Mysfit: My Spiritual Journey

Becoming a spiritual mysfit: The evolution from churchy pastor guy into pesky content creator.

I’m not sure where I belong anymore. 

Maybe you feel the same. 

It’s… awkward?

Lonely?

I was known a certain way, as a particular thing, for about 20 years. 

Spiritual leader guy.

Minister guy. Church planter guy. Preacher guy…

I think my favorite was while I was living in Vancouver and a local publication described me as a “pastor/bartender.” (Haha.) During that time I was, indeed, slinging drinks at a local watering hole while also working in church-planting (a term used in Christian circles to describe persons who’ve gone slightly rogue and are endeavoring to build new churchy communities from scratch as a way to break free from some of the oppressive weight of institution and more feely hang out with regular people… kinda like Jesus did.)

I could identify with the pastor/bartender label because, well… I guess it’s been complex with me for a really long time. 

“It’s complicated” has become my official relationship status with faith. Where’s that checkbox?

I’m not a church guy anymore.

Not a pastor. Not a minister… 

Not any of the things I identified myself with my entire adult life.

I’m… a spiritual misfit.

I’m a queer, “recovering” pastor (recovering in the addiction sorta way.) 

And I haven’t been to church in almost three years. (Gasp!)

I’m estranged for several reasons. But especially because 

Church hurt me.

(I know it hurt many of you too, in so many ways. I feel you. I see you.)

Truth is, church (the institution, as we know it today in modern America) hurts a lot of people. Church is regularly complicit in trauma, abuse, bigotry and oppression. 

And church is not fond of telling the truth about this.

I know there are some congregations out there sincerely trying to do different about this. And I love them and cherish those beautiful communities for that. 

But many aren’t. 

It’s denial. Or cover up. Or obliviousness. Or outright refusal to see… typically because the reputation or credibility of someone in power (a white man) is at stake. And we can’t have truth going around and disrupting the order of things…

(People might stop giving.)

That’s what made me recoil. 

What started my complicated relationship with church.

It’s not that there were problems (that’s inevitable with humans.) But the refusal to see the problems, both in harmful beliefs and practice. The unwillingness to own abuses (both past and present), and make reparations.

The unwillingness to tell the truth, and to change (repent).

I just couldn’t bear it anymore. I couldn’t betray myself. And I couldn’t betray those who were being harmed.

______________

Departure

“Did you exchange

A walk-on part in the war

For a lead role in a cage?”*

Yes, David Gilmour. I did. And it was killing me.

It got real awkward for everyone while I was still in it. It landed me in therapy. The cognitive dissonance it created in my inner being was unbearable. It felt like death in me. I was having regular panic attacks.

My wife and I decided for my children to stop doing church long before I did. I was preaching for a church my family wasn’t involved in. (Talk about awkward…)

And while therapy would eventually take me into much deeper healing from a lifetime of complex trauma I didn’t know was also living in me at the time, my first therapist was able to help me come back inside of myself enough to know that I was harming and betraying myself by staying. That I was staying because of fear of the unknown, and because of the weight of expectations of others I was carrying. 

Codependency hard at work. (Church devours us codependents.)

So I got up the courage to have a conversation with my elders (who, in my faith tradition, were the leaders [men] in charge of the preacher). I admitted to them that I needed to make a change for me and my family, and that I was going to begin looking for other work, seeking out what was next for me… outside of ministry. I did not yet know what that was, and hadn’t begun actively searching for any other work. At the time, I was considering getting into education… but (looking back now) I was pretty lost, heartbroken and scared, with no clue, really, how to move on. It was an identity crisis.

That conversation was in late February of 2020…

And then the pandemic hit.

So… I stayed some more... (What kind of preacher would leave his congregation then, right?) [Sigh]…

And then I discovered my latent childhood sexual abuse…

Which led me into a complete and utter breakdown, taking a leave of absence and starting trauma therapy…

And then… I was fired.

…

[Selah]

…(That’s a fancy Bible word from the Psalms that means something like ‘pregnant pause,’ because I don’t know what else to say here…)

Those were some dark months. 

The deepest despair I’ve known.

Many days that I wished not to be alive anymore…

…

The light did begin to return, eventually. 

I was able to find myself again, to begin to release the pains of compounded traumas and regain my spark, my hope. To imagine a new future for myself and discover a new path forward.

But it took time. And a helluva lot of work. (The hardest work I’ve ever done.)

...

As badly as all of that last church experience hurt, what I came to see (after all the intensive trauma therapy to follow) is that my departure from church was a really long time coming. It wasn’t just about what happened at the end, but a culmination of years of wrestling and evolving and (that naughty, overused word) deconstruction.

But now it’s awkward…

I don’t fit “over there” anymore. But I don’t exactly know where I fit anymore either. I don’t know where I belong. 

I still believe in God. (I think they’re gorgeous.)  

I still love Jesus. (I practically worship the guy…)

But I don’t identify with bigotry.

Or hatred. 

Or misogyny. 

Or patriarchy.

Or homophobia.

Or colonialism.

Or Christian nationalism. 

Or dropping bombs on Palestine.

Or any genocide. 

Or racism. 

Or greed.

Or violence.

Or war.

Or coercion. 

Or fear mongering. 

Or hell.

…And the institution of church is (and has been throughout history) complicit in upholding these realities.

I just can’t anymore. It hurts too much.

Rainn Wilson says, “The metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from a humble servant of the abject poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti-science, limited government (that neglects the destitute), and fierce nationalism is truly the strangest transformation in human history.”

(Preach!)

None of this mess is Jesus.

But it’s the sort of things many folks believe and fervently teach about Jesus. 

(The brainwashing is appalling.) 

For twenty years, I held onto a hope that I could be the change I wanted to see from within. 

But that damn near killed me.

[Selah]

_______________

Misfit

Brandi Carlile is one my heroes. Honestly, she might even be my greatest hero. (Queer kids from Washington state unite!)

In the dedication to her memoir, Broken Horses, she mentions me:

“...Most of all the family of fellow misfits on the island of the misfit toys. Anyone who’s been rejected by this realm and its interpretation of your faith, but never by your Creator. To the repulsed, rejected, reformed, reaffirmed, the redeemed.

Your immeasurable worth precedes you.”

(Sobbing. Again. Every. Time…)

When you’re so broken and someone can see you like that…

When someone can name you, claim you, give you the words, the identity you’re desperately searching for…

That’s what Brandi did for me.

As a longtime avid fan, her music had already done that for me. But as I devoured her book in my darkness, she spoke straight into my soul, and gave me a name:

Misfit.

She doesn’t actually know me… yet! Haha. (Though I believe with all my heart if we ever got to meet we’d be buds… I know she would fully get my obsession with Honky Chateau...)

But she was able to call me up and out of loneliness and isolation and into belonging. Her words offered my weary spirit restoration and hope. 

…

Coming out of my dark night of the soul, here’s where I’ve landed: 

I’ve been drawn to the margins. (It’s where Jesus hung out, after all...) 

Among my fellow misfits.

Jesus didn’t use up his time working at the center, trying to dismantle the power structures and rebuild them. I think he knew that was a waste of time. The inertia behind the powers - and those whose interest is in protecting the structures as they are, who defend them fiercely for fear of all they stand to lose - is hostile. 

That’s the shit that got Jesus lynched.

Instead, what Jesus spent his time doing was living into another way of being. The way of Love. Ushering in a new reality in the midst of our present one. Revealing with his life how to actually be human, and how the Divine resides in each and every one of us (and all living things.)

So… I’m following that.

Was Jesus divine? Any more so than you or me?  Honestly, I don’t know. And I’m not sure that actually matters as much as everyone has needed it to?

It seems arriving at a definitive answer to those kind of elusive questions became so much the focal point, so much about control, as a test of faith, determining who’s in and who’s out that the plot was lost.

Creed over people. 

And I think that’s the kind of toxic religion that Jesus stood vehemently against. Jesus never took kindly to tightly held doctrine that was oppressive and destructive to actual people.

Mercy not sacrifice.

I believe we’re all here to learn to love one another and make the world a better, safer, more inclusive and loving place for everyone. 

I believe we’re all inherently good (don’t listen to the ones out to make you believe you’re not.)

Made in the image of God.

I believe the problem each of us carries is pain. We’ve all been hurt. And what we choose to do with that hurt has far-reaching effects, either for goodness or destruction. Therefore, what each of us actually needs is healing, to be free from our wounds, so that we don’t pass along the pain. 

Ultimately, I believe each and every one of us humanoids is truly and uniquely beautiful. Each of us is a bit of a misfit in our own gorgeous, perfect little way. We’re all on the island of misfit toys, and our calling as fellow humans is simply to love. 

Love is the answer. Love wins. 

Love will restore and is making all things new.

It is the only way.

_______________

Mystic

I’m fascinated with the wisdom found across the spectrum of spiritual and contemplative traditions.

I meet God in spaces like that. 

I meet myself in spaces like that.

And I find that I am able to better see what’s real and what’s not real in spaces like that.

So, while I no longer identify very well with the term Christian (what with all the baggage and connotations), I am a spiritual person. 

A Jesus-y person.

A contemplative person.

A mystic, if you will.

A mystic that’s also a misfit…

So…I think I’m a spiritual mysfit?

That’s my term.

What I’ve got for now.

What fascinates me as a mysfit are people’s stories. Where folks come from. Where their family comes from. How people make meaning of their stories and the world around them. What faith traditions or belief systems they have come to identify with, and how that informs the ways they move through the world…

I just love people. 

What a wild opportunity we have in this life to know others. To learn. To grow. To see the horizon from the perspective of another…

Every viewpoint is a view from a point.

I see the horizon from my fixed place and time, as do you.

And the only way we truly change is to encounter the horizon of another, decentering ourselves and opening up to the vantage point of another. 

Listening. Trusting. Believing them.

Contemplation is interacting with horizons. 

And what I’ve found to be truly profound is that oftentimes it is only in experiencing the horizon of another that we truly come to know ourselves. 

Somehow, mysteriously, it is only when we see others that we begin to see ourselves. 

I think this is the beauty of all spiritual traditions. The wisdom contained in them is so fascinating and endless because the traditions preserve the horizons of those who have gone before us, and offer us the opportunity to not only connect and learn from those with whom we share this life now, but with those who came before us as well.

Oftentimes, of course, those who went before us got it wrong (sometimes horribly wrong). That’s to be expected. We do too.

When those who have gone before us leave us ideas that are rooted in hatred, violence, or oppression, it is good and right for us to discard those ideas (no matter who said them), knowing the hurt, trauma and destruction they have brought.

 

For me, it all comes down to love.

I believe God is love.

I believe Love is the Spirit, the essence that binds all things together. In, around and through us… the air we breathe.

There are many people who teach things that are inherently un-Loving. There are many things in the Bible itself that are inherently un-Loving. Isn’t it interesting though how Jesus’ style of teaching was, “you have heard it said, but I tell you…” Jesus was masterful at offering radical reinterpretation or altogether new interpretation when it came to people’s (mis)understandings of God. 

People hated Jesus for that. 

Lynched him about it.

But Jesus was resolute.

His mission was clear:

Good news to the poor. Proclaim release of the captives. Recovery of sight for the blind. Let the oppressed go free. Proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

That is what it all comes down to for me.

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

Let us throw off all that hinders us in these pursuits.

Let us listen. 

Learn.

Change. 

Let us be a refuge for the weary, harassed and abused.

Let justice roll like mighty waters, so that

Peace may be possible throughout the land.

Because there is no peace without justice.

The cries of the weary and wounded will never cease so long as injustice and oppression remains. 

[Selah]

May we have ears to hear. 

Hearts to hold.

And feet to respond.

What I’ve come to find is that contemplation, sitting with the mystery and wonder of it all, is not about existing above the world. It is not an escape, removing oneself from reality. Rather, it is the act of opening ourselves up, becoming more present to reality as it is - both the inherent beauty, and the suffering. 

It’s not disappearing. It’s showing up.

Not stepping away, but stepping in.

This is what faith has come to be for me. A way of being. A way of moving through the world. 

Listening, loving and learning. Always.

______________

Holding Space

So there you have it. I’m a spiritual mysfit - 

And I love it! 

I love who I am becoming. 

It’s awkward. I’m not sure where I belong. It can be lonely. 

But I’m saying the words about it here because what I’ve come to learn is that so many of us are mysfits. 

I am not alone. 

You are not alone. 

We are one.

And my hope here at Finding Jonathan is to create a holding space where us mysfits can connect and talk about all the things. 

I want you to know that you are safe here.

I will work tirelessly to assure that. 

Faith or no faith.

Queer or straight.

Cis, trans, or non-binary. 

Regardless of race or creed,

You are welcome here. You are gorgeous. And I can’t wait to get to know you and your story.

Because you matter. 

And we’re all a bit mysfit. 

So let’s honor and celebrate that journey here together.

…

Are you a mysfit? Let me know about it in the comments!

_________________

Footnotes:

*Lyrics to “Wish You Were Here,” by Pink Floyd.

Photo credit(s):

1.) Johnny Briggs via Unsplash.

2.) Jr Korpa via Unsplash.

3.) hay s via Unsplash.

4.) Book Cover: Broken Horses, by Brandi Carlile.

5.) ameenfahmy via Unsplash.

6.) Jon Tyson via Unsplash.

7.) Santa Barbara via Unsplash.

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