Queer Theology

We’re doing something that we haven’t done in awhile here which is to have a throwback episode for this week. We’re coming up on a huge milestone- 600 episodes!-  and there’s probably a lot of episodes that some of y’all have not heard and we think that revisiting the Bible has power because you learn new things. So for this episode, we’ll revisit Queerness as a Cornerstone. 

This episode is filled with so much good stuff and we’re excited for you to dive in. We have a listener question from Bella about how to talk about your faith without making other people uncomfortable. How do we disconnect sharing our faith from some people’s ideas about evangelising people. We also queer this week’s passage from 1 Peter 2:2-10. We talk about what it means and feels like to be nourished by God’s word and how the experience of queerness and transness can be a touchpoint for the entire church. So stay tuned and enjoy this episode.

In this episode, we talk about:

Resources:. 

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

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The post Throwback: Queerness Is A Cornerstone appeared first on Queer Theology.

Pride brings out many people trying to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community and an interesting conversation about how churches show up at Pride inspired this week’s episode. In this conversation, we explore the role of churches supporting and engaging with the LGBTQ community during Pride Month. We have some practical insight on how churches can show genuine involvement, service, and inclusivity, while showing up meaningfully at Pride events and beyond.

Takeaways

Chapters

(00:56) Churches and Their Role in Pride Events

(04:00) Guiding Principles for Religious Groups at Pride

(07:08) Tangible Support and Service to the Queer Community

(10:02) Engaging with the Community Beyond Pride Month

(12:59) Creating Inclusive Spaces Year-Round

(15:56) Ongoing Education and Awareness for Inclusivity

(19:10) Broader Engagement with Queer Culture

(22:07) Building Lasting Relationships with the Community

Resources:. 

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

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The post Tips for Churches at Pride appeared first on Queer Theology.

Communities can be complex. We delve into the complexities of relationships, the nature of goodness, and the challenges of community dynamics. We explore the idea of labeling people as “good” or “bad,” and emphasize the importance of understanding inherent goodness and the health of individuals. We also touch on the necessity of boundaries within communities and the role of compassion in navigating difficult relationships. Ultimately, we are advocates for a nuanced approach to community building and self-reflection, and encourage y’all to embrace the complexities of human interactions.

Takeaways

Chapters

(00:00) Exploring Relationships and Polarization

(07:00) Understanding Goodness and Health

(13:57) Navigating Community and Boundaries

(20:51) Compassion and Complexity in Relationships

Resources:. 

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

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The post Complicated Communities appeared first on Queer Theology.

It’s Pride month and we’re sharing some of our thoughts about it in this week’s episode. There are a lot of complexities with Pride Month and we especially want to explore the dual nature of celebration and resistance within the LGBTQ community. With recent funding cuts to arts organizations, the challenges of sustaining movements without corporate support, and the importance of balancing joy with activism, it can seem like there isn’t much to celebrate. But sometimes you have to mix that joy with the hard work and really lean into community engagement.

Takeaways

Highlights:

(02:25) The Impact of Funding Cuts on Arts and Activism

(05:41) The Complexity of Funding Movements

(08:02) Balancing Joy and Resistance in Activism

(12:45) The Dual Nature of Pride: Celebration vs. Resistance

(16:18) Spirituality and Activism: Finding Balance

Resources:. 

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. All right, y’all. It is June 1st. It is the first day of L LGBTQ Pride Month, and there’s a lot going on in the world and with pride and in our little brains, and I’m sure in your brains and in your hearts, and we, as we were getting ready to record, we just we’re like noticing that there are like lots of truths that are all true at the same time.

That like, for many of us, pride month is a time of joy and Celebration and inclusion and sort of like festivities and partying. It’s also true that for many of us, pride is a place where we have felt excluded or unsafe or unseen for. It’s also true that like corporations have been sort of throwing money at Pride to sort of use the LGB, the LGBTQ community as consumers and to sort of get us to buy their business. And maybe there’s this sort of pinkwashing and corporate washing of pride that’s like not great. It’s also true that lots of corporations pulling out all their support from L-G-B-T-Q people and organizations is not a great sign.

It’s also true that Pride got its start over 50 years ago as a remembrance of the Stonewall Rebellion uprising. It’s a protest march. So there’s like this history of, of resistance that is part of pride. It’s also true that pride oftentimes features artists and musicians and creative types of all sorts that like come together to create beautiful political soothing, subversive, entertaining art. And that was all sort of like swirling around in our heads as we’re like getting ready to head into pride month and thinking about like, what does Pride Month mean now this year in 2025 with everything we’ve got going on in our local lives, in the USA globally with the arts, with the police, with the government, with immigration, like, it all just feels like so like ripe.

And so we’re, we don’t have an outline today. We’re just gonna dive in. And so, so sheiks we’re like, where’s your like, head out? Like what are you excited about? Worried about holding onto, like as we head into Pride month? Yeah, yeah. You know, as you were talking about artists, I, I was thinking a lot about all of the cancellation of the NEA grants, which happened, you know, yeah, a little, little close to a month ago as, as this is coming out, but which as we’re recording is very fresh. I’m on the board of an arts organization that lost their funding.

Another organization that has been a huge support to me in the past lost their funding two weeks before the conference that it was supposed to fund began. And it’s just like, you know, this is money that was promised to these organizations. So they planned their budgets around it and they’ve been doing their programming and now, you know, all of that is in question. And lots and lots of these organizations are, are supporting queer and trans folks. Some of them are specifically and explicitly queer and trans led. And so, you know, that’s, that’s really concerning. And, and there’s this kind of narrative, I think in some of these organizations of like, well, donors will step up and, and fill that gap.

And, and for many of these organizations, I do think that that is true. That, right? Like individual donors will step up and and close the gap. And also that’s complicated, right? Because what if you’re a scrappy queer tramp organization that doesn’t have donors that can step up and write thousands upon thousands of dollar checks, like, then what do you do? And I think that that is always the complicated nature of philanthropy. Yeah. And it’s also right, the complicated nature of grant making where we can see a granting organizations quote unquote priorities change in this case with a message that was clearly written by AI and is incomprehensible and coming from the government.

But, you know, we’ve seen this in, in other places in the, in the past even with corporate sponsorships where for a long time, target, for instance, really cared about education and then Target stopped caring about education and all of these organizations like went sideways. Anyway. So I thinking about all of that, but it, it, the thing that is underneath all of that is like, how do we fund the movements that allow us to do the things that a, make life worth living? Like I think that art and artists are what, what make life interesting, but also like how do we fund, for lack of a better word, the revolution, right?

And it’s, and it’s not, it, it’s not target, right? Target, target, the revolution will not be funded by Target and Bezos and et cetera, et cetera. So like thinking through, which Also feels like a very, sorry, which also feels like a very Christian early Christian question, right? Of like, yes, this like scrappy early church movement. I’m thinking about like doing sort of revolutionary subversive work and like how do, like how do they keep it going and fund the people who are sort of not working at fisherman because they’re working, doing, being community organizers. Yeah. Which, you know, as, and as you were talking about, right? I was also thinking about like the early Christian movement and how it did start as a protest movement and how that too, in, in many ways, like pride got commodified and became corporately funded and became organized in a way that Right, in some ways has been really helpful and useful and in other ways has really like taken, taken the wind out of the sails of the movement.

And I think that that is, that’s so complex and it’s so complicated, right? Because there, there are ways in which churches as organizations or as denominations have been able to do really cool things because they banded together and they funded really cool things, right? Like organizations that have built affordable housing or created food pantries or whatever. And also like that is complex as well. I, I’ve been thinking a lot. I, I read Dean Spade has this really great small book on mutual aid, and one of the things that I really appreciated in that book is that he talks a lot about how, he talks a lot about like how in some ways dangerous the nonprofit industrial complex is.

But his big takeaway is that it, we have to be thinking more small and more locally. And I think that that is one of the things that is, that is really on my mind and heart as we think about all of this, right? Like Ashley was saying the other day, like, yeah, we’re gonna need a lot more artists who can just like, create and make things where they are and it’ll be scrappy and it’ll be messy and it’ll be in found spaces. And and a friend of ours at the table was like, yeah, and, and no one’s gonna get paid for that. Like, we’re going backwards. And it’s like, yeah, you know what, probably yes. And that is also I think, yeah, organizing, right?

Like the, the professionalization of everything where we have to get paid to do, to show up is like, I think a problem. And one of the, the things that we’re really gonna have to like figure out moving forward. So those are some of my initial messy thoughts. Does that spark anything for you? Yeah, I think all of that sparks something in me, you know, And I I I think to get a little personal, like we feel that tension here at this work we [email protected], right? Where it’s like The time that we spend on this project is like time that we can’t be spending, like earning a living elsewhere, but also, like, we also can’t always count on or trust or expect to be able to earn like a full living from this work.

And so we’re constantly working multiple jobs in addition to the work that we do here to make ends meet. And so sort of like scrapping it together And I would like, I would love for this to be like my day job, right? Like that would be Yeah, fantastic. Like, and also it’s like not currently, And I, you can also see like the, the, the, the times in which we’re like more supported by the people who listen to the podcast or consume our resources or use our resources at their churches or buy our books or whatever. Like the more, the more like the more we’re able, the more time we’re then able to spend here doing this work. And in the times where for whatever reasons, like we get less support from the community that, that, that’s okay.

There’s like no judgment on that, but like it also then means we have to spend more time doing other types of work, which then like pulls us away from this work. And so there’s this sort of like, like, yes. And like, it’s like maybe like not a bad thing, quote unquote, like that not everything is professionalized. Like, and also it does mean there’s just like less time to do stuff and sometimes like less quality or to, to your point, like less reach. Like there is something about like an economy of scale that like bigger organizations or groups of people, collectives are able to accomplish more sometimes than because there’s just like less redundancies. It’s like, how do you That’s true. But also we, we don’t wanna dehumanize everything and make it like the most efficient thing possible Right.

And gonna be responsive to local needs. So I like, so that’s sort of like, yeah. So I’m just like, I, yeah, I feel all of that. And I, And I feel like that that is also like attention with clergy too, right? There there is, yeah. There was this push for a while of like, well, clergy shouldn’t be making their money from the church because if they are being paid by the church, A they like can’t be prophetic in the way that they can if like, like they weren’t relying on the church for their income or like b churches could do more if they weren’t having to pay insurance and retirement packages and full-time, you know, salaries for clergy. Yeah. But then the, the trade off of that is like, yes, but then if your pastor is working a nine to five and you have an emergency, they can’t just like leave their nine to five to come be at the hospital with you.

Right? Yeah. Or like if they have to work, you know, Sunday and prep a sermon and they also have to work 40 hours a week, like you’re gonna get the sermon that they can write in their evenings and weekends. Right? Like it’s just a different Yeah. Type of thing. And that I, I think for some people that works, for some communities that work, but I think also like to your point about scale, like that doesn’t work for everyone and it, and, and or the people whom it does work for, like have they, they have other privileges, right? Like it can’t probably work for the mom of three kids, especially not for a single mom of three kids, right?

It’s probably not gonna work for the trans person with no family support, right? Like it’s, we expect that there will be other things in place and that just gets really, really complicated. Yeah. It just, it gets to it like when art or ministry like isn’t funded, it just makes it so that rich people and people with like generational wealth are the ones that have the easiest time at doing those things. And so then, then also then like informs the art that gets created in the ministries that get started and like, you know, we see the terrible, terrible evangelicals are able to like run Super Bowl ads, right?

And yeah, and like the, the like trans lifeline is not because like of funding priorities, right? So that’s all. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I’m also just like sort of thinking about like the tension between like pride as like resistance and pride as Celebration. And I don’t think that they actually, like those two things are like necessarily opposites. Yeah. I think that especially for queer people, I think like queer, like one of the beauties of queerness right? Is that we sort of like, we turn like oppression into camp and we like dance and we like laugh at like as we organize and resist and like the Celebration sometimes Celebration I think like can also be a form of resistance in and of itself to say like, yeah, like life is hard.

Like, and also you’re like, not gonna steal my joy. And, And I, And I think like, so I think it comes down to like, a lot of it is like intentionality, right? Because like you can sort of have like a frivolous celebratory, let’s all just get drunk all month long go to brunches and this amazing, right? And like, it that’s like, not necessarily like resistible, but like if you can sort of like celebrate, keep your eyes wide open at, at, at the horrors that we’re sort of living through. Like, and also choose not to, not to turn away from that and hide from that, but just sort of like to dance in defiance of that feels important. And then also like how do you like organize such that like, it’s not just Celebration that you’re also like taking it into action outside of the dance floor.

I’m like thinking about like, right, right now the scene, I think it was in a movie, but like in the like eighties I presume, or like maybe the nineties, like a gay men health crisis would host like these like big fundraisers to like support people living with hiv aids like in the, like the gay clubs, the gay bars. And so places where like they used to just sort of like drink and dance and had night away they were still drinking and dancing the night away, but now they were raising money to get food or medication or they were like organizing information sessions outta these like same like dance halls and gay bars. And so like, it feels like, like I want it to be like a yes and of like, I don’t, it doesn’t, if we, if we like, if we stop, if we erase all of the joy from our lives, there’s like no point in living and they’ve already won.

Right. And also like if we, if we just sort of tune out and try and drown our sorrows and get drunk and only dance the night away, like things will just continue to get worse for us until we all die. And so like, we, like it can’t be either of those extremes. And so I’m, I’m thinking a lot about like, how do I cultivate joy while like that that turns into like resilience that like fuels the resistance as opposed to like either burning myself out with hardness and sadness or just sort of like sticking my head in the sand. And so like I’m, that’s sort of like the energy that I’m trying to bring into pride 2025 of like dance in the streets and like march in the streets and like throw dinner parties with your friends and also like host mutual aid, like groups with your friends and get to know your neighbors so that you can like bring them food when they need them.

And also like, so you can talk to ’em about local citywide elections, you know, it’s, it’s like, it’s all, it feels all swirling together and sometimes like easier said than done. Yeah. It it that I feel like we also talked about those exact same things when we talked about worship and, and ritual, right? That like, it’s the same thing of like if you’re, if your worship and your engagement with spiritual practice is just about comfort and safety and warmth, then like you’re missing something really, really crucial. But also if it’s always about like ex extend yourself and go, go, go and resistance and resistance and resistance, like you, you, that’s not like not sustainable for the long term.

You need some fuel there. And so that there, there’s something in the, like in the mix of being able to find comfort and peace and safety and grounding in your spiritual practice. That is the thing that like connects you to the world and inspires you to go out and to do things and take, engage in justice work. And so like, you know, I think that these connections, like all of the connections that we talk about in queerness, like this is, I think this is also like why faith? Why this, this intersection between faith and queerness is like, yeah, so important and so special because like it gives us a grounding to talk about these things and, and it gives us an even an even deeper history to tap into right there, there is a history in both of, in both of these spaces, but like we might miss that history and tapping into that history if we’re just thinking about the here and now.

Yeah. And you know, I’m, I was also just struck right now about like, about whether it’s like joy or Celebration or partying, whether it’s pride or whether it’s worship. Like it’s not just like, so that we don’t burn out and are able to like keep doing their work. I think that there’s also like a spiritual element here that that, that you’re keying into, like Christians might call it like the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Like Jews might call it like the world’s of come Ola Haba, right? Like that like there are these sort of like glimpses of what is like not yet fully here, but like in this moment we could see like how it could be and it like reminds us of like, oh yes, like another way is possible. Like we can do more of this.

Like, this is worth fighting to protect and nurture and kindle because like this little thing that we’re seeing here, whether it’s like, I don’t know, man, like I wish people could go back in time and go to the Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference in like 2011, right? Like, that felt like a vision of a world, of the world to come that was like worth like fighting and protecting, protecting or like a really like, like subversive inspiring like drag show that like makes you see the world in a new way or like a powerful sermon or just like that feeling of community that you feel and you’re like with your like queer chosen family, right? Like over a shared meal. There’s like these like moments where you’re like, oh, like this is, like, this was what, like makes worth life worth living And I want everyone to experience this and how can we sort of like fight for this specific thing and also continue to like, make it bigger and more widespread so that like everyone gets a taste of it.

Amen. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at Queer Theology dot com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for L-G-B-T-Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters. To dive into more of the action, visit us at Queer Theology dot com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

The post Celebration & Resistance: Let’s Talk About Pride Month! appeared first on Queer Theology.

We’re exploring the multifaceted nature of prayer by reflecting on our personal journeys and our evolving understanding of spirituality. There are so many emotional complexities tied to prayer. It can be powerful and so connective to community when we really look at it. And when you are able to queer prayer, this can help break down boundaries and really let you reimagine what prayer can do. 

Takeaways

Chapters

(03:46) Revisiting Prayer and Theology  

(06:35) The Emotional Landscape of Prayer  

(09:44) Community and Collective Prayer  

(12:36) The Allure and Challenges of Prayer  

(15:24) Expanding Notions of Prayer  

(18:36) The Power of Shared Experiences  

(21:34) Building Community Through Prayer  

(24:42) The Role of Action in Spirituality  

(27:34) Invitation to Connection and Growth  

Resources:. 

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation, the Bible declare good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how tuning Each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Queer Theology Podcast. We are excited to talk about Queering Prayer today. I feel like, I don’t know about you, Brian, but I have had a journey with prayer over the course of my life of different Yeah. Like ways that I believed prayer worked or didn’t work, or how it made me feel or didn’t make me feel.

And I’ve been, I’ve been working with, with some folks lately who have a very different view of prayer than I currently do, but it’s very similar to the view that I grew up with, which is making me like, I don’t know, revisit some, some thoughts on prayer. And so thought this would be interesting. So I, I, I’ll, I’ll start by sharing, you know, like I grew up in a tradition that really believed that prayer worked, and it was everything from like praying that God would make it sunny on the day of our, like church picnic to God would provide a parking spot to, like, prayer would make God forgive us our sins and, and get us into heaven.

And so it was very and Really quickly, like not to be too like pedantic, but like you, I already have questions. Like you said, we believe that prayer worked, right? Like, And I feel like a lot is hanging on and maybe, maybe I’ll get to that, but like I look a lot is hanging on the word worked. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was this sense of like, you, you prayed and you asked for things and God would do it, but that, and then even when it, like you didn’t get the answer that you wanted, God was still doing something right. It was this very like, twisted logic around. It was Like, God, the answer is he God always answers. It’s just like, yes, no, or not yet. Yeah, exactly. A line I Got and, but I, there was like a, there was both a safety in that right, of like, of feeling like you were heard and believing that God listened to every single prayer.

There was also a sense of like, I don’t know, sometimes whatever the solution was did feel like a miraculous intervention, right? Like I, I’ve heard so many stories of people being like, I needed exactly $500 And I prayed and like I ran into a stranger who offered me $500, right? It like God is, is actively working on our behalf. And so like I, I grew up with that and but also like baked underneath that for me was always the sense of fear that I wasn’t praying right? And not if I was praying too selfishly that God would not only not give me what I wanted but would gimme the opposite.

And like there were times when that happened And I felt like I was being punished because I was like selfish with my prayers, yada, yada, yada. Flash forward a bunch of years to where I was like, prayer doesn’t work like that. We shouldn’t be praying like that. That’s like a bad, that’s bad theology. It’s bad theology of prayer. Like prayer isn’t to get God to change, it’s to get us to change. And that’s, I, I’m, but now I find myself kind of somewhere in the middle, right? Of like, I, I don’t know, like I don’t know entirely what prayer does. I don’t think that like we have to try to like convince God to give us things by begging in prayer.

Like that is definitely not what I believe. But I do think that there’s something about like trying to tap into that which is bigger than us, that helps me like potentially reorient myself to what is already going on in the world. And, and sometimes I think it does like make me aware of things. It makes me pay attention in ways that I might otherwise miss. And then that sometimes feels like God is answering the prayer, right? Like I think that, you know, what’s that? There’s that old joke about a guy who’s like on a house and the yeah, the thing is flooding and a boat comes by and he doesn’t get in the boat and then whatever.

And he finally is like, God, why didn’t you save me? And God’s like, well, I sent you a boat. I sent you a helicopter, right? Like, I sent you all these things and you weren’t paying attention. And I think that there’s like that to me, there’s something to that in prayer. All of that to say that I also then think that like as I’ve, as I’ve gotten more settled in my theology and my thinking, I also see a lot of things as prayer, right? Like there, there like music can be prayer and poetry can be prayer and liturgy is prayer and extemporaneous praying, right? Like just having a conversation with whoever is out there is prayer and, and so is like swearing, right?

Like all of all of these different things, like all of this can be prayer. And so like that too, I, I think has, has led me to a more expansive, And I think that is where like queerness feels like it comes in of like, I can, I can pray and engage bodily in prayer and because I’m queer and trans like that automatically queers and trans is my right. Like all of all On prayer from me. Yeah. There’s like, like a blurring of boundaries and binary shown sort of like what is prayer? Yeah. It also reminds me of that like, you know, I wanna sing that’s, it’s that song.

It’s probably like Michael W. Smith or Jar of Clay. It’s like, like, like breathing out and breathing in before we start again. You know, that song in it’s let us Pray. There’s, if you’re listening and you know what song I’m trying to get at, it’s like pray without ceasing. And, and now when you get to the end, let, let us start again. Like, like it is a, a very conservative Christian song about prayer, but there’s also like, I like, I think that also if what you’re talking about feels like very queer and also it’s like, I do think that, like, I would imagine, I don’t know, I would imagine like Pope Francis also sort of feels like he prays in in times other than just when he’s like on his knees holding his hands talking to God, right?

That like, yeah, yeah. You like, you don’t, like, I think that queerness helps us to sort of like blur boundaries and break down binaries and forces us to reimagine this. Like, and also like, again, this is like what’s so beautiful Queer Theology, I think like everyone can, like everyone can sort of like queer prayer, reimagine prayer. I, I think like you, I’ve had a few phases of relating to prayer. I think like from childhood through, I don’t know, like somewhere around like 16, 18, I definitely had that sort of like there is a person that I call God, he dad, Abba, who is like listening can hear my thoughts.

I don’t even have to speak them out loud, who can like hear my thoughts and will like do or not do or give or not give the things to me, right? Like, I don’t know, sometimes I wanna like ice cream for desert dessert and my parents were like, we don’t have ice cream. Like have a cookie. Like I can have a cookie, but at least my parents for me, like at least there is someone, even if I don’t get what I want, there’s like someone listening. And because I’m a Christian and I’ve accepted Jesus, this person like in general has my back. Even if I like don’t always understand it in the moment. That was like my like v version one of Brian Praise. And then I think like around 16, 70, 18, certainly by the time I was 18 And I went to college as I was like realizing ’cause I was queer and realizing that that wasn’t going away and realizing that I didn’t want it to go away, I sort of like moved into this sort of like, and it coincided with my shift to my understanding of God is for like more agnostic.

Like, I don’t know, like, I don’t know, I don’t know like if there like is quote unquote God in quotes. Like, I don’t know, like if there is a God, if God is listening, I don’t know if God is granting or not grant anything. I just sort of like, I don’t know. And so sometimes I like wouldn’t pray at all or sometimes I would pray and just kind of like hope, like very stereotypically like, God, are you there? It’s me. I’d really like this. Or like, I mean my, in my co like 18th or 22, it was probably a lot of like, I think that it’s okay to be gay and so like that’s why I’m like dating or having sex, but like, if it’s not like I am listening, so like please just let me know and like I’ll, I’ll if I need to.

But there was, I definitely spent a few years being like, I think I’m on the right track, but like, if you want me to stop being gay, like give me a sign, I guess. And then I think like you, I moved into this like version three, which was like there’s no one listening, no one’s granting us anything. It’s just about like, if you pray that God will solve poverty, like inspires you to like give away more of your money or feed the people in your neighborhood or organize for better policies. Like it’s like you alone, like you are praying to God ostensibly, but it’s about changing you individually. And I think now I don’t think that there’s like a conscious entity that is like listening to my words, like on a telephone, right?

And I do think a lot of the change is happening within me, but I also kind of like, you think that like there’s some sort of like tapping into something and like, I don’t know, I don’t really think that there’s like vibrations that I’m tapping into. And if you think that there’s like, like there’s vibes like tap into tap into your vibes, right? But like, so I, I don’t know, like if you were saying it’s just sort of like I’m paying more attention and so I like notice things that I might not not have otherwise noticed or I say yes to things that I might not have otherwise said yes to, or I say no to things that I might not have otherwise said, said no to. I don’t know if it’s a, it like when I go in places that fuel prayerful, whether that is like a religious congregation or whether that’s like a community board meeting or a drag show.

Like I’m surrounded by people who share values or worldviews and so like I’m more likely to then be able to be inspired by them or lean on them or be supported by them. But there does, like now I do feel like there’s something that changes within me, but there’s also something really powerful about praying together and I’m putting all that in quotes, right? Like that could be literally like at a church service or if you’re Christian or like in a minion if you’re Jewish, like saying a sort of traditional prayer. But like it could also be like, I don’t know, like sitting around our Josh’s hospital bed as he was dying and like looking through a scrapbook with our best friends and his parents and like reminiscing like and holding his hand and like that felt in some way prayerful or like, I’ve already used this example, but like being at like a drag show or a gay bar or having sex and like, is that worship or prayer or both?

But like that there’s like something about the other people, this of it all that feels important. I know we were talking about this last week also, but there’s like this sort of like communal element to it that feels important that I really feel like only in the past few years have I connected sort of like the importance of community and like prayerfulness in particular. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I keep thinking about, you know, going back to my old views of prayer where it’s like you’re asking for what you want and trusting God will give it to you and then, you know, rationalizing whatever answer you get.

Yeah. Like I, I think about both the comfort of that, right? There is a real sense that you’ve got someone on your side and that It’s powerful and that, you know, miracles will happen. But I also just remember the feelings of like, well why did, why did God give that person the $500 that they need and not my family? Or, you know, why did that person get cured of their cancer? Someone from my family didn’t. And like how that has the theological and emotional power to, to like really destroy people, right?

And a real sense of like, especially when it’s coupled with like, well maybe you didn’t pray hard enough or maybe you didn’t pray with the right attitude, or maybe God is trying to teach you a lesson or maybe you were living in sin and that’s why you didn’t get the things that, that you asked for. And I think that like, this is why it’s so, so, so important for us to like really examine the theologies that we carry with us and the beliefs and the ideas that we carry with us, right? Because like that emotional response to prayer lingered in me, in my body for a hell of a lot longer than like the intellectual belief about that type of prayer.

Yeah. And so like, I think that that’s, it’s, it was so important to like do that work and I’m just like, I’m struck by because I’m, I’m hearing people talking about, about prayer in that kind of way, like every day these days. And I’m, I’m just, I’m struck by how the allure is still there, right? Like the allure of that kind of, especially when in moments when like the world is feeling out of control and my life is feeling a little all over the place. Like there’s, there’s a, there can be an impulse to be like, oh, well if I was just back in that space, everything would be clear and safe again.

And I just have to keep reminding myself like, yes, and it’s so, so bad for you. So like, don’t, don’t do that. But, but I do think like, again, it becomes then an invitation to to also say like, what is it about that that was so attractive? And like where, where are the places in me that either I need to like continue to do work of healing so that I don’t need that and or where are the places in that I can like engage in that kind of like, in something that will meet that need or that emotional space in a way that is healthy and good and that like doesn’t take me down bad, terrible theological places that like do damage to my psyche.

And so, and so I think that like, again, this is a, this is a thing you And I have say all the time, like the work doesn’t end right? Like you don’t eventually arrive at healed and whole and yeah. Like there’s no more work to do. And so like I think that this, like, we, we keep coming back to the things and things keep coming up for us. And so it again, like this is an invitation I think for me to like really reflect on what do I mean when I say prayer? What do I think I’m tapping into? What is the practice that is good and life giving and healthy and does lead toward wholeness? And how can I like really engage in that?

And I think that this is why over the last couple of years, probably more like a decade, like I’ve really loved reading, written, written prayers by other people because there is something of, you know, when you talked about praying together, like whatever kind of air quotes we wanna put around that. But there is something about like, if we’re all using, if a bunch of people are like praying the liturgy, even though we’re not in the same room, we’re like still engaged in that practice together. And like we’re, we’re orienting ourselves, especially if we’re praying prayers of justice or for peace. I do think that that like does something in the world, right?

Like if a bunch of people are orienting themselves toward envisioning a more peaceful world, committing to nonviolence or committing to being more loving toward one another like that is gonna make a, an actual physical difference in the world. Yeah. Whether we’re engaged in that practice physically together or like individually on our own. And I think it’s also an invitation to like expand our notions of whose prayers we’re reading, right? Like book of common prayer is great, but I also think that like, there’s a deep power in reading Col Arthur Riley’s Yeah.

Black liturgy’s prayers or prayers from, I, I have this prayer book that was written by someone that I went to union with who like collects prayers and liturgies from all over the world. And like there’s something about reading prayers from like a poor community of people who fish for their, their livelihoods, right? Like from another country that me praying that prayer, even though I have a very different experience, like it orients me in a different way. And I think that there’s a real power in that. And like, this is a, this is a time when I wanna like tap into that more deeply.

Yeah. I keep, I keep thinking about what you said a little while ago about sort of like the emotional response to prayer, right? And like you are intellectually reoriented before maybe you like totally emotionally reoriented and, and so like, you like intellectually didn’t believe that God was like giving that person $500 instead of you while you’re still like, can’t make rent this month. But like emotionally it felt like, oh, did I like do something wrong? And so I just like, I just wanna like go, I don’t know like go back and underline that. ’cause I’m, I bet you a lot of people can resonate with that. Yeah. And then, because I definitely went through that experience and for me there’s also like a second phase of like emotionalness where like, like when, when, when Josh was dying, like, which it’s, it’s still kind of fresh ’cause it was like f four, four years ago, like a month ago, two months ago, I both didn’t intellectually believe that God was curing some people with cancer and not his.

And I also like emotionally did not feel that either, like he didn’t do anything wrong. And so, but like in the like two years before he died when it was like very clear that it was terminal and in the, like the six months after maybe like I was still, I had would have like an emotional reaction when people would talk about either before he died, like I’m praying for him, I’m praying for a miracle, like to hold out hope, like never give up. Like God can heal. I’d be like, you motherfucker, that’s not how it works. Because like body is withering away in real time. He has like three tubes coming up and it’s fucking terrible. Like how dare you? And then afterwards, like, don’t, you know, like, or when people would like, oh, like I prayed and like God cured my, my mom or me or my uncle.

And I’d be like, that is fucking terrible theology. Like no, God didn’t like, I’d be like righteously angry. Like no God didn’t like, do you know what that says about like everyone in general and also particularly Josh, like, and now that it’s been four years, I think I can hear people say that and not get so emotionally activated, but I just like wanna name that like, even if you don’t believe in any five of you being that God is doing it, like you can still be sort of like trigger triggered, like activated about other people’s sort of like stuff around theology in general on prayer in particular. And I felt like I was like, I probably text you every single time someone said something like that to me.

And I think like that was, that was like part of it, right? Was to like recognize sometimes I would like be a little bit short with people if they said it to me either in person or in real life. But I mostly when I try to like be like, you don’t mean it like that way. Like you don’t have any, anybody, these are the best tools that you have. Like I know that’s not how it works. Like that can be good enough. And I would just sort of be like, okay and move on and like send you a three paragraph text. But so like how, like, do you have places people who in your life who both are like on board with you emotionally, that you can be your whole vulnerable self with that you can like vent to your trust friends, so you’re not like taking it on a stranger.

And you are also, I’m still stuck in this emotions and you were talking about like, it does sometimes feel like now that you’re around these people who are imagining porn, this like, god, like that does feel lovely. Like what if there was someone looking out for me? Like I think that we don’t have to feel bad if we think that sometimes, right? Like we don’t have to beat ourselves up for that. There’s like nothing wrong with it. It’s, it’s very human that like in a hard world to want someone even bigger and even more loving and even more powerful to have our back. And so like wouldn’t it be like, I don’t know, like wouldn’t it be nice like I think we can say like, wouldn’t it be nice if I could pray to God and like I just like really knew that God would like make my rent payment happen.

Like maybe it will, but like maybe it won’t. Like, but I wish I had that certainty or, and I’m thinking also about just sort of like beyond prayer, like, like afterlife. Like I really don’t, I don’t think that I’m gonna ever get to like see Josh and talk to Josh again. Like, and sometimes it’s like nice to like, whether I say it to myself or to my journal or to my partner or to other friends who knew him, like, man, like fuck, like I wish he was here. Or like, I wish he was looking down. Like I don’t, I intellectually don’t think that he was looking down on me, but like, I wish he was, or like I was just listening to the podcast episode so that we recorded like a few weeks after he died. It was right around this time of year actually the, the, the lectionary text was on the like post-resurrection exper appearances I think.

Or we just, I just brought that up because I was like sitting in his old apartment and feeling like, oh, like he feels like he’s like here still. And like I know that he’s like, not here, but like to, it’s, it’s like, it’s okay to use metaphor or or poetic language or to like, imagine if like I, you know, I remember my, before he died, my therapist would be like, you know, maybe you just like now when he couldn’t travel anymore, like you could just like have an afternoon like talking about like, oh, like what if he would like went back. It was also the pandemic. Like what if feel like we went back to fire island. Like wouldn’t it be lovely to like go to the beach or go cruising for guys or what place would we want to see? Or like, you know, that trip that we never got to take to France, like what would we eat? And at this point he couldn’t eat. He had like got obvious nutrition intravenously. So it was like, oh yeah, like remember that like pot roast you made three years ago.

Like, like it is okay to sort of like indulge our emotions and tell stories and use poetic language and metaphor and imagine and wish and dream. Like there’s like something really beautiful and human about that. Even if you as you intellectually are like, yeah, like he, like he’s gone. And also like I sometimes I still talk to him like, and that’s like a yes. And, And I, it also, as you were talking about like the wouldn’t it be nice if, if God like if if someone was looking out for me, I think that too is like an invitation to me to think about like, how do we be that for each other? Yeah. Right.

That there is this sense of like, yeah, maybe, maybe God isn’t gonna miraculously drop 500 bucks for my rent in my lap, but like maybe a bunch of my friends will, or like, maybe I can do that for someone else. And that like, I don’t know that that doesn’t get to your point about grief and loss and that Yeah. But, but there is, I don’t know, even in that it’s a sense of like, when you and your friends get together and you talk about what you remember and what you experienced with Josh, like that is a, a way of calling him back and recalling him and keeping his, keeping him alive in, in the midst of your community.

And I know that you’ve talked a lot about how much he taught you all and how you continue to live out those values together. Yeah. And that, that too is like a way of, of carrying that forward. And so I think that there, there is like the thing that feels so appealing about that prayer of like, it a miracle is just gonna happen, but it, it always required people, right? Yeah. So I think that the, the like beauty of, I don’t know, maybe the beauty of progressive theology or the honesty of progressive theology is to say, well, it’s always been us, right? Yeah. It’s always been up to us to like make that happen and to show up and to be be the justice, be the community, be the whatever in the world.

And like, I don’t know, we can, we can still do that. Even, even when things are the way they are now. Shay that is, I, I’m such a fan boy, I can’t believe I’ve known you for so long. Like, that was so it’s al like if, yeah, ’cause I like it was never in my mind, it was never a man in the sky intervening, which then means like, it’s always been us, which is actually like, God, I could cry. That’s like really fucking beautiful and like, I, it just reminds me of like last week, right? Also we were talking about like community and community care and effort and like, I feel just like infinitely lucky that I, like I do feel held by these like five guys that like we went through hell with, right?

And I’m aware that like not everyone has that and like doesn’t feel as held by their like this like beautiful queer chosen family that I have. And also I’m aware that like 15 years ago I didn’t, I didn’t know Josh 15 years ago. Like, it, like, it is not something that I’ve always had. It’s something that like partly I lucked into partly we all put a lot of effort in. Like, I, like I tell a story in my book, love Beyond Monogamy. Like I absolutely, like Peter met Josh, we like first met through a, like a dating and hookup app. Like I would’ve vetoed him if I had that power and like got him outta my life because I was like jealous and uncomfortable and like, but I didn’t. And like we grew up And I became one of my best friends, right? That like, it was not without trial and error and turmoil and heartbreak and you know, hurt feelings along the way.

Like, and also like a decade later, like we emerged or something really beautiful and like it took, it took work and like I had many other iterations of friend groups over the years, right? Like that I’m still friends with many of those people just like in different ways. And so like, if you’re like, God, I like I that’s like well and good Brian, you’re not this beautiful queer family in New York. Like, like that. Like it might mean taking some actions to go either meet some people or like deepen the connections that you already have. I just shared a Instagram post today from a black woman educator who was talking about like communal care and friendship and it was like, you have to stop splitting your lunches on Venmo down to the penny.

Like that makes your relationship transactional. You have to like, you don’t Venmo your friend to dog your cat, like you dog sit their cat there, there a dog one weekend, like the house pick up your groceries the next weekend. Like you need to sort of like, there are some things, especially now with technology and social media and sort of like on demand everything. Like, it is really easy to sort of like isolate and we really have to like push against the sort of commodification of every single thing. And that means like sometimes like I buy a this round of drinks and you buy the second round or you buy the round next week or like you crash on my couch, like crouch on your couch.

Like I pick you up from the airport, you pick me up from the airport, I ask you how you’re feeling. It’s vulnerable, it feels scary. Like I bet you were to my house for dinner. Like, I mean, we could, that could be a whole series or a whole like immersive something or other, but there like, it does feel like you, it takes action and it’s never, it’s like never too late to start my mom not to get too personal and share her shit. She’ll be, would be so upset. But like my mom has made some like really beautiful friendships just over the past like five years that are like super, super meaningful to her and she’s pushing 70 now. So like, it’s never like, there’s always time to, to start forming the community around you.

Friends. Don’t forget that coming up in the first week of June, we’re doing the Queerness Everyday Challenge. It is a six day challenge where we encourage you to do something to infuse and integrate your queerness and your spirituality every single day. And you can do it five minutes a day or less and have a great community of people that come around and come together to, to do this challenge. It’s only $7. So we would love to have you as part of Sanctuary Collective to Join the Queerness Everyday Challenge. You can find out more by gonna Queer Theology com slash challenge and you can also sign up there, hope to see you inside of Sanctuary Collective. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at Queer Theology dot com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for L-G-B-T-Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters.

To dive into more of the action, visit us at Queer Theology dot com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

The post Queering Prayer appeared first on Queer Theology.

Besides just being BUSY at the moment, we’re both feeling the anxiety of the daily current news. And it is exhausting, y’all. So, yes, while we do need a good nap, we also get into the themes of rest, self-care, and community engagement amidst the challenges of modern life in this episode. There is a tension between the need for personal rest and the demands of activism, and as with most things in life, it is important to find balance. We also talk about the value of micro rituals in daily life, even if they are much more micro than you would like them to be. We’re holding another round of the Queerness Every Day Challenge and it’s a great opportunity for folks to participate in small, meaningful practices that connect queerness and spirituality, especially amidst the busyness!

Takeaways

Chapters

(07:18) Balancing Self-Care and Activism

(13:28) Quality Engagement vs. Passive Consumption

(19:27) Micro Rituals for Daily Life

(22:27) The Queerness Every Day Challenge

Resources:.

Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation, the Bible declare good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how tune In each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome back, Shannon. And I just, before we hit record right now, or I asked Shannon, what do you wanna talk about on the podcast today? And I wish we were already recording so I could have a screenshot of the face he made and he said, napping.

And, you know, God, that hit me. So that was, felt just like, felt so real And I was like, yeah, let’s talk about that. Like, and so we’re not gonna talk only about napping, but I think, and, and let us know if this resonates with you, that like, we’re both kind of like literally tired a lot of the time, emotionally tired, sometimes feeling like spiritually drained and despondent. I mean, I think like for all the obvious reasons that everyone is feeling. And then also we, we probably each have our own sort of like, particular versions of that in our own lives. You know, this is something that happens at all points throughout history and throughout our lives. And also like at this particular moment, it feels maybe it’s more acute for many of us.

And also, right, like I still gotta pay the bills And I still have like family and friends that I care about and who care about me. And I still want to like experience joy and connection and community. And I still wanna, like, I don’t wanna give up and just crawl into a hole. I want to continue to fight to make the world a better place. And so like, we wanna explore this sort of like tension between the very real need to sometimes take naps and to take care of ourselves, and also the importance of taking care of each other. And maybe how those two, like you actually can’t separate as much as maybe people want you to think you can separate and, and just sort of like, like how are we doing this in this moment?

We don’t have an outline. This is like very unscripted off the cuff. I was working on my other job like until like 9:00 PM last night. So we’re like, this is like, you’re like, you’re Shay’s been driving a bunch for work. Like you’re getting, this is real. So Shay like you said, I want talk about, or I don’t, if you see this, wanna talk about, I think you said what I wanna do is nap. Yes, yes. So like what’s, like, what’s going on for you? Yeah, yeah. It’s just been a really, really busy season. You know, as we’re recording this, we’re recording this a little bit ahead of, of when it’s gonna go out, but like, I just launched a book a couple of weeks ago. I started a new job about a month ago.

I’m like you said, I’ve been driving a ton. The, the work that I’m doing has me in, in a bunch of different places. A, a play that I have been working on for two years, like just had its premiere, right? So there’s just been a ton going on and we were both kind of joking, you know, I think there’s that meme that goes around that’s like adulthood is just saying things are gonna calm down after next week over and over again until you die. Yep. And that’s, I feel like the two of us have both been in that space of, like, I was just telling my wife today, I was like, yeah, now this play is open. Like the the last thing I have to do is like rewrite the Queer Theology book. And we were kind of like laughing and then I can take a break and it’s just like, you know, it’s just, It’s just a small little thing of rewriting a whole 65,000 a book, Not 60,000 pages, Lord, Sorry, 60,000 words.

Yes. Be like, what publishing. But I think that, you know, I, I think, I think that this feeling that both of us are laughing about is like not uncommon with a lot of people. And I think that like, in addition to all of the just logistical and whatever things, it’s also like we are living in a time of increasing whatever this is. And there’s a lot of, you know, anxiety and fear and uncertainty and just a lot of unknowns. And like that also takes a toll on your mental and emotional and spiritual health. And so like, I’m just, I’m carrying all of that.

Yeah. And I think, I know that there’s been a lot of conversation online about like, rest over the past. I don’t know, it, it feels like over the past couple of years there’s been kind of this rest discourse, some from the like Nat Ministry folks, but like that it’s, it’s a lot broader, more broad than, than just that. And I’ve, I’ve really struggled with that because I think that there is a tension between, yes, we have to take care of ourselves, we have to like actually sleep and eat and drink water and all of those things. And also like, the more marginalized you are, I think the less ability you have to rest.

Like, there’s just always something to do. And like often that’s something to do feels very tied to survival, right? It’s not just like, I don’t have the luxury to just like check out because people are trying to legislate trans people out of existence. Right? Like, I don’t have the luxury to just whatever. And It’s like not choosing between like, I’m only gonna go go to one brunch this weekend instead of two brunches this weekend. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And like, and sometimes it feels like, I dunno, this is maybe my bias showing, I mean, sometimes it feels like some of the folks using the rest idea, especially online, are people who are like white, white, able bodied, cis and like not actually doing anything anyway.

And so it like, so it’s like whatcha resting from Yeah. Like, because you’re like not out in the streets and you’re not defending trans people and you’re not like fighting for existence. And so all I’m saying, and you work Like, and you work at Google, like Yeah. Like, you’re, you’re, you’re fine. Yeah. Maybe, maybe what you need to do is like, rest less and yeah, work more so that the rest of us can rest Anyway. So I, so I, I’ve struggled with that tension, but I do think that there is a, there’s something here for marginalized folks at figuring out, like, what is that balance? Like how do we care for ourselves and invest in our communities and like center joy and celebration in the midst of also not checking out of the work and continuing to show up for justice causes.

And I don’t, I don’t clearly with how tired I’m today, like I have not achieved that balance. But I do think that it’s like, that’s an important thing to be thinking through and and wrestling through for all of us, especially in this moment. So those are, yeah, those are some of my initial thoughts. Yeah. Something that you said sparked in me, this totally unrelated idea that I use in my relationship coaching practice, but it, it feels like an apt analogy. And I, I wanna share that and then like, then I’ll share a little bit about my own shit. But like oftentimes, especially in long-term relationships where the partners live together, what will happen is they, because they live together and they’ve been together for a while, they’ll end up spending like most of their time together.

And so every day they like come home from work or they work all day at home anyways. ’cause they’re, they’re remote working and so they’ll sort of like be at home and like, maybe they’ll cook dinner and maybe they’ll order dinner in and they’ll like watch a TV show or like not, or sort of like be on their phones. And so they’re like spending a lot of like physical time together, but it’s like very like the same old, same old every single day and kind of monotonous and, or they’re like physically next to each other on the couch, but they’re scrolling on Instagram if they’re open or polyamorous, like they’re scrolling on Grindr or Tinder or they’re like Snapchatting with like strangers, right? Like, and so you’re like together, but you’re like not having quality reconnection time, nor are you actually having quality, like meeting new people time or stimulating your brain through hobbies or like resting.

And so this sort of like seemingly paradoxical coaching that I often give folks is like, you probably need to spend like more both like more time together and less time together, like less physical time together. Even if that’s just sort of like go into separate rooms and like read a book over there and like, you play your favorite video game over here, but like, don’t just like sit on the couch kind of doing nothing together. That is nice sometimes, but like, that shouldn’t be your every day. And, and then spend more time like, like cooking in the elaborate meal rather than just like reheating pizza or like making a picnic in the park or going for a walk around the block or like putting your phones away and sitting on the couch and like holding hands or using one of those like intimacy card decks by Best Self co like asking each other a few like sort of deep questions, like to actually get some quality connection.

And so I think that there’s a, an analogy here where sort of like, when I feel the least the when I sometimes, like when I feel the most in need of rest is like when I’m like not doing anything where it’s like I’ve like caught myself in a doom scroll and I’ve been like reading the news and reading all these, watching all these like reels about how terrible things are and wars and bombings and prisons and like feelings sort of like helpless and hopeless and disconnected and like, my eyes literally hurt, but I am not actually napping. And so like, like I think that, and I’m saying this just as much to myself as I am to you or anyone else is like, I probably need like both more naps and also more picnics and also more protests.

And also let’s spin another p like, and also like more pottery, right? Like, like I think that like what I, what like I think I like need to unhook from is this sort of like mediocre, there’s a Bible verse about this also, like, right, like, don’t be there, don’t be be be hot or cold. Don’t be lukewarm God lukewarm. Or like, I think that this like, sort of like lukewarm, I feel like I don’t have enough energy to go to the park, but I like, don’t wanna take a nap ’cause it feels like there’s too much to do. So then I kind of do like neither. And so I think like the, like how can I both rest and then also like rejuvenate and like those like might be two different things and Instagram reels and YouTube videos as much as I want them to be rejuvenating or not actually rejuvenating, right?

It’s like a talk with friends of like fresh sour of like watching the sunset, like whatever it might be. Like going to like a community meeting and meeting my neighbors, like getting outside of my house. I always, I hate sometimes leaving my house. And also 95% of the time if I’m leaving my house as long as I’m home by 8:45 PM like I I’m glad that I, I’m glad that I left the house. So there’s like something there about this sort of like, yes ending, it’s like not either or. And like the times that I feel like most in need of support, like going, whether it’s to a book club or services or just like meeting up with friends and offering a listening ear, like giving support also sometimes then allows me to get support and asking for what you need.

And like, like now more than ever, community connections just like feel super important and that does take like work, but it’s like a different type of work than like your day job work. You know what I mean? Yeah, that’s that’s what I was gonna say. Like I, it feels to me that sometimes the things that take energy, like showing up at a protest or a community meeting or, or even like engaging with friends while while those do take energy, it takes, it’s a different, it’s a more engaged energy, right? And the recovery from that is different. It feels a lot different than like doom scrolling or tweeting or getting in involved in like in raging conversations online.

Yeah. I in a way that like, that too can sometimes feel like you’re doing something like quote unquote doing something. Like you’re staying informed, you’re bringing a Awareness stand, speaking your voice. Yes. Yeah. Like all of those things. But like those take a different type of toll And I think that like lead I, I’ll, I’ll speak for myself, like often lead me to a feeling of, I don’t know, like blah is the best Blah god word For it. Right. I’m Just like, a lot of the time that’s like, Yeah. Where it’s just like I, I I get like, I guess I’m engaged, I guess what, but it doesn’t, like I’m not rejuvenated and I’m also like not spent in a way that feels right.

There is a way in which like when I’ve done a really good thing, I had a hard conversation with someone Yeah. That I do feel spent, but it it’s like a good kind of spent Yeah. That like, like after a really good workout, right? Like you, your body feels spent, but it also feels Yeah. Strong and engaged and you feel in it. And I think that like, that feels like an important distinction for me too. Yeah. You know, I, so I used to, there was a while a few years ago where I was like praying every day. I mean, and also like praying, I am not a talk to God prayer. I’m like a read a liturgy prayer. So I, but like, so it wass like the same liturgy every day or like for a while with poems.

Like, so when I say pray, like I really mean like spending like some amount of minutes in sort of structured mindfulness. And I was like doing like every day And I was like, really great. And I like have been doing it for a while and like, like a few weeks ago I like, I was like, oh, like maybe I should like, like dab in this morning. And I like did it And I was like, oh, that felt great. Like I wish I did this more. And then like I did it then like the next day maybe, And I was like, oh, this is awesome. I’m gonna keep doing this. And then like the third day I didn’t do it. Like, And like it does, like, you do have to sort of like keep your foot on the pedal a little bit and like, I don’t know, I like, I, that is something that speaks to me like reading, whether it’s like liturgical prayers or poetry, but like, it could be journaling or knitting or crafting or like hosting weekly meals with your roommates or your chosen family or just like your friends.

Like I know that we’re like a little broken record here, but like, what are the like practices that like support and sustain you and like you the like weird paradox, right? Is that like you do have to like exert some amount of effort on it. It’s just that like, kinda like you were saying like a workout, but it’s like a workout for your heart, like your, your, your soul that like, you exert a little bit of effort for your soul and then like the, the payoff is so much more than the effort. Like, we invited a few people over for dinner on a Friday night a few weeks ago, and it was like, oh, there was just five of us and like my husband made a crockpot chicken, like pulled chicken thing like that we put on store-bought rolls and it was like just, it was very simple and pretty cheap and like, but so like, so lovely, right?

And I was like, oh, I wanna do more of this. And like, then we had friends over for drinks before a bunch of ’em went over to out to their Kylie Mano concert. Like that night I didn’t, I stayed in, but like some of them went to that And I was like, oh, we should like, we should like move this thing like every Friday. Of course. Like I haven’t, so like for as much as I, as much as we like talk about rituals, we have like a whole workshop inside of spi, study hall, sanctuary collective about rituals and the power of them. Like even I sometimes need to sort of like go back to those checklists and worksheets and sort of like recommit to them. And so like, I think like, I guess I didn’t start out this conversation thinking that I was gonna like end here, but I was like, oh, like what are the, and whether it’s like spiritual rituals are just sort of like communal care.

Like what are the things that actually make me feel cared for, protected, safe, seen, supported part of something bigger and like how might I put in a little bit of effort to get those and then also like maybe say no to some stuff that like isn’t gonna actually fill me up and like go to bed early. Like, I’m so glad I didn’t go to the sky Le Monroe concert. Like if you feel like I went to bed like on a Friday night at like 9:00 PM it was fucking amazing, right? So like sometimes it’s saying like, that does sound like fun, but like, let’s do an afternoon thing this weekend instead of getting together at 9:30 PM for drinks. You know, like, and or maybe you’re a night owl at 9:30 PM works great for you and an afternoon thing wouldn’t be good for you.

But like figuring out like what, like how can you sometimes do rest but also not like resting without retreating I think is, I guess what I’m figuring out. And that also makes me think of like, I, I think often when I’m as stressed and as busy as I currently am, it can feel like, what do you mean you want me to have rituals on top of this? Like I don’t even have time to Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sleep I like and now I’ve gotta do this new thing. And one of the things that I’ve been working on and not always succeeding with but working on over the past couple of years is like to use a kind of businessy term is like what’s my minimum viable ritual, right?

Where it’s like in an ideal day, right, I would love to sit down before I go to work and write three pages longhand in my journal and while having a cup of coffee and then light a candle and read some prayers and read a poem and meditate and do like all of these different things. And it’s like, okay, that’s the perfect, so like what is, what is the like thing that I can keep in practice? And so it’s like, great, I can write three sentences in my journal and it might be at the end of the day, not in the morning, I can do five minutes of meditation instead of 10. I can read a super short poem or nothing.

Right? Like yeah. That there are ways for me to stay engaged in these practices even if it’s not ideal. And, but it, that is still like keeping me engaged in that, in that practice so that when I do have more time, you know, then I can do the full thing. There was also some meditation teacher that, that was, had this thing of like, anyone who said, I’m too busy to meditate. He’s like, you should meditate for 20 minutes a day and if you’re too busy to meditate for 20 minutes a day, you should meditate for two hours a day. Right? It was this sense of like, the busier you’re, the more that you actually need the thing. And I, I’m sure that that teacher was maybe being facetious, but Yeah.

But I think that there is something there of like, it’s in the times when we’re most stressed and the, and when we feel most, like I do not have time to go out with my friends. I do not have time to engage in spiritual practices. I do not have time to do X, y and Z. Yeah. But those are the times when we most desperately need to figure out how to do something, something to connect something to practice something to whatever. Yeah. And I don’t know if this is like an a DHD hyper fixation thing or if this is just like an everyone thing, but like, I often find myself like wanting to, like when I have like an idea of like wanting to like really go big, I wanna like watch 12 different YouTube videos about it.

I wanna like read some articles about it. I want some checklist. I wanna like make a spreadsheet or a plan or start a new project in my like to do app and like we’re like, go big, right? And it’s like, yeah, or, or like, could I just like do one thing? Like could I just like text it, right? Like I don’t actually have to have a whole system for like how I’m gonna send every single person I know a birthday card in an anniversary card And I just thinking of you card all year long, I could just send like one card to the next person whose birthday is right. Or like for my mornings like to sort of like pray the morning like prayer service and, and Judaism it like takes like about 15 minutes if you’re like by yourself and kind of going quickly. But like, if I like wanna get like my prayer show out, it’s like, it’s like at least 18 to 20 minute like endeavor, right?

Like, And I have to like find my per on then fold it back up afterwards. So I’m like, that’s like my ideal. But like, okay. But so I don’t, I don’t either, like I don’t have time for that or I’m just like, do all energy And I don’t feel like that, that feels like overwhelming wherever I am, like sitting or laying down. Can I just like use the timer on my watch for five minutes and just sort of like count my breath and then maybe say thema, which is like one sentence, two sentences before or after that and like call that a day. Which, which like leads me, I guess like, which like leads me into this thing that we have coming up The Queerness Every Day Challenge. One of the things that we talk about is like finding affirmations or like literally like micro rituals that you can sort of like remind yourself of ways in which your queerness and your faith are like already intertwined.

And like starting with something like super, super small as like a really powerful reminder of the, like that you’re good, that you’re holy, that you’re deserving of love and rest. That you’re like, your body is good. Like whatever is like fuels important for you. Like whatever, like the word is that you need to hear. Like how can you find these like tiny little practices that you can sort of like smush into your life that don’t feel like they’re add-ons that you can do laying down, that you can do on the bus, that you can do before bed that you can like do before tired, but you don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is like open your eyes and like look at the thing you already put out like three weeks ago.

Right. So that’s coming up soon. I Shay you wanna share a little bit more about this? Yeah. You know, one of the things that I love about The Queerness Every Day Challenge this is will be our what our third time doing it fourth. So yeah, third time. Is that like, it, it’s a good reminder to me about how about returning to the same practices? Like, and we, we switch it up a little bit each year, but, but the, the functional thing is kind of the same. So like, how do we do these small things that can infuse queerness and spirituality and the intersections between them into our daily lives in like five minutes a day or less? And what I love about this is like, it’s a reminder to me that a revisiting and returning to the same practices reveal something deeper every time to me.

And also like, because I have changed in the last year, even though I’m doing the same thing, like I’m gonna have a different experience of it because I’m different. And it’s a reminder that like even small things can, when when they add up, can make a really big difference in that. Like re-engaging in this work, reminding myself of these intersections and why they matter to me, like is deeply, deeply meaningful. And so whether you’ve done it with us in the past or whether you’re like brand new to it, really encourage you to, to join this queerness everyday challenge. It’s super fun. We have a community space collective, something, something small that you can do.

There’s some advanced player moves if you’ve done it before or you wanna take it even deeper. And we do it together every day for a week and, and come together and form community around that. And it’s, it’s really awesome. It’s a, it was a really special time every year and so we hope you’ll will join us for that. Yeah, and it’s the first week of June, so it’s a great way to kick off your pride month. It runs Sunday, June 1st to Friday, June 6th. It’s just $7 and you can do it from anywhere in the world. We have folks in the US and Canada and South Africa, and Denmark Australia, Germany, South Korea, like really, really from all over. And so we would love to have you be a part of that.

You can go to Queer Theology dot com slash challenge to learn more and sign Up. Yeah, we’d love to have you. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at Queer Theology dot com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for L-G-B-T-Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters. To Dive into more of the action, visit us at Queer Theology dot com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

The post We Need a Nap appeared first on Queer Theology.

We tackle a series of questions from listeners on this week’s episode! The questions focus on the intersection of faith, identity, and community for LGBTQ+ individuals. We discuss the challenges faced by transgender individuals in church settings, the misconceptions surrounding sin and sexuality, the experiences of agnostics in religious spaces, and the nuanced understanding of the Holy Spirit in the lives of queer individuals. We also get into grief, demons and the importance of personal agency and community in navigating these topics.

Takeaways

Chapters

(1:04) Agnostics and Their Place in Church

(8:21) Navigating Church as a Transgender Individual

(15:57) The Role of the Holy Spirit in LGBTQ+ Lives

(26:05) Exploring the Concept of Demons and Possession

(31:28) Praying for the Departed: Grief and Rituals

Resources:

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

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The post Grief, Demons, Agnostics at Church: Listener Q&A appeared first on Queer Theology.

Fr. Shannon shares a sermon exploring the story of Doubting Thomas from the Gospel of John for this episode. He delves into themes of fear, doubt, and faith, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging doubt as a natural part of faith, particularly in the face of suffering and uncertainty. May we be a little more like Thomas in the sense that it feels like he was being reasonable. And may we embrace our doubts and continue to show up for our communities, promoting peace and justice despite challenges.

Takeaways

Chapters

(03:46) Exploring Fear and Doubt  

(06:32) Historical Context of the Gospel of John  

(09:46) Thomas’s Reasonable Doubt  

(12:36) Faith Amidst Suffering and Questions  

(15:25) Benediction and Reflection on Doubt

Resources:

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

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The post Maybe Doubting Thomas Was The Only Reasonable One appeared first on Queer Theology.

We’re honored to have religious scholar, preacher, teacher, and activist, Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney on the pod this week. Rev. Dr. Gafney is a biblical scholar whose work focuses on translation of the scriptures for congregations and lay readers, womanist and feminist biblical interpretation and women who prophesied in ancient Israel and the ancient Afro-Asiatic world and their reception in rabbinic literature. She is the author and translator and wrote “Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to Women of the Torah and of the Throne” and its sequel, “Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to Women of Joshua Judges, Samuel and Kings.” She co-edited “The Peoples’ Bible” and “The Peoples’ Companion to the Bible.” Dr. Gafney is an Episcopal priest canonically resident in the Diocese of Pennsylvania and licensed in the Diocese of Texas and a former Army chaplain and congregational pastor in the AME Zion Church. Her lectures and sermons are widely sought after in academic and Jewish and Christian congregational spaces in the US and in the UK. In this conversation, Dr. Gaffney discusses the Womanist Midrash project, exploring the intersection of womanism and biblical interpretation. She emphasizes the importance of context in understanding scripture, the role of translation, and the significance of centering marginalized voices in religious narratives. Dr. Gaffney also introduces the Women’s Lectionary project, which aims to highlight women’s stories in the biblical text, and addresses the challenges of biblical illiteracy in contemporary faith communities.

Takeaways

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction to Womanist Midrash

(03:03) The Intersection of Womanism and Midrash

(06:04) The Role of Translation in Biblical Interpretation

(09:06) Exploring Biblical Stories: The Queen of Sheba

(11:54) Understanding Context in Biblical Narratives

(14:56) The Women’s Lectionary Project

(17:56) The Impact of Centering Marginalized Voices

(20:59) Navigating Biblical Illiteracy

(23:56) Conclusion and Resources

Resources:

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

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The post Putting Women Back In The Story with Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney appeared first on Queer Theology.

For this episode of the podcast, Fr. Shannon has a sermon for Easter to share with y’all as our sort of virtual community and congregation of sorts! And there isn’t a coffee hour after, but if you would like to join in discussions, come on into our community at Sanctuary Collective. 

In this sermon, Fr. Shannon explores the significance of the resurrection of Jesus, emphasizing its relevance to our daily lives and the transformative power it holds for individuals and communities. This call is to revolution and to live out the principles of justice and love in the present. We encourage you all to actively participate in creating a better world, rooted in the hope and empowerment that the resurrection brings.

Takeaways

Chapters

(03:44) Easter’s Impact on Daily Life

(06:31) The Role of Women in the Resurrection

(09:30) The Shift in Community Dynamics

(12:25) Living Out the Resurrection Today

(15:29) Embracing Fear and Living Fully

Resources:

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

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The post The Revolution Starts Here appeared first on Queer Theology.