Sarah Bessey
What do you do when what you are experiencing in your life doesn't line up with what you have always believed?
In this interview with author and speaker Sarah Bessey we discuss what to do when you are evolving, the messy long walk of healing, experiencing God when there is no tidy story, as well as her new incredibly moving book Miracles and Other Reasonable Things.
It is such a rich conversation full of the complexity of both/and thinking that Sarah walks us through.
Sarah Bessey is the author of the popular and critically acclaimed books, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith and Jesus Feminist. Her highly anticipated new book Miracles and Other Reasonable Things releases on October 8, 2019. She is a sought-after speaker at churches, conferences, and universities all around the world. Sarah is also the co-curator and co-host of the annual Evolving Faith Conference and she serves as President of the Board for Heartline Ministries in Haiti. She lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia with her husband and their four children.
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
Listen to the interview below or wherever you get your podcasts.
(Transcript of Interview Below)
Monica:
Well thank you so much really for taking the time and I'm just still a bit on a high from reading your book. It was just um, such an experience for me and when I finished reading it I thought, you know, if I was somewhere I would want to sit next to Sarah, because I would think that you are so welcoming, you know, so I'd be welcomed, you are open minded so I wouldn't be judged. You'd probably have some good jokes. Um, and I know you'd pray for me if I needed it. And I think my suspicion is that I'm not the only reader that feels that way, that you provide such a welcoming sense. And so I wondered if we could just sort of start there with, you know, is that intentional for you or how is it that you create this sense of welcome at the table?
Sarah:
That is incredibly kind. Thank you so much for saying so and I'm so glad you had a chance to read it early. That makes me really glad. Oh, it's, I think that's one of the things that's most scary after you've created something like that is then just like actually showing it to people.
Monica:
Yes, absolutely.
Sarah:
And so it's always nice when it doesn't, you know, go over like a, like a room or something. Right, right. Yeah. Um, you know, I think that, you know, that's a great question and one I haven't, I don't know if I've really thought about what the origins are for that. I think probably I would say a lot of my own experiences with God as well as the communities in which I, um, often experienced God or was introduced to God really did have a very wide view of God's mercy and grace, um, of belonging even.
Sarah:
And you know, my parents really modeled that as well. But I think that the place where I really began to, uh, lean into that and to um, see that as so important and such a core thing of our experience with one another is that you begin to realize that our culture is often set up in a way to leave people feeling excluded. And in a lot of ways we thrive on that exclusion. We feel good, you know, when we are the insider and someone else's, the outsider. Um, and it began to feel a little bit more revolutionary to say, no there's more room, there's, there's room for you here. Um, and what's more is there's room for you, not just if you come and perform well and if you tick all the boxes that we kind of have created for this good Christian Little star chart we have in the sky trying to all in gold stars.
Sarah:
It's more the sense of your whole self, the things that make you complicated, the things that make you wonderful, the things that are your victories as well as your sorrows. All of those things are very dear to Jesus. And that is something that I don't know that anybody could talk me out of. You know, when you, when you really know something deep in your heart, I mean this is, these are the things that I felt like I learned by following Jesus. Um, and that sort of welcome and inclusion and openness and not a sense of, you know, needing to exclude people is something I really saw modeled in him. And I've afraid to say I'm still someone who is very into Jesus.
Monica:
Yeah. Well, yeah, I read a, um, a recent description of you that was very Jesus-y, and very feministy, right.
Sarah:
That's fair. Not for everybody, but it is true and I might as well just have some truth in advertising on it at this point.
Monica:
Well, and I think that, that your permission to be fully yourself and, and those are, of course my words not yours. Um, it gives all of us that permission. It really is stunning to see. I mean, it just, it kind of invites all of us and well, well, if Sarah says we're all welcomed then, then maybe it's true. You know, maybe we all are. Welcome and kind of frees people up to explore that idea more, which is just not a common idea, at least not one that I'm running into very often. And you know, one of the things that struck me so much about your writing, um, in every book of yours that I've read is just that you've had the courage to not belong to one group or another. Being able to, you know, go in that wilderness of, you know, that I'm not going to line up in every single way with A or B. How has that courage kind of informed your choices or freed you up to explore your own journey?
Sarah:
I, I think I've always kind of felt a little bit on the outside edge of the inside for a lot of different areas. It's like a little bit in but, but mostly out. And I think that that was something actually I learned about myself in my early days of writing. I mean, back when I was writing a blog and you know, seven people read it. Um, I remember having this sense as my voice was emerging and as I was writing and as I was wrestling with things, of feeling like I didn't fit, you know, I, I wasn't in fully in the mummy blogging world because I love to write about theology and love to write about God and loved to write about all the ways that those things, you know, I, you know, a lot of, uh, justice issues and things like that that were really dear to me.
Sarah:
And so I didn't feel, I feel like I fully fit there. But then within the theological writers, I was too much of a mum and I was writing about my kids and I was writing about my life and you know, I didn't really know that I fit there either. And so people would try to read my stuff and kind of be like, what are you? Like, I can't really tell which one you are. And then of course, having also being someone who is Canadian as well in a lot of conversations that are dominated by the American evangelical experience means that you're kind of adjacent but not fully in a lot of my, my own experiences with church I didn't see reflected back to me. And then there was, you know, the, the other aspect of being someone who is deeply charismatic, right? I was raised as part of the charismatic renewal movement, the word of faith movement. And even though I have walked away from a lot of that and don't feel, feel like I belong there, you know, theologically in a lot of ways, I'm still deeply charismatic. So even that right now can leave you feeling, which I think comes through a lot in this new book because I don't know, people realized quite entirely how woo woo I am until this one came through.
Monica:
I loved your warnings at the beginning of the book.
Sarah:
Oh, I know. I just was like, I just need to give people a heads up that this make it weird.
Sarah:
And so I think that sense of having that happen right in the early stages of my writing, vocation career in a public sense was just almost a sense of I really wrestled with it for a couple of years of just saying, do I need to silence these other aspects of my life and my soul in order to succeed or in order to, you know, be palatable to people. And those complexities, of course, you know, transcend, you know, my writing. But that was where I kind of really encountered it and wrestled with it. And I remember just finally having this sense of like, well, whatever, I have to be the full self that I am. I have to be able to bring the stories about my kids and my marriage and church and life too because this is the lens through which I experience God and theology and these big questions of justice and life and how we show up in the world and what the gospel means.
Sarah:
And all of these things are interconnected and pretending that they're not makes me a poor writer. And it makes me untrue in a lot of ways. And I think that that would be the same for how we then show up in our life. And the funny thing was is that I found that when I did that, when I just was unapologetically fully me, lean into what makes me weird, lean into what makes me not palatable maybe to the brand experts and the this and that, that that was when people showed up. I think that that's not always the case, but my experience was that other people felt that complexity too. And they were tired of these really small, tight, narrow boxes that said, you know, if you want to care about theology, then you don't get to care about, you know, kids. And if you are someone who deeply loves Jesus, you don't get to be a feminist or you know, whatever else it is.
Sarah:
Right. And so being able to lean into the gray areas and the complexity of it and the both and of what it actually means to be a human, you know, instead of like a marketing, you know, something tricked out in the lab. You know, I think that there's a lot of room for that. And I think that women writers have really led in that space really beautifully. You look at like Madeleine L'engle or Kathleen Norris or you know, these, uh, Rachel held Evans, right? These writers who write through their life with theological insight and wisdom and strength, but it's through their life and within their contradictions and within their complexities, not neutering or muting those things. And that's what makes their work so powerful.
Monica:
Wow. Yes, absolutely. And it's, it's almost, I mean like, uh, like a little bit of a quiet revolution, right? This idea of being completely who you are and how that shows up with your theological beliefs, how your theological beliefs go through your life, right. The, the, the specific story that you're living, it's, it's really staggering. I mean in the work that I do too, there's so much as a therapist, there's so much pain just wrapped completely up in this lack of it, you know, belonging to one group or another and you're just really blowing right through that. And it's a relief that's, I feel so relieved every time I read your writing. I just feel relieved. And I think that your point about that we can believe in Jesus without having to or, you know, give up one thing or the other is, is amazing. And it's something I've really struggled with myself. So I want to talk about, um, well you kind of already answered this question, um, but what, what you had to let go of in order to be a more truthful version of yourself?
Sarah:
I think, I mean, I remember hearing once, I'm really early in my, um, in my career that almost all of our theology is actually autobiography.
Monica:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow.
Sarah:
It's because like, we develop our theology because of where we are. It has a context. It has, you know, names and faces who taught you those things and who showed you to read the Bible in a certain way. And so I think that's one of the reasons why I often can feel very scary to embrace your contradictions or embrace your, the are things that make you, you know, feel like you're on the outside edge of the inside perhaps is because it's not just dry theological ideas. We're not just talking about, um, you know, theories like these have implications and consequences in our lives. And in a lot of ways that's hard. I mean, when I'm someone who's more progressive theologically, that puts me at odds, oftentimes with communities that I love, um, and people whom I love and there can be consequences for that. And that doesn't make it either one of us really wrong, right? That the, these are the things that we kind of learned to abide and we learned to hold those sorrows, um, in favor of knowing that we are true. Right? And I think that there's something about being true that really appeals to our own soul, our own heart, and makes you feel, I don't know, more aligned, I guess with the Holy spirit in that way. If there's one thing that, you know, I don't feel like I get away with very much. It's faking. I never am able to get away with it. And so I think that in some ways,
Sarah:
And so you know I think it opens you up then to that truth that all, you know, that all truth is God's truth. That this is the thing that you can lean into with the Holy spirit. And you know, whether it's through scripture or our relationships, that these are things that then become unified. The those parts of yourself that maybe other people would look at and say, well, how does this work? And I don't understand why you're this and also that or why you're, you're kind of this and kind of that. And I think that that's where that expansiveness of the welcome of God, that sense of the breadth and depth and length and height of the love of God. Um, and all of it being held means that then you're not afraid of those things anymore.
Monica:
I'm just, um, again, soothed by your, by your words. It's, it is. So it's so difficult to, um, hold on to your faith. And I, I, you know, I believe in Jesus too and I would call myself a Christian and definitely can understand the woo woo Holy spirit stuff. Um, but it is, it is set. There's such a tension a both and tension that is so hard to hold onto when there's so much. Um, it feels like in order to go with one way, you've got a sacrifice other parts, but I hear you just saying and modeling for all of us no, just walk, just walk the way you're walking. Just keep going forward. And what, what exactly is true for you.
Sarah:
You know, I think one of the things too that probably should be mentioned is part of me, part of it is a bit ornery.
Monica:
Like, tell me about the ornery parts.
Sarah:
It's the sense of like, almost being mad. Like I still want these words I still want this stuff. I don't, I'm not willing to cede the story of Jesus and the gospel narrative too, you know, political stuff or too, um, you know, people whose, you know, theological beliefs. I find, you know, very at odds with what I understand about Jesus. And if the only people who get to talk about things like salvation and resurrection and community are people who...no, Like, I want those words. I want that stuff. And you can not that easy to get rid of. That was one of the things that I remember feeling a lot when my first book, Jesus feminist came out because I still really wanted the Jesus. I still really wanted the Christian. And I think that that was what was made the books so, um, electrifying for people is that they thought that I was going to say that being a Christian and being a feminist was a tension I had to hold when instead I was saying, no, no, no, no. I'm a feminist because I'm a Christian. And that was for some people that the first time they thought that those were two things that actually went together instead of we're enemies.
Monica:
I absolutely, I've heard from many people that that was the first time that they even thought that that was possible, that that, you know, it's groundbreaking really for people because we are typecast into camps. Right. And you know, I've always thought of it as a tension, but I love the refusal to live in the tension that no, it's actually not a tension.
Sarah:
Well even this sense of like, you know, I remember having people kind of look at me and be like, well you've been married for like ever [inaudible] and you have all these children and you knit. Yeah. Like what kind of feminist are you? I'm like, I don't think you understand what the word feminist means. It's not about a roleplay.
Monica:
So, so well said I think. I think that they're almost our roles for, for any kind of group that were kind of placed in. And do we wear that mask or dot. You know? And if we don't, well then we may not be part of it. Tell me then, you know, I know Evolving Faith is coming up and I was wondering if we could talk about it for a couple minutes before we talk about, you know, your new book. You know, the question I have kind of for all of us, um, you know, as you've modeled this idea of, um, just walking with God or walking specifically with Jesus, um, when your beliefs are evolving or your..., Maybe maybe the better word is theology. I don't know what word you would use, but you know, what do you do when you feel like your beliefs and, um, thoughts and theology are evolving? What would you tell someone who finds themselves in that spot?
Sarah:
You know, um, it's a very unique and tender spot I feel when people are in, in that, you know, whether you call it deconstruction or faith shift or I often use the metaphor of wilderness. And a big thing when Rachel and I were dreaming of this gathering and of this community was we both realized that we wished that we would've been shepherded better during those seasons in our life when we were questioning, when we were filled with doubt, when we were cynical, when we were angry, um, when we were tearing down, you know, the things that had once been very precious to us, that's not a season of life that really the church overall shepherds very well. And often times they're afraid of it and you know, warn against it. And so a lot of times we have found that when people find themselves at that crossroad or at that threshold into the wilderness, there's almost this feeling that they have that they only have two options.
Sarah:
And the first option that most people choose or try at least is to just double down on it. I'm fine, everything's fine. Going to go sign up for more Bible studies. I'm dying, you know, pretend everything's okay. I'm only gonna listen to Jesus music. No more Radio Head. Right? Anything that's making you uncomfortable then becomes your enemy, right? Anything is making you question things, becomes an attack on what your faith is. And so you can do that for a pretty long period of time. And I think that, you know, from what I've heard and what I've witnessed, I think there's people who have done that for the majority of their journey. There's a sense of fear to it of I'm just going to stay put. I can't look these questions in the eye. I cannot look these doubts in the eye. I cannot be honest about how I really feel about church or about scripture or about the things I've been taught about gay people or you know, whatever else it is.
Sarah:
But then on the flip side, oftentimes what happens is then you think that your only option is just to burn it all down. You know, and let, listen, I have done that [inaudible] you just are like, everything's terrible. It's garbage. You know, you just feel like, you know, throwing a match and walking away like in a movie. Right? And just to let it burn down. Nothing redeemable, nothing redemptive, nothing worth saving. And I think that both of those responses are healthy and normal and probably ones most of us have tried. Sure. But the thing that we felt with evolving faith was what does it look like to not double down or burn it down? What does it look like to lean in? What does it look like to go through? What does it look like to cross the threshold and trust that that is not because of your faithlessness, but actually it's an invitation from the Holy spirit.
Sarah:
That this isn't something to be afraid of, that your deconstruction is not a sign of you losing it or of displeasing God, but instead that there is richness and beauty and justice and goodness on the other side of that threshold, and the thing that often will propel us over that is some proximity to grief. There are things that we have lost. There are people we've lost. There's requests, there's prayers that have gone on the answer. There's the formulas that used to work don't work anymore. The things that used to make bring you comfort and goodness in life don't have turned bitter. And so that's often what propels us over that threshold. And then it's just disorienting. Right? And so I think that part of what we wanted with that community was to be the ones waiting on the other side of the door when someone crosses the threshold and just wrap them up in a very warm hug and say, you are not alone. You will be losing things. You will be deconstructing, you will be rebuilding eventually, something worth living in for the... There is so much life and goodness here. But the most important thing is that it often feels very isolating. You feel afraid because you're alone and everybody's looking at you like they're worried about you. And so having this sense of community, the sense of comradery, even a sense of joy to it was really important to us.
Monica:
Oh gosh. I love that. I love that so much. It's such a comfort. And again, I, I am repeating myself because the word I keep thinking is relief. Um, I just think of a relief for, you know, for so many people that they could be shepherded instead of left alone or instead of only, you know, with those two options that maybe they've tried either and they, they want something else, you know? Okay, well I want to talk about your new book for a little bit if that's okay and I just really have a lot to say, but I'm going to try to keep it down to just to just a few questions. It was, it really is an experience. And I think at one place you talked about it being an altar to meet with God and it really felt that way to me. It ministered, um, so much to me in ways that I knew I needed and in ways that I did not know I needed.
Monica:
And there's this idea that we can love God and not understand and that we can believe in Jesus and not divide ourselves from other people. So I just wanted to start with kind of this, I, I'm going back to the word tension, but this idea that you wrote a book that talks about miracles and unanswered prayers, right? And it talks about miracles and then also finding God in suffering. And I, and I'm wondering if you can tell us just a little bit about walking in that, that area, which is, is such an amazing thing.
Sarah:
Yeah, I think that um, a lot of us have kind of an uneasy relationship with the language of miracles. Um, mainly because very little feels miraculous and there's a lot of, um, I mean if you live longer than a hot second, you know, usually you've had some encounters with loss, right? And so, you know, I think the big thing for me was coming of age in a time of, you know, this charismatic renewal movement in the word of faith, prosperity, gospel sort of, you know, narrative which spoke of healing and miracles as your birthright and as your expectation and a formula to deploy and never, never feeling a level of comfort with that while still wanting to hold a room for my belief that God could, right? And I think that that's a hard place in a lot of ways. I think that, you know, not easier, I mean easier is not the right word, but things are less complicated if you can just be like, Nope, there is no such thing. You know, you can just walk it, walk it out. And so I think holding that tension or holding that both and of yes and um, whether it is for healing or lack of healing, um, was really important to me. And I think, you know, this was much more of a memoir driven book than my previous two books. And kind of being able to unpack and, and examine, but also experience what it meant to really lean into what healing could be and while still holding room for the miraculous. Right. And, and having, having that story there and having this, you know, the miracles as present as the lack of them, of having God's voice as present as the silence of God and saying not either one was indicative of blessing, not either one was indicative of my holiness, you know, or of my worthiness.
Sarah:
Right. Um, but the experience of, you know, the spirit and of being human and of watching through these things together. And so, you know, I, I hope that I managed to show that both of those things can be true at the same time. Um, and that one of the things that it often can become is actually a relearning of what, how wide of a word healing is. Rachel used to say that there's a difference between curing and healing and that the church is called to that slow work of healing. And that to me, I didn't really think about that when I was writing the book, but since losing her and since these months of, um, navigating life on the other side of just a tremendous loss, um, I have thought so much more about her words in that context of saying what does it mean for us as a church to anoint our suffering as much as anything else?
Sarah:
And call that Holy, what does it mean to engage and be present for the long work of healing as opposed to just defaulting to cure or no cure. And that to me is a really worthy conversation when we have got, you know, communities and lives that are complicated and stories that are complicated and you know, what does it look like to expand our notions of healing while still holding out room and hope for mountain moving miracles, uh, at the same time in just to kind of expanding that, you know, can we have room for the miraculous move of God? And also have room for the miracle of medication and therapy and doctors and you know, all those sorts of things. Right? Yeah. And named them both healing.
Monica:
Yes, absolutely. It takes away that idea, you know, whether, whether you're raised in a faith tradition that believes in miracles or not. I would say that in my experience, maybe this is incorrect for other people's experiences or not the same, but that there is often this sense of before and after, right before Jesus, after Jesus. Um, whether that's, you know, I was depressed before and now I'm not, you know, I'm quoting scripture and you know, putting on the armor of God and, and, and I'm, and I'm happy. I wonder if we can sort of talk about that idea a little bit more with the idea of the tidy story, as you called it in, um, in this book and in that there isn't necessarily a before and after in that healing can be the long walk. Can you tell us a little bit more about this idea of a tidy story and, and what can happen or what has happened for you or what you've seen when we don't have that tidy story or if it gets a lot more complex all of a sudden.
Sarah:
Right. I think, I know, and I think that in your work and in your experience, you probably could speak to this way more than I could, but that's never stopped me before. So I'll go ahead and answer your question.
Monica:
I want to hear what you have to say.
Sarah:
The thing I feel about that tidy story kind of was this narrative that I think probably came to a lot of us, you know, of while you have your testimony, right. You know, before I knew Jesus, I was this, I was, that I was broke, I was drunk, I was high, I was broken, I was blah, blah, blah, blah. And now because I'm at Jesus one night in the woods, or one night at an altar call meeting or whatever else it is, then everything changed. And all of a sudden I had meaning. I had hope. I had life, I was healed, I was set free.
Monica:
set free that's the word.
Sarah:
Um, and that is a beautiful story, right? That's an incredibly beautiful story. But I have found that that's often, it's almost like, you know, um, when you read a fairytale and it ends with the wedding and they say, and they lived happily ever after. And as someone who has been married for a long time, there's a lot and they happily ever after, right? That's often where things really start getting interesting. Right? A few decades in. Yes. And so I think that in a lot of ways that's how we've crafted how we speak about phase. Yes. We've spoken about it as a happily ever after. And we have not been honest about what that can look like in reality. Um, because the truth is there's a lot of Christians who struggle with drinking. There's a lot of Christians who struggle with, you know, uh, things that they were supposed to have been, quote unquote, set free from, you know, and so then there's this secret shame that people feel, I'm in my, after I'm in my happily ever after.
Sarah:
Why? Why am I struggling? Why am I suffering? Why am I in pain? Why am I not healed? Why do I have chronic illness? Why? It's, you know, did my husband leave me or my partner leave me? I mean, whatever else it is, there is it somehow it seemed like Jesus didn't cure everything. And turn the page for this to be a happily ever after. I'm still human. I'm still here. I'm still engaged in living in this, in this body, and in this set of circumstances. And so for the people who experience the happily ever after, I don't begrudge them that. And neither do I doubt it. I think that that's fully, you know, a fully available and you know, yay, right yet. But for those of us who find ourselves in that after and say, but yes, not quite right. Those were the ones I'm interested in.
Sarah:
Those are the ones I feel like this book is for or these are the ones I kind of had in my heart as I was working was to say, there's nothing broken about you or wrong with you. If maybe your life doesn't match what was sold to you. If you have had to encounter God and the love of God in the darkness and in the valleys more than on these big mountain top experiences of victory. Um, that Jesus doesn't only hang out with the winners. Yes. And that in fact, those of us who have illness or who have complexity or who have a story that maybe doesn't make it onto, you know, the highly celebrated evangelical circuit that that doesn't make you less precious, that your productivity is not tied to your importance and your value and that you're not more or less beloved by God. And in fact, Jesus often draws near to those of us who are having to sit down on the curb every once in awhile.
Monica:
Yes. Oh yes, absolutely. And I think with that one single narrative of a before and after, it leaves us with these question marks of, well, if that didn't happen for me, it's either about me I'm not good enough or something's wrong with me or I'm doing it wrong. Right? Or it's about God, he forgot me. You know, he doesn't, he's not there for me like he is for everyone else. And I just think that's such an important message that you are, you know, specifically in this book offering to all of us is, is what I felt like was a bit of a love letter to people who are suffering or who don't have the before/After. Myself, you know, being one of them. I never had that before and after. And my darkest moment was after hearing one of those before, after testimonies, I thought, well, I guess this just, I guess God forgot...
Sarah:
Exactly. You do. You feel forgotten. You feel left behind and left out. And I think, like you said, I mean then you're left either saying either God's not as advertised and as a monster perhaps, or I'm the monster and I'm not worthy and neither one of those things are actually what's happening. I'm glad you felt that. I'm glad that you felt that sense towards that. People who are readers. I felt like very, um, a very strong connection with the people who would be reading the book while I was writing it and um, really felt that sense of, you know, wanted that sense of closeness. I, yeah, that makes me feel glad to know that that came through.
Monica:
It absolutely came through. It really did and it, and it did feel personal, you know, I mean, I know it's that sense of being able to, you know, see your own story in the story you are writing even though it looked, nothing alike really, really came through for me. It was really powerful. I'm wondering if we can talk about this idea that you mentioned about, you didn't mention you write it beautifully about when you are at the Lake one morning and this idea where God or the Holy spirit spoke to you about choosing life. I found this to be so moving. Um, I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about this idea of choosing life even when you are deeply struggling and what that might look like, of course, different for each of us. Um, but just in general about that idea.
Sarah:
Um, one of the things my parents are first generation, uh, Christians and came to faith when they were adults and I was, you know, a kid myself in elementary school. And I remember one of the earliest things that my mum, uh, discovered she was re, you know, again, you don't, we just had no proximity, right to a lot of these things. And so our introduction to scripture was, you know, very personal, right? It felt like reading a love letter, right? It did feel that way. And so I remember my mum coming across this passage over in the gospel of John that talked that, when Jesus is saying that he came to bring life and life more abundant, that the enemy is the one that is here to steal, kill, and destroy. But I've come that they may have life and life that is most abundant than is more abundant.
Sarah:
And that really captured her imagination and was a narrative that I then heard throughout my, my life was this sense of anything that is stealing, killing, and destroying life in you that's not from God. That origin of that is never going to be what, what the God of love is for you. And so when I found myself, um, suffering, when I found myself sick, when I found my body very uncooperative, it felt like something being destroyed. It felt like a vision of myself, a life that I had planned, things that I knew about myself were just disappearing. And that morning in that sense was one part. You know, that that phrase is from, um, a story in Exodus. But it also connected for me to that, that uh, teaching from Jesus or that um, promise even from Jesus of there being a more abundant life.
Sarah:
And a lot of times when you are in a place of suffering and you're in a place of sickness, I mean for sure we have things that we do that are coping mechanisms that are ways to get through. And I mean, I'm never going to be one to judge what anybody needs to do in order to keep going another day. Like that's fine. And I for sure have done a lot of those things myself. But there is, there is a shift that can begin to happen that looks like just turning towards life, and to that turning towards the places in your life where you see abundant life, where you are experiencing life, things that are bringing life to you and goodness to you. So if there's relationships or there are habits or there are things that you are experiencing that are draining life from you, what would it look like to turn towards the things that are actually bringing you life and goodness and trust that, that those things are there at the invitation of the Holy Spirit, that this is what's been given to you in order to do.
Sarah:
And so for me at the time, because a lot of this was at the alternate of my physical body and if the, you know, challenges that I was facing, it looked like turning towards the last things I wanted to do. Like the going to the doctor and going to bed on time. I mean just the most basic stuff that just at the end of the day they brought me like, yes. I mean it didn't often feel good. It wasn't the thing I wanted sometimes, but there was a path of destruction and destroying myself continually or I could make as much as I was able, sometimes I was not able, sometimes I was only, but wee little bits, yes. But as much as I were able, I was able to turn my heart and my face towards the things that bring life.
Monica:
I love that. I love that so much. Um, you know, it reminds me also of the um, part in the book where you talked about the idea of God mothering us and sort of the mother heart of God and how if God is mothering us and these are not words in the book, these are, this is my own interpretation of it. What would we do next, right? We would do the healthy and loving thing for ourself and this idea of self care versus self comfort that you brought up in the book. I've never heard that before. I'm wondering if we can talk just a little bit also about that the self care versus self comfort and and God as a mother figure. Can you tell us a little bit more about, about both of those?
Sarah:
I'm sure there's, you know, the self care versus self comfort thing actually came to me through a friend, a girlfriend of mine named Kelly Gordon and she was the one who identified that for me of saying a lot of what our culture calls blithely self care is actually stuff that's... It's actually self comfort. Yeah. You know, it's things that are designed to kind of numb you out. You know, so when you've been...something, you know, great British baking show or something for a whole entire weekend and you know that's, you know, we would hashtag that self care but it's actually self comfort and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with some self comfort but self comfort is designed almost to put you to sleep. Right? It's designed to make you feel numb and it has almost a soporific effect. It's a way of kind of like numbing out on your problems and on life and on the howling wind at the door and you know the struggles and I think that it has a place, you know what, there's, you have a, a lot of room for our self comfort.
Sarah:
It's not necessarily a pejorative term, but self care, real self care actually wakes you up. You know, real self care is the thing that wakes you up to God. It wakes you up to your neighbor, it wakes you up to your own needs in your own body. And so as opposed to, you know, self comfort, maybe saying, okay, I'm going to never go for a walk or I never, you know, do the go to the doctor because it makes me feel uncomfortable or you know, not go in and get a cavity taken care of because it makes me sad. You know, whatever else it is, you know. But self care is like, no, I'm going to go and make the appointment with my gynecologist. I'm going to go and show up for my mammogram. I'm going to take my medication. I'm going to turn off the TV and read a book, I am going to go to bed on time instead of staying up all night watching, you know, shows or whatever.
Sarah:
And so...And I think the difference too with self care versus self comfort is self care then orients you towards people. It orients you towards your neighbor, orients you towards your own life, towards engaging. You know, I have a temperament and a personality that leans towards the disengagement. And so it has to be like a spiritual discipline for me to stay engaged, to stay engaged with relationships, to stay engaged with people because it's easier just to kind of numb out and just be like, well no, you know? And so being able to see that as there are two sides of a coin and both can be used for, you know, or, or misused in a lot of ways. And I think that that's where the metaphor for, um, and seeing God as mother as well as father was really helpful to me because that's how I am with my children.
Sarah:
Um, that is how my mum was with me. And I see that in myself where, you know, I can comfort my children all day long and wrap them up in blankets and cotton and make sure they never have to, you know, engage with their life but that's not actually caring for them. The thing that will care for them is making sure that they have good, you know, good supper and that they know how to wash their clothes and that, you know, I'm making sure that they're going to bed on time and all that. The way things that you mother, you know, the conversations you have and the, you know, explorations and the challenges even and letting them rise and fall. And you know, having those experiences with mothering my own children helped me begin to see that those are lot of ways that God will mother us. That there's a tenderness of maternal ness to it, but there still is an engaging sense to it. It's, it's your mother and your mothering for a purpose. It's so these kids will launch, right? So these kids will, you know, for disciples, but also good partners and good friends and good neighbors are mothering with a, an end game in mind. And in a lot of ways when God is mothering us, it is with an end game in mind of our wholeness and the way that that's interconnected to the wholeness of everyone.
Monica:
love that. Yes. Um, and I, I did never, I mean, I maybe I'd heard someone say something about, you know, as God mothering is but never like this, um, such a beautiful picture. And I just, um, have found it so comforting to think about and, um, and I think so much we are so much more aware of, of having girls and young women have, um, be able to see examples for themselves. Right? Like I could be that. I see, I see that now. Um, and, and that is somewhere where I feel like we've underserved girls, right? Is that is seeing their own image or if they're going to, which they may not, but if they happen to grow up to be a mother, being able to see that or even just the, the feminine side and the masculine side and everything in between of God is such a refreshing, um, I think important view for us too.
Sarah:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that anytime you try to reduce God to one aspect or another, you're missing, you know, this, the expansiveness and goodness of God, the full picture. I think that's one of the things that I find almost surprising when people push back hard on me about using, you know, feminine pronouns or, or imagery of God as mother, as a woman. Even then we end up, if we're thinking of God constantly through this lens of masculine and male, we're missing the full image of God. If women are not women, that women's stories and women's experiences and you know, those things are not also central to the nature and character of God as well.
Monica:
I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit also about this idea of unity and diversity that you really walk us through, um, you know, in the book, and I'll, I won't spoil it for everyone because it is, it in your book reads like a novel. I mean, it just, every page, it was just so beautifully written and just you just get pulled just happily along with the story. Um, but there's this beautiful picture that you walk through of unity and diversity, which is, and you point out that it's not unity and uniformity, right? And it's not diversity without unity. Um, but it's unity in diversity. Um, and I'm wondering if you can talk to us a little bit about that and what might be your hopes, um, for all of us in that.
Sarah:
Yeah, that's a, that's a really great question. I, um, you know, it's funny, I think in light of your first question about, you know, seeing me as someone who is welcoming and has a big table and this and that, that in a lot of ways, you know, I, I like that vision of myself and every once in a while you trip up against your own prejudices and your own, you know, otherness in your own way of looking at people and you know, that's uncomfortable. And so I always am wary of people who make themselves the hero of their own, I don't know what it is that makes me just kind of a little bit skeptical of that. I felt like it was important to include in the book my own prejudices and my own ways of running up against the limits of unity because a lot of what I wrote about in that section and around that idea was because my, I was invited to go to Rome to meet the Pope, which is just an average sentence. You expected it was just something else. I mean, as one does, right?
Monica:
Yeah, of course. On a Tuesday.
Sarah:
Yeah. And the experience for me was actually complicated. Like I realized how much judgment I had around Catholicism, around people who were in Rome and in that story. And so I was very closed off to the experiences that I believe God had called us there to have. And in a lot of ways, the miracles that we experienced in Rome were, I think just directly to get me to stop it.
Sarah:
And it's funny because in our marriage, my husband was with me. I'm always the one that's pushing forward in the, you know, love and openness and you know, Holy spirit. And he's always a little bit more like, okay, let's take it slow. And you know, we'll see, a little bit more skeptical. He has more baggage as well around, well that sounds pejorative, but he has more complexity,
Monica:
I know what you mean. He has reasons perhaps to be more skeptical.
Sarah:
Listen, the charismatic movement of the eighties and nineties was bonkers. And if you lived through it, you got somebody. Right? Absolutely. And so it was interesting to me that he was more open that he was more, you know, um, his heart was open, his hands were open, and he was the one to first start having these experiences while we were there. And I would skip things and miss things because I was so sure that God couldn't speak to me in this place.
Sarah:
And through these people, I was so sure that I was just more liberated and I was more progressive than I was more open. But by then, by default I became close. Right, right. I became the one that was closed. I became the one that missed it. I became the one that was really knocked off a high horse in a lot of that way. And so my experiences with the unity and disunity were in this ecumenical space of Anglicans and Catholics and you know, us sloppy, you know, charismatics and you know, Methodists and people from all over the world all coming together. And me sitting back and saying, I'm missing it. Because they're not exactly like me. I'm pretending that God's not present here. And that's not true. And so then of course there's this wild sweeping wind that just kind of comes in through the story and through our lives, through that realization. And I'm grateful, you know, for that, it's just, that's a hard mirror to see, right. To realize that I could have missed it. I would have been, I wouldn't have missed it. And that learning to have that sort of unity that doesn't require you to be identical to one another is actually a discipline and it's, if it's a required opening, it's a required unclenching of your hands and your ideas and saying, even God is here.
Monica:
Hmm. I love that. And I feel like that, um, gives all of us so much hope because we all, if, if we're being honest with ourselves, which, you know, I'm, I'm going to be honest with myself here too, is we all will run into those, you know, biases that we have, um, and just, or, you know, this can't be like that. Right. But I, I love the idea of it, what you just said of it being like a discipline that, that gives us hope. Um, you know, maybe I think some people might feel so rigid in their thinking, they wonder why, I don't even know if I can find my way out of this. Right. But the discipline of opening your hand is a something that I think we can all practice. I love that. That I love the idea of it being something that we can intentionally put into our lives.
Sarah:
That's a phrase that I have loved in the Christian tradition for a lot of years now as the phrase practice that you're practicing things. I think especially because I came from a tradition that was very like poof, now you're fixed, now it's over, you know, welcomed, you know, kind of talked about this morning. But I love the notion of practice like, and I have, I have adopted that whether it has to do with healing, like what does it look like to practice healing? What does it look like to practice openness, even bravery. I mean like it's not like a switch that gets flipped that some people are brave, people aren't or they are able to practice. It is a thing that you are practicing. And I love the gymnasium aspect of that. The muscular ness of it, the don't have to have it figured out. The first time you try because you are practicing. And I just think that's a very welcoming word for those of us who are trying to figure out how to be faithful and how to be loving and how to be whole.
Monica:
Mmhmm, and then we build muscle memory. You know, the more we practice something, the more we... Maybe, maybe not every time, but maybe the less scary it is next time, right? That we've, okay, we've, we've done this before. We've, I've practiced this openness, this idea of, of you know, going past my biases. Maybe it won't be as scary as it was last time for me. Right.
Sarah:
That's exactly it. And I think too, I mean, being alongside of people who affirm that, you know, whether it is in your, your community or your friendships or you know, even online spaces can do that for us of saying, we are practicing together. We're practicing showing up for our own life. We're practicing healing, we're practicing all of these things. Being brave, being wise. , you know, all of those things and that there's room for that, that none of us have arrived and we aren't expecting and arrival from one another.
Monica:
Yes. Yes. That reminds me of the name of your conference, right. Evolving Faith, right. That there's, that there's, there's room, right. There's room to have evolved to be evolving and to evolve in the future.
Sarah:
Yes. Absolutely. I mean, I remember when I finished writing Out of Sorts, which is the book that kind of gave birth to the conference that kind of gave rise to it.
Sarah:
Um, along with Rachel's book, Searching for Sunday while all, all of her work. I mean, evolving into that was the sense of like, I remember actually even writing in there and saying, I am actually looking forward to 10 years from now rereading this book and seeing all the ways that I don't think half this stuff anymore. Yes. That's, yeah. Kind of existence that moment in time. And I think, you know, if you're not changing and growing and evolving in response to God then you're not paying attention, I mean, you know, God is, you know, a lot of times we were talking about how God is unchanging, but in a lot of ways it's our view of God that's changing. It's our understanding, it's our experience of God and you know, life shifts that you know, that the point of everything is not to get to the end of your life with the same set of beliefs and opinions you had at the beginning.
Sarah:
I mean, good gracious, right?
Monica:
Yeah. Right. Yes, absolutely. And you know, and if we are, which we all are, I think whether we like it or not going through life, we are going to run into things that knock us right out of that. Right. We, you know, we, we, if we are, as you said, you know, paying attention, then we are going to, it's going to be hard to hold on to certain rigid things at certain times.
Sarah:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Monica:
Um, well, I'm wondering if we can ask, um, my last question, which is just one that I, I've been asking everybody, which is, um, what is one person or event that has helped you become who you are today? Um, and to become Sarah today. You know, you use also in, in this book, this idea of becoming an unbecoming right of God. So I mean, it could be an unbecoming answer also, um, if that would be more fitting for you.
Monica:
But what is, you know, and it doesn't have to be just one, but you know, this idea of becoming, um, who or what has has really played a hand in kind of who you are today?
Sarah:
I think that's a great question. You know, I, I think there's probably a million different ones I could point to because I think that that's kind of how we are shaped, right? There's all sorts of different, you know, encounters and people and moments and small and large that kind of shape us. But I think that probably two that I look at and say that this was the beginning of a shift for me was, um, reading a few different authors, um, in the early two thousands. I remember coming across and I think one of the first ones for me, I was right at the beginning stages of my deconstruction. Just struggling.
Sarah:
I mean, the grief of it, the anger, the cynicism of the burnout and exhaustion of it as well, and feeling like, if this is all it is, then I think I'm out. Right? I think I'm done. And I remember just struggling very mightily in the wake of the September 11th attacks. I was in the living in the United States at the time, the run up to the war in Iraq. All of those things were kind of happening at the same time. And just having such a difficult feeling of I could belong in faith communities that were just vengeful and, um, and hungry for war and retribution and just feeling like, I don't feel this reflects what I know about Jesus. I don't know much, but, and I remember coming across Dallas Willard's book The Divine Conspiracy, and it is funny to me how many people I talk about, I talk to now that talk about how that book was an embarking point for them as well.
Sarah:
That was the first time that I heard someone talk about discipleship as practice, that was the first time I had a real proximity to what spiritual formation could look like. It was thick and hard for me to read. It took me a long time to get the hang of it. I could read just a couple of pages at a time and then I'd have to set it down and be like, and he would be saying things like, Jesus is smart. And I'd be like, well, I'll be damned. You know? That's just remarkable.
Monica:
Blew my mind. Yeah.
Sarah:
It was the centrality and the goodness of Jesus was so clear to him in, in what this was. And I began to realize that my way of following Jesus, my way of experiencing church, my way of understanding scripture, my way of understanding that the gospel was not the only way, that there were other ways of doing this too.
Sarah:
And so that kind of creaked open the door for me to begin to explore. Right? That's what led me chat a lot of other writers and thinkers and, and things. And I mean, I am grateful because that book opened the door initially for me to find things like Barbara BrownTaylor and Brian McClaren. And you know, even Rachel and you know, as time has gone on, you know, just so many other great thinkers and writers ad leaders, um, who are, uh, leaning into those very questions with wisdom and grace and strength. And it is beautiful to see and incredible. But I don't know that I would have experienced that if that initial creak open of a door of saying, Oh, wait, my way of doing it isn't the only way. And maybe that means I need to think about this a little bit more.
Monica:
Wow. Yes, absolutely. Sara, thank you so much. I really, um, it's such an honor and just a pleasure to talk to you and you're, um, just as lovely as I imagined you would be, um, to talk to after reading your books. It really has made an impact on my life and I know I'm not alone. Um, you know that your writing, your honesty, your commitment to the messy, messy, messy truth of all of it is just a relief and really a game changer. It has been a game changer for me. Um, so thank you so much.
Sarah:
Thank you. That means the world to me to hear. I'm so grateful. I'm really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.