying to figure out what my parents did, how they taught me, to facilitate what I experienced/experience now. I ask mum regularly and she can't really answer 😅 sadly my dad died 11 years ago so I can't ask him, but I ask him to help me from where he is being held in love in eternity every day. ❤️🔥
Your parents sound like such amazing people! My biggest aspiration is that one day my kids will say something similar about me ❤️
Same friend, same 🥹 it sounds like you're on the right track. Courage and love for the journey! 🙏🏼❤️🔥
Thank you for sharing this piece!! I was not raised in the church but relate to a lot of your experience. As a teen convert I ended up in dysfunctional evangelical churches that messed with my relationship with God, myself, and other people in ways I’m still recovering from.
My dream would be to find an emotionally intelligent, non-cultish house church. I think there’s something about the scale and structure of institutional religious communities that makes healthy relationships really difficult.
That being said, my husband, son and I have started experimenting with going to a “regular” church in our little town. Right now it’s going ok, but I’m waiting to see how they feel when they find out about my unconventional beliefs about sin, power, and the nature of love/God…
I feel like I've gone through a similar thought process as you've detailed here -- except raised as Protestant. I remember assisting in VBS schools and "preaching" to kids when I was in youth group and feeling really uncomfortable with the verbiage of it all -- we were told to tell kids, "Have you ever lied? Well then you're guilty of breaking all the commandments, and if you died tonight you'd go to hell -- but if you say this prayer and ask Jesus into your heart TODAY you'll be in heaven with God instead" and then of course kids would say the prayers they'd tally up the number of souls they saved every year at VBS. I'd ask, "Aren't we supposed to be learning from the children, not condemning them?" Which resulted me in not being permitted to be alone with the kids even though I was the only one with siblings and who had any experience teaching children in general.
I also get what you mean about anger -- I've dealt with a lot of kids who have anger issues, and while you can correct the behavior, it's a little harder dealing with the attitude. Often these kids are going through something hard and they need to be able to feel what they're feeling in a safe way -- while still understanding that they can't manipulate or abuse others because of how they feel. The way I felt I could help them best was by always remaining calm, never yelling or screaming back, disciplining only if it got out of line, and not reacting in the way that they might "expect". In every single case these children mellowed out and became sweet and empathetic children. My parents never yelled at me in any way, and I never realized how damaging this is for children until I went to live with a family that constantly yelled. I was an adult by then, but still had difficulty interacting with people who got too angry after that for awhile -- and their poor children were very, very messed up. It was the most stressful environment I've ever been in.
I'm now married to a Catholic man, and the Church certainly has issues from all I can tell as someone who will be converting soon, but I also feel like it's much more accepting of children and femininity in a way I never felt in any other church. For years I felt a little bitter toward the church I'd gone to for various "unchristian" behaviors as I perceived it all to be, and so I "church-hopped for years not really looking for another place to be, just observing the differences between all the churches available around me. Through that I found I was most certainly religious, but not necessarily drawn to any specific church. This has only changed now that I'm married and expecting our first child and feeling ready to have a secure place to have our children learn about God and life and religioun.
“ ‘Aren't we supposed to be learning from the children, not condemning them?’ Which resulted me in not being permitted to be alone with the kids” — that’s heartbreaking!
You might really enjoy looking at Maria Montessori's work on religious education... she was a devout Catholic and she and some co-workers created a whole system of religious education, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, that is very, very different from the body- and creation-negative, sin-centric framework that you experienced.
My only other big observation is that I believe Christianity is not identical with that negative vision of it! Not just believe, I know... It just takes work -- study, existential struggle, determination -- to find a different vision and bring it to life in one's heart.
Thank you, this is an excellent idea! I didn't know she wrote about religion too.
I know there's much more to Christianity than what I experienced in my peculiar bubble, although my entire country seems to be a sort of such bubble in a way. Hopefully one day I'll encounter a version that does not require me to disown parts of myself. I don't know if such version exists or is even possible, but I'm curious to find out.
That last part is what Christianity is though. It's relational to where we're at, but it reconciles us upwards. This is why man was created dirt + spirit that became soul. It's also why in the beatitudes Christ says "be perfect" (Matthew 5:48) and "blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). They both become the same thing when you give yourself up to Christ. I think Romans 6:22 does a good job capturing it, but galatians 5:22-23 with romans 13:3 did it for me. It's perpetual resurrection. Anyways good article. Hope everything is fine.
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 thessalonians 5
I relate to so much of this! I was raised in a hardcore Reformed Baptist church (my dad was the pastor), and there was a big emphasis on Calvinist teaching about the total depravity of humanity and the anger of God. I remember being terrified of hell from a very young age, and would desperately pray to be saved. But God felt very distant and angry, and the emphasis was very much on relating to God in an intellectual way, learning about theology and attending Bible studies, making sure you had the right ideas about God rather than about actually knowing God. I abandoned Christianity completely in my 20s and was “spiritual but not religious” for about five years. I travelled all over the world got really into ashtanga yoga and loved the feeling of moving meditation that it gave me. Then I met my now husband and settled down and we got married and had a baby. And it just exploded all my ideas about pretty much everything 😅 I was totally unprepared for the physicality of motherhood, and the degree of embodiment it demanded. Suddenly all my ideas about autonomy and independence evaporated like a puff of smoke and I had to grapple with the stark reality of how much my baby needed me. I did end up feeling pulled back towards Christianity, but not the denomination I grew up in. It was actually the Theotokos/Virgin Mary who was my gateway back into faith, I felt like she was pursuing me for a while and I carried a set of rosary beads around like a lucky charm for months before I began trying to pray to her.
Long story short I’ve ended up at an Eastern Orthodox Church. One of the things that attracted me was the idea of Theosis, that humans can actually know God and become like God in a real sense. Which was totally new to me. And their emphasis on the goodness of the physical world was refreshing.
Thank you for sharing your experience in this beautiful piece, motherhood is a wild ride that’s for sure.
What a beautiful story ❤️ Autonomy and independence is probably a necessary part of growing up, but there's just so much more that life has to offer.
Are you still involved in yoga or some other sort of moving meditation? I recently met a Catholic mom who was also a yoga teacher and was quite surprised, I thought these two don't usually go together.
This is a huge red flag (and one of my greatest pet peeves) if anyone suggests yoga and [insert religious denomination] don’t go together. Yoga is a part of Hinduism but is not, in itself, a religion. What you describe in your piece makes me immediately think of yoga and Eastern practices. The issue with these practices is that the community aspect doesn’t manifest in church form and so that community piece is harder to come by that you’re searching for. I personally found community in yoga studios but when my practice matured, the studios no longer fit for me and there was no real spiritual community (it was always centered around the physical). Plus there is the cost (I have worked in “yoga world” my entire career so it was always free for me but it’s pricey.) But on a spiritual note, much of what you speak to around the beliefs you’ve come to on your own can actually be found in tantric philosophy, which of course has a specific (totally misunderstood) connotation in the West and would most likely be immediately dismissed as sinful by most Western religious communities (this is merely a power play, which has always been my personal struggle with organized religion in general—they’re seeking to control). I totally understand your quest for community and that it can most easily be found in the church—I have many friends who have found great solace in their church communities from many different denominations (including Mormon and Catholic). I would encourage you to keep searching for a community that fulfills your need for connection but that also accepts and is open to all sorts of ideas from around the world. There is a famous quote in yoga from the Vedas: “the Truth is one; the wise call it by many names.” Anyway, I wish you luck! Motherhood is a wild, isolating ride.
Yeah I'm lucky that my yoga teacher is too a mom of little kids, but even she finds it hard to find ways to include kids in the community that's grown around her studio. We took our daughters on a bunch of retreats together, but it was mostly dads taking care of them during sessions. You are right that price matters a lot too!
My most charitable interpretation of when people say their religion doesn't go together with yoga, is either 1) I don't know where exactly these practices originate from and what was their intended purpose so I'd rather be safe, or 2) this world and physical bodies are a mere distraction from spiritual pursuits rather than an integral part of them. Which I understand on some level, but personally I'm interested in religious life that's open to learning from all people and traditions, and deeply rooted in the physical world and bodies.
I don’t practice ashtanga anymore, I found it wasn’t something I could do for just 15 or 20 minutes, which is typically how long I get undisturbed. But I do still practice yoga on and off, I try and do a couple of short practices each week but tbh sometimes I will go weeks without getting on my mat. I’m not sure what the orthodox position is on yoga, I should probably ask our priest about it!
"Can these two not just coexist, but love and support each other, lift each other up in a passionate union? I try to imagine a church that would honor and celebrate a marriage of holy masculine and feminine, but it feels like reinventing the whole Cosmos from scratch."
"These two" are called justice and mercy and they are complementary. The Greeks used to philosophize about them being at odds with one another. Christianity was the first to see that they are integrated with each other.
Justice is fundamental and gives each person what they are due. Rules and laws are necessary to ensure this and so are consequences if they are broken. Consequences are both a deterrence to breaking the law/rule and what is due the person who breaks them. When laws and rules are broken, a debt is incurred to the person or to society who was harmed as a result. "You must strive to do better" is a matter of justice. We all benefit from those around us striving to do better and we benefit others when we strive to do better as well. Justice, however, will not do away with compassion and leniency because then it's just "an eye for an eye."
Mercy will go beyond what a person is due. It will recognize the weakness or circumstances that may have caused someone to break rules/laws or recognize that the behavior is out of the order of their usual character. Mercy, not being opposed to justice will recognize and point out the justice that is due but will also show compassion and leniency. Mercy says "I don't condemn you to the consequences due.," (it may give a consequence less than what is due or no consequence at all) but it also says, "Go and sin no more."
"Stop, I won't let you hit me. “If you’re so angry that you feel like you must hit something, go and hit that pillow instead” is both justice and mercy.
A stern command is given without hitting back and recognition that she doesn't possess the words or maturity to control her outburst. She is given permission to use an acceptable outlet for her frustration.
What if she continued to hit instead of stomping her feet? What if hitting is becoming a bad, recurring habit for dealing with anger? At that point, it might be a mercy to give a consequence because for her to not learn how to better deal with her anger may lead to more dire societal imposed consequences later.
The disagreement between you and your mother was the tension between differing views on where to draw the line between giving what is due and how much mercy to show.
A good church will teach both justice and mercy. Personally, I have found that in the Catholic Church but I also realize that other human beings can have a profound impact on our understanding of Her and what She teaches.
Thank you for explaining this in detail! For some reason the word mercy does not sound like a loving embrace to me at all, I'd rather be given justice than whatever I understood as mercy when I was a kid. Do you have some favorite books or articles where I could read more about it?
I've found that many concepts about the faith were either misunderstood because I was not yet capable of grasping them or were poorly explained by others who may not have understood them fully. As adults, we can sometimes find our understanding stuck at a very elementary level from how we interpreted something as a child.
I left the Church in my late teens and early twenties because there were many things that didn't make sense to me. I dabbled a little in New Age type beliefs but I sensed something was missing there as well. I felt a need to decide whether I was going to accept or reject the faith I was raised in. I began with reading books written by converts to the faith to learn what they saw from the outside looking in. I was astounded at the depth, breadth, and beauty of what they found in the Church and at how much I really didn't know even though I attended Catholic school. I ordered a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to try to fill in the gaps of both my education and my understanding. I found that extremely useful.
Two articles you might find helpful are
https://catholicgentleman.com/2016/10/merciful-justice-finding-hope-gods-feared-attribute/
https://www.thedivinemercy.org/articles/divine-mercy-101-st-thomas-aquinas-virtue-mercy
My Substack is literally all about this journey. I left faith for a time and did all the spiritual things. I thought it was a lovely playground until it wasn’t and it turned on me. That is how I realized darkness is real just as the light is real. I came to realize that I was following false light and it wasn’t what it appeared like on the surface. I made my way back to God and everything clicked into place. Truth crashed into me like a tidal wave. I follow the Bible and Jesus now. Still trying to find the right church but the completeness and peace I’ve found in Him, nothing compares to.
I do think we inherit the curse of sin from the garden, but I also think little children do many things because of their normal development and shouldn’t be shamed for these things. I am a gentle parent, I allow my children to express all of their feelings while still holding boundaries.
The Catholic Church (and for that matter many Protestant denominations as well) adds in many man made rules and can make things works based. God doesn’t need us to strive in order to earn His favor. He loves us completely and unconditionally. He has guidelines to protect us, just as I wouldn’t let a toddler run into the street, knowing the dangers. But even if we choose our own way, even if we walk away from Him, He never stops loving us. His love is so great, so beautiful and far reaching.
Our bodies are beautiful. God created them. He created intimacy, sunsets, babies, flowers, and laughter. This world is imperfect in its current state, but it is also beautiful. And God has promised He will make everything new. It will all be redeemed. For now we exist in this beautiful in between, taking the beauty with the pain. His song is written on our hearts and we will always find ourselves drawn back to Him.
If you truly seek truth and a solid foundation, seek Him. Ask Him to reveal Himself. He promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him.
Also, it all comes down to who Jesus is. Spirituality and Christian mysticism will say He is an ascended master, or a great teacher. That He came to teach us Christ consciousness. As long as He is a way but not THE way, it’s accepted. Yet Jesus Himself said “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He spoke this to me in a time in my life where I believed something entirely different.
Not all angels are of God. Fallen angels can appear as light. Jesus is the gate and when we circumvent Him and find other means to the supernatural we can be deceived by the shiny imitations that at the end of the day are a magician’s trick, smoke and mirrors. Beautifully deceptive, but not the truth. I’d rather have sobering truths than beautiful lies at the end of the day. But there’s a cost, a surrender to letting go of a worldview. Yet what comes after is far better and well worth the cost.
The Episcopalian Church is open and affirming, lots of ex-Catholics there. It might be what you’re looking for!
You should check Lama Tsutrim Allione’s works. She’s a spiritual leader who has kids and has written books about women in spirituality, but is also coming from an Asian spiritual background.
What you describing with conservatism leading to big families and spiritual but not religious leading to divorces is very interesting. I think it’s because conservatism puts this idea that the needs of the family are to be prioritized above the needs of individual. Personal happiness is not goal in that setting. And spiritual, but not religious is a kind of a new western thing which has the western values of individualism embedded in it, so it’s natural to prioritize personal well-being above the needs of the family and the clan. The causality makes perfect sense.
Yes, individualism is definitely a big part of it, and it probably arose as an overcorrection for Christian insistence on self-sacrifice. There must be some middle ground here, but I have not yet seen good examples of how this could look like.
You're living the example of how this would look like :)
"The conversation I had with my mom about anger reminded me what my other problem could be. I really struggle with the concept of sin when applied to little kids. Growing up like this taught me nothing but wallowing in guilt, gave me no tools to actually deal with my anger or despair in a way that didn’t hurt anyone."
Yeah this is a horribly Western view - this idea that sin is some horrible debt we owe to God, and we are bad for it. Hate to see it.
The Orthodox tend to see the church more as a hospital than a place of penance.
Hi, there! I’m a mother of six, still married to the kids father, and I am spiritual not religious. My oldest will turn 15 this year. I am in a group with my kids for secular homeschoolers with many larger (4+ kids) families who are also spiritual - and have solid marriages. I have seen some of the biggest marriage explosions or uncovered hidden affairs and such by religious and spiritual alike. Humans are humans. It never helps to try and box in a set of people. If you are Christian leaning - excellent! Happy you are finding your path. The broad assumption that the spiritual end up in broken marriages is not the norm you believe it to be.
Apologize if that came across as a sweeping statement, these were the families that came to my mind when I thought about people I know in real life. There are some large secular / spiritual / not religious families among my Twitter friends, and oddly enough most of them homeschool their kids too! Mad respect for raising and teaching 6 children, I'd love to be half as organized as people who do this, but I guess I won't be able to get there without having more children first 🙂
We aren’t organized. We embrace the chaos 😅
Embracing the chaos without drowning in it still requires extraordinary skill!
This is why I'm a UU member now. Check out their website and I our values and see if there's a church near you.
I have been imagining a new way of doing church too, for many of the same reasons I am reading here. I have found my people in a United Methodist church with a gay pastor and a slightly new age woman who’s been running the show for almost 30 years. It is wonderful, but I also desire to plant a new type of church that is reimagining just the type of balance between masculinity and femininity you describe. My alternate creation story is like the foundational text.
If you find this church, please tell us about it!!! 😅
I will! But I'm not sure if it's a matter of finding such church, or building one together with my mom friends.