The Past Few Years, Vol II

I have some apologies I want to make. 

I'm learning to not apologize for things I need not apologize for, and, I also am coming to terms with the role and responsibility I hold in the social spaces I have been in (namely online, I am referring to).

If you've been around since my Facebook days the past several years, well before even my breakup years, you'd know that I've been very loud. I don't apologize for being vocal, passionate, and loud. I think it's exceptionally important to use your voice and to be your own leader/your own person. People have approached me over the years to let me know how impactful my words have been and how much they appreciate my perspective, the things they learn, and the way my brain works. I know my voice is not the problem, even more than I used to. 

I would like to apologize for the ways I have wielded my voice at times, in irresponsible ways. 

I have utilized shame-based tactics and dwelled in a rage that has teetered questionably on the precipice of hatred. I know that most of the time, in my heart, I am not feeling hatred. I am feeling righteously angry, hurt, and sometimes scared. I am hoping my voice will make an impact if I scream loud enough. I feel like I am tired of feeling small, that I am speaking for my inner child and the inner children of others. I carry in me a fire that I myself admire at my best. I also know that there are times when, in my search to find my voice, I speak with a certain vitriol that is something like acid venom. I can hear myself and feel the acid as it comes out of my mouth, as it happens, but I have not entirely learned how to control that anger. 

For the ways that I have hurt you with my words, I want to apologize. 

In my time in the church, I really took with my the art and worship of lament and doubt. Some of my final projects and poetry pieces in that space wrestled with these concepts and themes. It never left, and truthfully, approaching my feelings as sacred expressions of the deepest places that well inside me has informed so very much about how I carry myself. Truth be told, I'm revisiting many of those places within me at that time in my life and finding a mine of gold I built for myself. 

When I left the church, I cannot even describe how extremely lost I felt. It's a strange thing to explain to people I know these days, but I didn't always used to be this angry and vocal. I've always been vocal, but I became so much angrier over the years. It was a necessary and sacred practice, and it still is. 

But I believe I harnessed some toxic places within me as well. I have spent time around some very toxic community spaces on this side of things, too, and quite truthfully, I think there were times that my loud anger served to virtue signal to those folks. I used to feel like the need to conform was a suffocating experience in the church, and believe me, it is. But as time has gone on, I have come to realize that I connected with some of the realest Christians and you can damn well bet the queerest ones (lol). On this side of things, if your theory isn't perfect, your voice doesn't count or you can expect it to either get drowned out or be excluded in very socially backhanded and manipulative ways. 

There are plenty of great people here, too, but our voices are stifled, the social cues are so incredibly complex and confusing, and the way some of these spaces operate with an heir of secrecy and lack of transparency is, to me, more bone chilling than some of the cult space I operated in back then. The groupthink is thick out here, too, in the most (white, classist, ableist) radical of spaces. 

And I have been just like them at times. It's immature and when I have been my most hateful, it's also been inappropriate. 

I do not want to be like that. 

I want to be righteously angry as a sacred practice and I want to make it very clear where my lines are drawn. I am not afraid to draw them as a necessity, and to move them as needed. A line is a rigid place for me, and I will defend it. 

But, I do not want to hurt people anymore. I want to use that line to also protect those standing behind it. When I am too angry, I scare those people and leave them feeling vulnerable. Especially people that are just doing their best, even if we don't consistently agree on everything 100% of the time. All I need is a solid 75%. That is the place we can draw some ideas for strategizing at making the world a better place together, as leaders together, as our own people. 

I have been trying to do my best, but I recognize where I have missed the mark in my anger at times. I am trying to practice a more disciplined life these days and am moving away from chaotic, reactive,  unaccountable spaces. I hold the same values I always have and seek to grow in ways that make them more and more an integrated part of my life. I cannot do that if I am spitting vitriol every which way and I want to make my words more principled, careful, thoughtful, and expressed from a place where anger does have a boundary. That is such an uncomfortable journey for me because anger has been the one thing keeping me from making decisions that are not healthy for me for such a long time. But it has also boiled, bittered, and become a burden on my expressions and I don't want to hurt people with that anymore. 

It will be a journey for me, most certainly, but I wanted to express my intentions to remain on it and to truly apologize for the hurt and confusion it has caused at times. 

My Testimony, 2023 (if you will)

I'm sitting here listening to Tommy Green's newest project, xholynamex, and I'm surprised to find myself here. 

I'm listening to the first track, "Meet me Somewhere Quiet." I've deep dived into what he's been up to recently and discovered he's finding some affinity with the Orthodox church. Because of course he did. 

I can't tell his story - it's not mine to tell - but I recently sat in an Orthodox church at the local Greek festival. I'm not a Christian, not a religious person, and I'm skeptically revisiting my sense of spirituality recently. I don't think I even believe that Jesus was a real person, nor heaven or hell real, any part of the story really. But as I've aged, I've come to understand the importance of mythos in the lives of all of us. 

As I sat in that church, I was kind of overcome with just how beautiful it was. They're big into iconography and catch a lot of heat for it. I've found a lot of affinity in my own Greek heritage with the way Greeks create and bask in aesthetics. It makes sense the Orthodox church would be oriented so. 

I don't want to get into all the things I hate about Christianity, religion, the Church etc. You've probably heard it all before anyways. I'm no new voice there. 

But I do believe in dichotomy and paradox, and two truths co-existing in this terribly confusing world full of suffering and ab*se. 

I've carried so much intense shame about my time in the Church. Many of you that will read this know what I'm talking about. For those that are new to hearing about this part of my life, I'd like to try cracking at talking about it. I feel I'm finally finding the through line of truth and healing, deeply and thoroughly. 

I grew up Lutheran and attended private school until my dad had an affair when I was about 8. My parents were quite devout, but not in a strict way. I am very lucky that my two Aquarian parents are people that were just looking for a way to feel connected to something bigger than themselves and to involve their kids in what they felt was best at the time. Lutherans are also probably the most laidback Christians, aside from perhaps the Orthodox church. We did church and school, and then we did life. 

When my father had an affair with a woman I knew and admired, my world shattered. He was the beginning of my longstanding wrestling with vowing to never be as shitty of a leader as he and many other people like him have been/are. 

My family went through an extremely tumultuous time post-divorce. I'm not comfortable sharing it all here - I'm still processing much of it - but my connection to music was probably my own form of spirituality at that time. Mom always made sure we had access as a serious value of hers. Music can save lives and it certainly has done that for me and my family at our hardest times. 

I did not return to the church until I was 15. I was watching myself become depressed, struggling to make friends and to utilize those friendships for support when I did have them. I started to recognize that something was going on inside of me and I know what that is now, but a 15 year-old from small town Indiana with no language for processing trauma, abuse, and mental health had only the framework of my upbringing - Jesus. 

When I tell you that I found a diamond in a rough for little hillbilly Martina in Franklin, Indiana, I mean every word of that. I was invited to a local youth group at The Gear, a local music venue I had visited once before. 

Current Church was not your typical church. Most everyone that attended were covered in tattoos, piercings, gauges, sagged their beanies, clipped their caribiners to their back pockets, and many people had rough upbringings. It was a proper artist's hub - musicians galore that loved the same music as me, artists, photographers, tattoo artists, entrepeneurs. You name it, they went there. 10 minutes from my boonies ass home. 

I met people with completely different backgrounds than mine, and some with very similar backgrounds. I made friends with a lot of fellow kids with fucked up families, all trying to feel something like me. Youth group was like family to me.

I became heavily involved with Current, spending probably 2-3 days a week there for various services, band practices, service opportunities etc. 

I had a very zealous spirit as a youth group leader, and it was encouraged. This was a charismatic environment associated with Assemblies of God, a more modern, "non-denominational" kind of feel, and being "sold out for Christ" was the expectation. We spoke in tongues, jumped around for joy, sought after spiritual gifts, and strived to use our artistic talents for the Lord. 

This was my adolescence. My brain literally developed around this atmosphere. And it's a strange thing. 

I was developing my musical abilities alongside the nonsense. A hub to do that in the middle of nowhere Indiana? There was no letting go. 

I became a damn fucking good guitar player because I had to be, and I'm so proud of the shit I put out at that time. I wanted to be able to stand next to the metalcore dudes in my space. I could do things with my right hand I cannot do today. I'm a damn good rhythm player because Christian misogyny pushed me to be. 

As I was preparing to go off to college for worship ministry, the atmosphere of my church began shifting. My pastor was making poor choices and pissing off longstanding members and many of us were outgrowing the immaturity of preaching a message obsessed with reminding us of our sins when Jesus had already fucking died for them. 

A radical, very heretical "grace" and "finished work of the cross" theology began sprouting in the charismatic communities around me, and my pastor wanted nothing to do with it. 

I spent some interesting time around some interesting people as I transitioned out of Current. I think I honestly experienced my first commune up in Fort Wayne at the Firehouse. These were people intent on celebrating the finality of the Gospel and basking in the idea of completed Oneness with the Father through Jesus, being "drunk on the Holy Spirit" and I don't know any other way to say this, but it was a wholesome kind of open-minded, silly, joyful, charismatic environment. It just was, in the great context of Pentecostalism. Some sincerely liberating ass theology came out of those movements. We started questioning the need to obsess over work in our spiritual lives and began viewing it as a place meant for rest and healing. 

I'd spend time doing this in my spare time, then head back to class to realize I didn't want to teach people shame-based shit. 

We shed a lot of bullshit we'd been indoctrinated with in our respective cults. 

Unfortunately, the more I shed, the more I saw. 

My studies in systematic theology and biblical interpretation, next to my much more progressive thinking worship studies professor, helped me see the nonsense - the misogyny inherent in Sky Daddy theology, the racism in white Jesus, the constant splitting of denomination after denomination in the name of God telling me so, and what we called "legalism," or the Old Testament approach to modern life post-New Testament. 

I think, too, that as I aged, I began to recognize some weird relationships elders were building with me as an adolescent and it was just over for me at that point. Not to mention, I was having serious sexuality and gender questions at that time, too. And we all know how that goes in those spaces. 

(Funny enough, I think I spent time with nearly only queer folk, even in those spaces, that later came out. We always find each other, don't we?)

(I hope if you're reading this, you're also beginning to see the early threads I found in dismantling capitalism in my own life, before I even had words for it. This time in my life is why I believe capitalism truly is an abuse on our humanity. If you dig into yourself, you'll find that fucker in there).

When I left the Church, it was the single most isolating experience of my life. I only knew that I wanted to remove Jesus from my innermost experience of myself. I still love Jesus as a mythological figure - dude is sick as fuck and I can gladly make the argument that he was an anarchist. He was the first radical figure I really studied. 

I studied global religion for about 7 months and got just far enough to realize that it was the whole of religion that I really wanted nothing to do with in my innermost experience of myself. I'd spent my whole life doing it. I felt I owed it to myself to explore outside of that framework. 

What I found over these 10 years is that life is so much more uncertain on this side. And I love that, in my sense of spirituality. 

I'm currently kind of searching for something that feels a little more stable, but I am also currently riding the wave of getting off anti-depressants, learning to re-access my feelings and creativity. I think that's where my sense of spirituality finds its best expressions sometimes. 

I like to think of spirituality as being carried through the vessel of humanity. Rather, I think being human is the end. We're not vessels for anything other than shared humanity. I guess you could say I got real fucking curious about the human side collapsing in on the divine side of Jesus. And people truly are both. I think it's one in the same really. 

I think I'm letting go of being bitter, too. 

I've witnessed enough things happen in community space out here, too, that I'm actually so grateful to have experienced my time in spiritual communities. While it is seldom done well, there is an inherent sense of process for accountability and rehabilitation there. I've only seen it handled appropriately maybe a couple times, but it's a beautiful fucking thing when it does happen because it is wholistic. 

I'm disillusioned with a lot of community right now. I'm kind of building my own sense of it, and I sense that's what I need to be doing anyways. I don't think I'm meant to navigate this world in any kind of normal path. I have the potential to make something new, to pave something just different. There's nothing particularly normal about the way I operate or think. And I'm learning to lean into that. 

I'm entering what I think is my sabbatical era. I want to meet myself somewhere quiet, perhaps somewhere I used to keep the concept of God. I want to find out what my humanity means for me personally, and then learn what it will mean for me to integrate into others. I haven't found that yet. But I do get a little closer each day, and I think that's maybe the goal of ending capitalism. Maybe we'll all find each other somewhere at the end of the arch of justice if we keep practicing the discipline of bending it righteously. 

I want to name things for what they are, in community, in myself, in love and in grace. I want to find a new way to relate to each other. I want to decolonize as a white person. I want to place stones graciously over troubled waters and do the work of walking and transforming. Hell, I think I am meant to be like Jesus because we all can be. He reminds me that the path is laid before us from pavers before us. I honor them and hold space for more of them. 

For now, I need solitude. Healthy solitude. 

I am going to move into the woods, lean into my family, reconnect with friends, focus on getting my fucking degree if it kills me, and learn what it means to be a healer in a field that, like every other field, is broken and serves capitalism as its own industry. I want to flip tables and ruffle feathers in the right way. I cannot and will not do that without thinking holistically and humanely, and I have been on a journey of making my personal life more true to the path I am walking. 

No more letting other people tell me who I am, even those I think I hold the most affinity with. My energy is not up for grabs anymore. 

I am working on building what my therapist calls a filter. I am a beam of light in every room I am in. The capacity for leadership, to see shit for what it truthfully is, to transform and to heal, to inspire and to motivate, to fucking move - that is my value and purpose. I hold the capacity to adjust the temperature of whatever room I am in, not because I am better than others but because people listen to me. I am trustworthy and a hard ass worker at doing what I feel I need to do. I am not perfect, but I am not afraid of my imperfections. I am learning to move with less anger and more grace and learning the boundary that holds space for me to be me and you to be you in that grace. 

When I am done incubating, I will be an absolute monster.
When humans move, the earth shakes. We are one. 

To all that is for me, "If you want me, come and find me."