This week’s guest is Sara. Sara grew up in a Canadian Mennonite community and embraced it wholeheartedly. She was surrounded by evangelical Christianity and she thrived. 

As a young adult, she married and followed her husband into ministry. While he led, she helped as was expected of her. It didn’t occur to her until years later how little her own leadership skills had to be set aside. 

 Sara’s husband started deconstructing his beliefs before she did, but as he was learning, she was also learning. Years later, she knew he’d become an atheist before he did. 

It wasn’t easy, but they made space for one another to learn and grow and move down their own paths. Today, Sara is a spiritual director for others and doesn’t have a specific label for herself, and it works just fine. 

“There’s a whole host of ways of being in the world…”

Links

Sara’s website
https://prairiethistle.ca/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/prairiethistle

Recommendations

Richard Rohr

Carl Jung

Kathleen Norris

Thomas Keating

Thomas Merton

Interact

Join the Deconversion Anonymous Facebook group!

Graceful Atheist Podcast Merch!
https://www.teepublic.com/user/gracefulatheistpodcast

Support the podcast
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/gracefulatheist
Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Secular Grace
https://gracefulatheist.com/2016/10/21/secular-grace/

Attribution

“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats

David Ames  0:11  
This is the graceful atheist podcast United studios Podcast Network. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the graceful atheist podcast. My name is David and I am trying to be a graceful atheist. Please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on the Apple podcast store, rate the podcast on Spotify, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening. We have a merchandise store on T public, you can get all of your graceful atheist and secular Grace themed items there, the link will be in the show notes. If you're in the middle of doubt, deconstruction, the dark night of the soul, you do not have to do it alone. Join our private Facebook group deconversion anonymous and become a part of the community. You can find us at facebook.com/groups/deconversion Special thanks to Mike T for editing today's show. On today's show, Arline interviews this week's guest Sarah. Sarah grew up in Canada in a Mennonite community that also had a lot of evangelical influence. Her and her husband were both deeply committed Christians, her husband deconstructed and D converted first. And Sarah began to deconstruct her faith. Sarah is still a spiritual person, and does not care for labels. But what she is describing is a Christian or a spiritual humanism. Here is Arline interviewing Sarah.

Arline  1:50  
Right. Welcome to the graceful atheists.

Sara  1:53  
Thank you. Good to be here.

Arline  1:55  
You and I have chatted, we're both in the deconversion anonymous Facebook group. You are the lovely spouse of one of our former guests. And yeah, I'm just excited I get to talk to you.

Sara  2:07  
I'll take it. I'll take it.

Arline  2:10  
Okay, so we usually just start tell us about the religious environment that you grew up in.

Sara  2:16  
Sure. So I grew up in small town, Manitoba, Canada, and that is a cold place. But it was full of warm hearted people. For me, growing up growing up Evangelical, Mennonite, Christian, so I'm not sure who's all familiar with Mennonite people out there. But a lot of people in the States could think of Amish people for a first comparison. We still have people groups in that tradition up here with the bonnet and and the old fashioned dress, the modest dress, but mostly progressive communities. So modern communities, full of evangelical based Mennonite Christians. So that's how I grew up, was just being ushered into the faith. So I've learned the term cradle Christian. And that definitely applies to me. So I remember I remember being told that I said the center's prayer around age four. So you know, in in smack at the age of innocence, just reciting, reciting to my parents at bedtime, the sinners prayer and thus becoming a Christian. And my parents describe to me, our faith, our family history as culturally, we came from Mennonites, but our faith was more progressive. So we did attend a non denominational church in our community, which of course was full of evangelicals. So non denomination or not, that's that's what I grew up in and really embraced wholeheartedly. The faith. And so for me that looks like let's see if I can age myself. Date. give you guys a date reference in the 90s. Growing up as a teenager, a little bit of purity culture, a lot of the youth rallies, evangelical, mainstream musicians and concerts. A lot of the culture that I was involved in was all Christian so from morning to sundown, was Christian media and Christian teaching. You did not go to Christian school, we had public school, but really was not exposed to other ways of life or other faiths or other cultures. I'm really just, what's the word one tone, just a uniform tone in our in our small town at least. And I guess you could say I, I wasn't popular, growing up, but I was good. And in the Christian circles that made one feel pretty secure and the affirmation of elders and peers was something that I enjoyed and sought and was rewarded with, because of being good. And I, I was really good at being a Christian and enjoyed it. And I do, I would say, I was lucky that we did grow up, I would say more progressive. And the purity culture, stuff that that did come around indoctrinated a lot of the younger teenagers younger than me at the time. And I didn't get hit with with too much of that guilt messaging. But as a grew up into young adulthood, I, I took the opportunity, of course, and to take the next step from being a good Christian in my small town to being a good Christian in a small college, a small Christian College. So our community has Christian College, about seven minutes away from the town. And so that was my big leap forward out of high school, into the big wide, wide world, seven minutes down the gravel road, away from my house where I grew up my whole youth. And at this school, I would say I did receive, again, a more progressive Christian evangelical education. So in that way, continued to avoid some of the more the pitfalls, some of the more abusive messaging, I would say that the messaging I received was, stay on the straight and narrow and listen to your elders. And, and really, the the messaging Other than that, was, you know, that, that women were submissive to men. But that was never really something that that was something that I struggled with. And it was never rammed down our throats, maybe because nobody questioned it. So regardless of why the messaging didn't seem that traumatic for me. It did enable me to keep mostly an open mindset, I guess. So it was at this Christian College, that I would say, I continue to learn a more open minded and open hearted way of being a person of faith.

I did go on to to take a marketing degree, somewhere else and return to work at this college. And the the marketing challenge that I was presented with when I worked there was very interesting to me because the school was transitioning from I'm not sure what they would have been called beforehand, but they were embracing what was called a liberal arts, education. And so the liberal arts in our area of Canada, all people heard was the word liberal. And they thought this, this college was off the rails and that that was it. However, how I understood it then, and how I understand it now is liberal arts is just a wide range of studies. It's a broad spectrum, education, that's what they were seeking to provide. So I would contrast that with other colleges where the religious messaging is heavy handed and inescapable, and in as much as this college wasn't perfect, they did present as far as I understood it a more open way of being. So as I transitioned from attending the college to You know, ending up working there, I met my husband there. And he was, you guessed it a very good Christian. At the time, we were well matched, both of us wanting to be not just good Christians, but leaders in our community. So leading, as someone who worked at the college, was what I was fully embracing. And my husband eventually ended up working in ministry. We were volunteering at our church multiple times per week, he was volunteering and working full time with youth. And that was always interesting to me, as well as he was fully whose full time employed in ministry. And I was expected to come and help. And this was a fully unpaid understanding was that I would be there to support and help but also lead and teach teenage girls and be a mentor to them. And I didn't quest question it, I enjoyed it. I felt that there was room for me as a strong, outspoken woman to have leadership skills. It wasn't until later that I would realize that in all of that, the ability to fully use my voice, my intellect, was still completely under the the leadership of others, especially under the leadership of men. So from there, we had started a family, we had a young family, and I would say, a catalyst to our growth. My husband and I would be when we did start a family, one of the things about having children having a baby, what is the the expression, having your heart, on the outside, walking around in the world, having having your heart outside of you walking around in the world, we both experienced that intense vulnerability that comes with realizing we're not in control. We leave, pray to and believe in and trust in this big, omnipotent God. And yet, there is there suffering in the world, and there are things that can happen to your loved ones. So the problem of, of pain, the problem of suffering, the fear of not being in control, or wondering why there's a God that would allow suffering, we did have few intense health scares with our first with our first child. So that really prompted both of us this question of what kind of god is this, that we believe and we started to question a little deeper? Hey, what's up with?

The questioning, I would say lead to my husband D converting first. So the deconversion of one spouse when the other isn't ready or hasn't made the same types of growth or the same direction of growth. That's something that we confronted early on, I would say my husband found it difficult to tell me what he was going through for fear of what I would say, and just not necessarily fear, but the the intense, honest discomfort that comes with realizing your spouse and you are, are different and growing differently. And my husband at the time was studying Christian psychology and pursuing his master's in Christian counseling. A lot of the benefit of being a spouse of a student is that you you learn a little bit alongside with them, definitely not to the same extent that he was learning, receiving the training directly, but watching and watching the books that he'd bring home and hearing him talk about what he was learning did benefit me as well. And, and I knew he was questioning and and I did question. A lot of the things I was told from the Bible as well, when one of the areas that we immediately agreed on was the area of the Bible as a book, a literature book, and for context, how it was put together and who wrote it and when and why and learning about the different types of literature contained within this book. Being open to the Bible as Miss being open to portions of the Bible as poetry, and art. We eventually realize that the Bible being the be all and end all, it, it didn't strike us the same way as it used to, using the Bible as a rule book. Using the Bible as law at more than just as a place to find messaging about values, just using it as the foundation for everything for all sources of thought, was not something that we could both condone. I was, I would say, I was very at peace. With that, as you could probably tell. Living in the headspace and questioning and learning and embracing my intellect is not something that I would say that I naturally gravitate toward. That's not me. I, I was always the one who would say I have the gift of faith. I don't question I just believe I, I just know. And even as we were growing and changing, it didn't seem very unrestful to me, because we were still good Christians. We were still going to church, we were still leading in the community. And we also experienced some freedom in what my husband was doing in his ministry, where we were learning about evangelicalism as relational. Instead of, we called it we call it relational instead of vacuum cleaner salesman, evangelicalism. So instead of saying, you know, upfront, hey, we're here were Christian, you should be to Why aren't you one? Here's how you can be one Why aren't you and yet very heavy handed salesmanship. We embrace relationship. First, I, I would describe this as an immature way of knowing that love is more important than law. And we wouldn't have had the words for it then. But we were thankfully supported to continue to do ministry. Without being heavy handed. Or I would use the word abusive now we we were able to be loving in as much as providing religious propaganda in central rural, small town Manitoba can be loving. So I would say, my I knew my husband had become atheists before he did. I remember that conversation on our, on our hosts, we're both are on our coach. We're both night owls. We were staying up way too late having one of our discussions like we do. And maybe I wasn't being the most loving at the time. But, but I remember telling him after he he'd told me for a few years, he was agnostic Christian, which then I had to look that up and make sure that I knew what that meant. And at the time, I could say, okay, yeah, I understand agnosticism, and being able to say that I hold a view of God or what is out there and I don't know for sure. And there are there are more learned and technical definitions than that. The way I understood it very simply was this is what I think I believe, but I may be wrong and I hold that opinion loosely.

So for him to tell me for years, he was agnostic, Christian, I was fine with. And I looked at him one night and I said, you're not you're not agnostic, Christian, you're agnostic atheist. And that that term that's a laden term. So for anyone, and I think I know your audience pretty well, there's probably a lot of people out there who for a long time, that term atheist was so laden with guilt and fear and condemnation. And it was probably the worst thing that could happen to someone was who they've turned into an atheist. And so for me at the time, even though our, our growth as people our development as people was heading in that direction, it definitely scared me. And I think more so than the label was just the implication for our partnership. And the questions that that would raise, how would we raise our kids? How would we celebrate the holidays, the really practical ins and outs of having partnership between two people where their faiths are so different. And for the next year or two after that, I would say my growth continued. But I wouldn't say necessarily the same direction. And now, this is probably where it might get interesting. Because as much as I could look at what I believed and and see that the term agnostic fit with me as well agnostic Christian, I couldn't quite embrace the term atheist. And, and so that's kind of where we parked for a long time. As we both continued to grow, my husband getting more and more comfortable with the term agnostic atheist, eventually found his way to community Bihu humanist Canada, the community of humans Canada, and, and so for him to announce to me that he had become a humanist. That was the next step in in his growth and I still felt I still felt a little left behind, I still felt a little bit like, that wasn't the right direction for me. I did look into humanism for a while and try it on the label of Christian humanist. And I wrote a few essays, developing the idea and, and show making a case for Christian humanism, which I believe there is a case for that type of belief. But along along the way, of my, my studying on my own, not professionally, just casually, I'm pursuing my own topics and books that that kind of served me on my growth path. I realized that I didn't like any of this anymore. Any of these labels. I didn't like the Christian label. I didn't fit the atheist label. I didn't fit the humanist label. I didn't fit the deist label, see theist label. I every label that that someone suggested to me or put on me, I just there was always something that didn't quite fit about it, and portions of it would fit and others wouldn't. And I struggled with feeling about, you know, where did that leave me? What type of community did that leave me with? And then COVID Hit COVID I feel like that's every single story these days or every single interview. There's the point in their history and then COVID. So, the loss of community was happening for me before COVID And the first year of COVID in our small town, cemented my husband and I are shared need to be out to be out of the church. or there was not really a path forward for us that continued to see us. In the church, I was working in communications at the time, I was actually a small town journalist, small town journalism at the beginning of COVID, when all of our governments were doing what they were doing and doing what they could, what they thought they needed to do during the beginning of COVID. And, and I was also on the communications team for our church, and realize that I needed distance from the church, and COVID eventually became a gift. The, the quarantining the bubbling, the distance from the community became a space to breathe. And I know it's cliche. But there's people who would say, there's more people now that would say, they're not a Christian, they're still a Jesus follower. And that's where I saw myself, Jesus follower for a while. And eventually, I wouldn't say that that part has necessarily fallen off. But I started to find other ways of finding information and finding community and finding teaching, outside of Christianity outside of the Christology that I had grown up with. That just made sense. And once you find things that just make sense, you can't go back.

What I deconstructed from is easier to define evangelical Christianity is what I deconstructed from. And I would definitely say D converted from. And we haven't found our way back to a church, there's no plans in the future to return to a church. That's not a healthy environment. For us. It's not where we find that there's life giving activity for us. And what I've reconstructed to is harder to define. So I think I'll leave it there, as far as giving you a history of where I've come from and where I where I'm at. So

Arline  28:05  
I have a few questions. Yes. You said there were. There were other ways that you found. I'm not sure the words that you use, but like other ways of thinking about things that you found, what do you have any examples of some of the the no longer Christian things that you were finding that were helpful to you?

Sara  28:27  
Yes, there were some big ones that ended up being my non negotiables. One of the first ones that I had to turn away from was the term would be complementarianism. The idea that the genders the idea, first of all, that there's two genders, and that one is subordinate to the other. That became a no fly zone for me in a no go zone. It just did not add up. And the way I rebuilt from that was finding, first of all, a healthy dose of feminist theology. Once I immersed myself in feminist theology, and knew that it wasn't wrong, it was biblically supported. And more than that, it was holistically healthy for women to be seen as equals and operate in the world as equals. I could not subscribe to a church or faith tradition that views women as less than men. So I've constructed the, the author that that helped me the most, I would say would be Rosemary Radford rather. And she's a medical All Episcopalian, Catholic, whatever labels can we give to her? Eco eco theologian, feminist theologian. She passed away just a few years ago, after a lengthy career in writing and pursuing theology and teaching. And of course, it can't remember the the Catholic school she was at. Come on brain. But she she her writing very technically heavy, theologically textbook key. It gripped me and provided for me something to set my back against, so that I didn't need to just say I don't think that it's correct that women are subordinate to men. Now I have some theology that made sense to me now, now that I've come to where I am. I wish I could say I've picked up a lot more non religious feminism. There's no authors for me to name drop there. And that's on my list of things to continue pursuing.

The idea of health? No, that was. So the idea of health as an eternal place of torment became something I could no longer believing, and turning toward more progressive ideas of universal universalism became a way for me to stay as a Christian. And as I continue to grow, the idea that everyone is loved. It's an idea that transcends religion, it transcends Christianity. And the Universalist theology made sense to me. But just a mindset of love and acceptance. You don't need a textbook to flesh that idea out. So the idea that we're all connected and all okay, and loved. That was something that kept me growing. And interestingly enough, I would say the idea of time. And now now's where, you know, I don't put my foot in my mouth over this issue. But I started to find issues representative in science, physics, the study of matter and energy became extremely fascinating to me. And realizing that a, a spiritual being attached to a concept of time that we as humans could possibly begin to understand was, it became evident to me that in my tradition of Christian evangelicalism, the concept of linear time had to be upheld in order for the concept of morality and goodness and final judgment. To make those concepts possible, you had to hold up this linear version of time. And I didn't like that it didn't sit well with me.

Arline  34:09  
Interesting. I thought of that. But yeah, that makes sense. There has to be an end. And then a hell. Yeah, well, yeah.

Sara  34:17  
So to realize that our universe is growing and expanding, and that the Christian God doesn't fit with science. That became something that I needed to dig into my husband being the more intellectual one and challenged me in that regard. A lot. And it became kind of fun because we would often read articles or or read books. He had read the whole thing, I would just read portions of it. But who did we enjoy Carl Sagan? Neil deGrasse Tyson. There's more I try to remember who else we've read. And I'm not so good with names all the time. At Anyway, the game that we would play between the two of us was that he would read article based on physics and say, See, there is no God. And I would read the same article, and I would say, See, God is so much bigger than how we understood.

Arline  35:35  
That's amazing. I love that chocolate have that conversation. And it's fascinating to watch. Two people read the same thing. And yes, the interpretation, the takeaway, the inferences are different. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So when you say earlier, you said, like, we're all we're all okay. And we're loved. I don't I don't even know how to ask this question like, is it a by whom? Or is it just like an inherent worthiness? Or is there a god? Little G quotation marks? Or is it still like up in the air because you don't have to have integers and all that good stuff.

Sara  36:15  
For me, it's still up in the air I like for someone who I would describe myself and others, of course, would would agree with me, and call me an all or nothing person for someone who was an all or nothing person. Faith for me has not become an all or nothing. Zone. And I guess what I'm trying to say is, I still use the term God. But what I'm talking about what I believe in, is not what Christians the way I understand them, I would say 99.99% of the Christians I grew up with, they would not understand if I just use the word God. Rosemary Radford brother suggests, for the sake of egalitarianism, of course, she suggests using on paper anyway, it doesn't translate very well to, to spoken word, but she recommends using the term Gods slash depths. So capital God slash d s, s, to represent both genders of God.

Arline  37:34  
Okay, got it. Okay, I

Sara  37:36  
see it. Yeah, I enjoy that. But also, I don't view God as both male and female. And I don't view God as a God is gender less. That is another way of looking at God, I don't, that doesn't resonate with me, I finally landed on God being gender full. So as the spectrum of gender becomes something that science and the Western society as we understand, it begins to wrap their heads around, realizing that if one believes in God, I believe God is gender full. And I started creating a document for myself as a writer, as a researcher, I've started creating a document for myself to collect names for God, I'm not happy with any of them. And there are some that I like more than others. So in when you dig into the different traditions, surrounding God, capital God is, is what Christians are comfortable with. Jewish tradition, not writing the name of God and seeing the name of God as being holy, and not even capturable. In in a written form that intrigues me terms like the, the great mystery, the divine, the source of all being the ground of all being the most ancient parents. There's some poetical language and some scientific language for God that really resonates with me. And I think that's indicative of, you know, again, not needing to be fully in or fully out. So The way I see God is that source of love, that connection, the the embodiment of the whole way of approaching and enacting and being part of love. To me, that's God.

Arline  40:20  
I have a hard time separating the word God from the stuff that I was taught, I have enjoyed or liked to see, when I was on my way out and didn't know I was on my way out. But I was just reading different books, I was reading Anne Lamott squirt, like her more explicitly Christian stuff. And she always talked about God, and called her. And she. And that was fun for me, that just little experience of the feminine pronouns for what I had always thought of as masculine God. And again, I didn't know I was on my way out. But that was, that was a nice little change. Eventually, it shifted. And I liked the idea of goddesses until I read about a bunch of the goddesses and I like, they're all heifers, I don't like any of them. Like, they're all just terrible. And for me, I don't believe in gods and goddesses and things like that. And at the same time, I like the idea of just some kind of whatever the reason is that love seems to be so important for humans, for primates for animals, to to exist well, for our species to keep going like this. It does as well, when we cooperate and are kind and loving, and all these kinds of things. So I love that I'm like, prepare for that.

You in Your un hubs. He's his ADSL. And you are your unlabeled, wonderful self. How did how are the conversations these days? Do you guys just let one another? Do whatever works for you? Is there any conflict? How did you decide about raising kids and holidays? And all those things you mentioned earlier? Once you guys just are have to figure that out? Or are you still figuring it out?

Sara  42:19  
Yeah, we're still figuring it out. There's, there's no right or wrong way to do this. So we do feel a lot of freedom. In that regard. A lot of our conflict has dissipated, I think the confusion or fear about what each other believes, or why or how it's going to impact us a lot of that has just dissipated with with time when you're in it, it's scary. And when you've been in it a long time, it's not scary anymore. And we, for how strong willed both of us are, we did find a way to let each other be ourselves and let each other grow, how we would grow. And for me that ended up looking like after experiencing the loss of community, I didn't want to stop growing, I didn't want to stop trying to find people who were like minded. One of the authors that I had picked up earlier in my deconstruction was Kathleen Norris. And for someone coming out of an evangelical tradition, just to be exposed to a writer, for me who represented feminism and an open minded, open hearted way of being but someone who had been an atheist and came back into the church and why was very interesting to me. How she seemed to retain an intellectual integrity and open her heart up to what ways what ways she could grow as a human. And so her book. The cloister walk was one of the first ones that I read, and in her frustration with the church community that she was just kind of finding her way back into. Those were the same frustrations that I had found were leading me out of the church, and I thought both trajectories were AOK Kay. And that that felt good. That amount of acceptance, felt good frustration, vocalized healthily can lead to making healthy steps and choices, away from away from abusive situations away from dogmatic theology away from confinement into more open minded ways of experiencing the world. And from there, she helped introduce me to the Benedictine way of living, which to me was a delightful way of incorporating spirituality. Without the heavy handedness of what I'd experienced in evangelicalism, which is so funny because you think about monks, living in community with rigid rules and expectations. And how could that be a place of more freedom than the modern church, and without judgment, I just say that that's, that's a mirror for the Western Church to be looking at themselves through, that's for sure. When a life of a status ism, become becomes the, the way of freedom. It just ended up fascinating me what I ended up doing to continue to pursue studies and growth while my husband was finishing, not a counseling, Master's in Counseling in a Christian school, he was finishing a Master's of Science in, in a secular university. While he was finishing that I ended up looking into taking courses and studies in what I would eventually know as spiritual direction. So through the Benedictine community, close to where I live, they offered a two year certificate in spiritual direction. But what interested me most what fascinated me about what they offered was the open handed way of offering what they knew with a take it or leave it, gentle kind of way of offering spiritual study. So the program ended up being something that I couldn't take until COVID hit and it could be fully operational online, and suddenly became something that fit into our lifestyle. And what I was able to make work was my schedule. And the the program itself being open to anyone from any faith from any spiritual tradition became something that was very important to me. So I didn't want more Christian education. I wanted spiritual education. I wanted to know if I'm not a Christian, what else is there? What can I still be? And for me, that program really helped to answer a lot of those questions. But more importantly, it showed me which questions served me and which questions didn't. Questions that resulted in closed thinking or closed loop answers. Let's just say the Benedictines are not great at those questions. They're good at the kind of questions that leave you asking more questions.

Arline  49:37  
And

Sara  49:39  
to me, yeah, to me that represented the freedom to arrive where you're going to arrive in your spiritual journey, whether that is to remain a Christian or not. And whether that's to be a humanist or not, or an eight atheist as long as the way of being in the world is loving and open. That seemed to be okay. And, and I liked that. Yeah,

Arline  50:17  
like love and kindness and the things that are mostly universal. I don't know if they are fully universal, but that most society see as very important and very necessary yet again for us to thrive. They're not inherently Christian, they're not owned by Christianity like, and even within Christianity. There's so many different versions of it, we're exposed to this one. Very Evan Jellicle. White, I would say North American in the nine different countries, North American version of Christianity, Western, I guess. And like you were talking about the Benedictines and then there are there's Orthodox churches, and I mean, just Christianity looks very different in different places, and spirituality looks different. And I love that you've been able to figure out like, what feels best and is right for you. And knowing that we have that kind of freedom and relief, the more constricting Hi, what's the word? Hi something religions, high demand religion?

Is there anything I should have asked, we have a few more minutes or anything I should have asked but that you want to talk about.

Sara  51:47  
Just trying to think if there's any more pieces of the puzzle that would lend any clarity. If if I would just name another author that helped me on my journey. Anyone looking for further reading. If there if, if any of your listeners are, are still deconstructing still in the process of D converting, because as I mentioned, I'm, I'm not a black and white thinker anymore. It's not a switch that gets flipped. I'm a Christian, and then flip the switch. Now I'm not the spectrum of faith is wide. And Thomas Keating, helped me on my way, as far as presenting an open minded theology that insisted that science be involved, and included and important in a holistic way of being in a way of being a spiritual human. There's no conflict with looking at the way the world is made and coming up with new ways to think about it and new language to talk about it. Thomas Merton, another Thomas, from from Thomas Merton's righteous anger, in the 60s, and his writing. And just one of his final lectures, admonishing people, encouraging people exhorting people to be open to language to learning about, you know, why do we say the things that we do about God? And why is it written that way? And where did that come from? And hey, doesn't this tradition in Christian meditation mirror that in Eastern religions and, and from there, I talked myself into some Buddhist studies for a while, and, and from from, you know, realizing the practices of Buddhism, the commitment to lessening the suffering of others, and how that's not in conflict with, with Christianity with, with how I want to live, and realizing that truth is truth. I know that's a loaded word these days, that everyone claiming to have the capital are real, capital T truth. And realizing that, even though it's subjective, you'll know it and you'll know with whom you share your definition of God, you'll know with whom you share your definition of love, you'll know with whom you share your diff admission of truth if you hold that openly and yeah,

Arline  55:08  
leave it there. Yes, that's a lovely place to end. Sarah Thank you so much for being on the podcast I would ask for recommendations for girl you name drop. So many fantastic authors and books that people can find who are still, who still Christians like Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris, Richard Richard Rohr.

Sara  55:31  
Richard roars in there, anyone with a psychotherapy bent or psychology bent? Carl Jung Jung, in fact, psychology has been really formative for me as well. And yeah, just realizing that there's a whole host of authors, there's a whole host of ways of being in the world that aren't Christian, as in it, you know, being pegged being in the box it and it's okay, and it's scary at first. But once you're out there, it's wide, open and wonderful.

Arline  56:11  
How can people find you online? If you're doing the spiritual direction? Is there a way people can find you?

Sara  56:17  
Yeah, I do spiritual direction. I also just write my own reflections on life and the world and deconstruction. So I have a website called the prairie thistle, tours that are really hard to spell it. I don't know why I picked them, but just spell check, and you'll find it WWW dot prairie fissile.ca.ca. Because I'm in Canada. So yeah, okay.

Arline  56:41  
Well, we'll put we'll put all the links in the show notes so people can find it. And thank you again, for being on the podcast here. This is lovely. Thank you, Arline.

My final thoughts on the episode. So when I've already talked to someone and gotten to know them, I get really excited when I get to speak with them on the podcast, because I just know they're lovely and wonderful. And I get excited. And Sarah was no exception. It was such a great conversation. She's so kind and gentle spoken and I just, I could listen to her forever. Go, you need to narrate some books. There you go. There's your future job. My final thoughts on the episode. There are so many, I don't know to call them universal truths, because I'm sure there are places where this things are not absolutely true. But like, it seems for humans to survive as a species and for us to survive interstitially with other animals and plants, fungi, the whole earth, like love, kindness, cooperation, empathy, like there's so many things that seem to be integral for us. No matter where we live, like Christianity does not have a hold on humility, kindness, gentleness, whatever the fruit of the Spirit, whatever they were, these are just good things to have. And she kept using the word openness, like if we can be open to things, and I can't cite the science, but I've heard on plenty of podcasts. 10%, happier podcast talks about a lot. And I don't know where else. But when we stay open to things, and we're not judgmental about things and we're not closed to whether or not we could be wrong. It's just good for us, our mental health is better. Our nervous system is less activated. When we stay open to things when we are willing to be wrong when we're willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when we're willing to hear new information and not be closed off to it. Like it's just it's just good for us. And so staying open, being loving, not at the expense of our boundaries and our own personal well being but loving others, because Christianity will teach you to love others, and it'll just burn you out. And that is not that's not good. Last thing, she also talked about having children and the problem of pain and suffering. Like when she when they had children, she and her husband realized like, she didn't say this explicitly, but I've heard it from a few different places. And this was true when my husband D converted. It's like, we should not feel like we are better parents to our children because we treat them better than God treats his kids. That doesn't seem like we should be more moral, or ethical, more kind and loving than God is. And, yeah, there's so much suffering in the world, trying to square up the god we're taught is in the Bible with what we actually see in the world and what we actually see in the Bible. That takes a lot of gymnastics, lot of mental gymnastics, and it's just not worth it. It's not worth it at all. Sara, thank you again for being on the podcast. It was wonderful and I really enjoyed it. And

David Ames  1:00:03  
the secular Grace Thought of the Week is humanism. This podcast has from day one been about humanism. And what that means to me is caring for people. I believe in people. With hindsight, I recognize that I had been a religious humanist and after deconversion it was a natural move to being a secular humanist. But really, my core values of caring for people did not change. Maybe my reasons did, but it did not change. I legitimately do not care if people are spiritual and not religious, or Christian or Muslim or Jewish, if they care about people, if they recognize that relationship with other human beings is the most important thing in the universe. Until next time, my name is David, and I am trying to be the graceful atheist. Join me and be graceful human being. The beat is called waves by MCI beats. Do you want to get in touch with me to be a guest on the show? Email me at graceful atheist@gmail.com for blog posts, quotes, recommendations and full episode transcripts head over to graceful atheists.com. This graceful atheist podcast, a part of the atheist United studios Podcast Network

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