From Trad Wife to Bad Ass: Marla Taviano Redeems her Past by Writing a New Story

Marla's courageous tale of departing from the church and deconstructing her faith is a beacon for anyone navigating the murky waters of spiritual uncertainty. Her voice resonates with raw authenticity as she peels back the layers of dogma to reveal the systemic issues that plague organized religion. Through her eyes, we witness the personal cost of challenging the status quo, and we're invited to explore the intersection of faith and politics against the backdrop of Sarah McCammon's insights on "Exvangelicals." Marla's story is not just hers alone; it echoes the experiences of many who grapple with poverty, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ acceptance within the confines of their spiritual communities.

Our episode transcends Marla's personal journey, tapping into the collective pulse of a society wrestling with its own identity. I share anecdotes about bridging political divides, confronting the motives behind missionary work, and the sobering reality of Christian nationalism. This narrative invites you to consider the profound shifts within American religion and politics, as we uncover the implications these changes have on our personal relationships and societal constructs. Our discourse challenges the listener to question long-held beliefs, and recognizes the potential for growth and understanding when we step beyond the familiar.

Finally, we turn to the alchemy of transformation, where pain and struggle are the catalysts for growth and the search for authenticity in spiritual exploration. Marla's experiences are mirrored in the powerful verses of her poetry trilogy, offering solace and inspiration to those on a similar path. Our conversation extends an open hand to anyone yearning to reclaim their identity, to those healing from shame, and to all who dare to embrace the full spectrum of human diversity. Join us as we celebrate the journey of shedding old skins, standing in our truth, and fostering a world where every voice has the freedom to sing its unique song.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:14

Aloha Marla. Welcome to the podcast. Full transparency. We did this before, guys, but it didn't work the first time. So here we are again. You're welcome. It's nice to have you here. So, just to get started, we will go with your leaving the church story.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Tell us all about it us all about it, oh gosh, okay. Well, I'll start with my going to church story, which began in 1975, right after I was born, and I went to church three times a week every Wednesday evening, sunday morning and Sunday evening for years and years and years and years of my life, and it wasn't until, well, the last time I went to church. I've visited a couple of churches since then, mostly to see friends preach or something, but I haven't been to church since May of 2017. And we can get into this more all of it as we go, but basically there's a lot of quote, unquote, deconstructing that happened.

Speaker 2: 2:28

I started waking up to some things it started with. I say started. I'm looking back through journals now so I'm not exactly sure when it started, but in around 2008, 2009, I read a book called the Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns and started thinking more about poverty and how he says that if the good news of the gospel isn't good news to an AIDS orphan in Uganda, then can it really be good news? And to me, good news was Jesus died for your sins. You ask Him into your heart, he forgives you and you get to go to heaven instead of hell, which is what you deserve, but that speaks not one single bit to the hell that your life could be on earth if you were born in the wrong place. By wrong place, I mean somewhere where you don't have access to food and water and you're susceptible to disease and all of that, which is what it's like for the majority of the world. So I started waking up to that the majority of the world so I started waking up to that. And then I started attending a church, helped plant a church actually that was a multi-ethnic church and that I started waking up to white supremacy and racism. And then, from there, it was queer issues and are gay people really going to hell, and all of that. And then, speaking of hell, started questioning do I really believe in hell? Why am I following a God who says that we have free will, but if you don't choose him and his specific path, then you will burn forever and ever and ever? How does that fit along like fit with a loving God?

Speaker 2: 4:18

So all of those things kind of conspired together and then had some events happen. We moved to Cambodia in January 2015 and got fired from an organization for losing confidence in our director, which is kind of a funny thing to get fired for anything to get fired for, because if you lose confidence in someone, you usually have a reason, and that reason was legit and that reason was not resolved. But we were the ones that got fired for losing confidence. And then it happened again at a church, and they didn't use that same wording lose confidence in your director. But we did. We lost confidence in our pastor because of the spiritual abuse that we saw. So then that was the end of church and we moved back to the States in March of 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic.

Speaker 2: 5:12

And then my husband left in September of 2020. And I found out four months later that he had been cheating on me for much of the time that we lived in Cambodia. So it just kept adding layers and layers and layers. But when people want to say something like, oh so you left church because of what your husband did, oh, no, I didn't know what my husband was doing. Or you left church because you were hurt? No, was doing um. Or you left church because you were hurt? No, that wasn't actually it either. Um, it was because people I knew and loved were being hurt. So, yeah, and now it's 2024 and um yeah, so that's. That's a big chunk of my leaving church story right, right.

Speaker 1: 5:58

So I want to go back to this. Like losing confidence in the director situation. Like, if you really like, break down those words and what that saying is very cult-like, you know. Like you're not allowed to question this If you lose confidence in your leader. Like the leader isn't questioned for why are people losing confidence, but like you're questioned for losing the confidence which is just very clearly like a manipulation tactic. I haven't heard it phrased that way and that just was like blaring at me, just like wow.

Speaker 2: 6:31

Yeah, it really hurt at the time, but I took a lot of notes and I wrote it all down and we had conversations with other people and it definitely has over the years it's just become. I mean, it's still not great. It doesn't cause me pain when I think about it now. But that whole idea of like I could show people the email, that that exactly that's the wording Like there was never any accusation against us at all except for that, like you lost confidence because they couldn't. There was nothing. It wouldn't serve them well to make up something that didn't happen. So they didn't. They they told the absolute truth. We lost confidence in our director and, yeah, very, very cult-like. And the board meeting. We had a meeting with the board to plead our case and I was just on fire, ready for this board meeting because we were right, like I just was. So, speaking of confidence, I had very much confidence that we had, like, had nothing to stand on and we did. Well, what I didn't realize was that the board was made up of the director's brother and her close friends. So there goes the cult part where, even if you are fine and they tried to get us to resign during this call, they wanted us to resign, to resign during this call. They wanted us to resign and I said, absolutely not, you will have to say the words you are fired, which they did do. Then they wanted us to go through like six months of I forget what it even was like counseling or some kind of thing, and I was like so counseling for me to what? Then have confidence in the thing that you did. And I was like so counseling for me to what? Then have confidence in the thing that you, that you did. And then we had another meeting. So this is all Christian people, it's not a church, but this is an organization.

Speaker 2: 8:27

We had another meeting with someone who was on the missions board and he actually took our side and when we left, and we were still over there in Cambodia, he and his wife for the next two years sent us $200 a month as like personal supporters, sponsors, because he believed in us but didn't want to ruffle the feathers. It was just, it's like a big old thing, like a cult slash, business slash, and I personally do not want anything to do with missions, with parachurch organizations. I mean, I'm sure there are some good ones, but it just yeah, we definitely got burned there. So that wasn't the reason that we quit the church and we went on to work for another church and then same thing happened where we pointed out some things that we saw the pastor doing taking advantage of the Cambodian people. He was from a country in Europe and he did not like that, and so he sat us down and then he wanted us same thing. He did not like that and so sat us down and then he wanted us same thing, wanted us to resign, but not tell anyone.

Speaker 2: 9:42

Why Didn't want us to tell our own kids, who are also volunteering on this thing? He said I don't want you to tell them what happened. And I laughed in his face. I was like you're kidding, right, like I'm not going to tell my children why I just resigned from this ministry outreach to four people in Cambodia. Anyway, I feel like we're getting a little bit off track. But yeah, there's been a lot that's happened. But what I was starting to say was even those two situations in a country where I went to go share the love of God, that really isn't a huge, huge part of my deconstruction journey, because that was already. I was already unraveling all of these beliefs that I had.

Speaker 1: 10:30

So that would have happened regardless whether or not I the deconstruction, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. All so so culty, it's just nuts. And talking about the church counseling like one thing I personally witnessed and I'm not going to say I can't speak for everyone, but church counseling supersedes therapy, like there's no like anything about mental health and anyone who I've known that has used church counseling, it has only encouraged them to stay in toxic and abusive situations.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Right, because they're part of the cult also.

Speaker 1: 11:08

Exactly, exactly. So. Counseling is not counseling, and then the real counseling like seeing a trauma-informed therapist is discouraged. You're demon-poss, possessed, not, you have mental health issues, you know it's.

Speaker 2: 11:23

I had a friend years ago this is before I even deconstructed and she was excommunicated from the church that I grew up in because she went to a therapist and they said that's not allowed. And I don't. I don't know the whole situation, but they told her there's only one kind of counseling new, static or whatever it's called the biblical counseling, where they only use what's like words from the bible to counsel you, which is it's very, very sad and very laughable that you could. Using the bible as an instruction manual is just beyond. It's so hypocritical for people to say that they do that when they do not do it for so many things, like you buy a house, you buy a car, you do this, you do this, you do your job. Do you only use the Bible as your instruction manual? No, you live in the 21st century, in the united states of america, and nowhere did the bible claim that this will be all that you need to get you through whatever.

Speaker 1: 12:28

So yeah, yeah yeah, well, and it's, you know, really mythology. It's like thousands of years like mythology that has no, I mean, there are some, are some, of course, like some, some. There's a little value in there, you know, when you get into, like Jesus, there's some value there. You know, in my opinion, although I don't go to the Bible for that Cause, I feel like as a whole it's just not relevant to me. But, um, you know, it's just a mythology. Basically, that we're, you know people, are still basing our entire society, on which is terrifying.

Speaker 2: 13:04

It's about power. I mean if you can use, if you can get people to believe that they have to follow this Bible and specifically follow your interpretation of that Bible, because that's where people get screwed over is they don't realize that even if they're told to take the Bible literally, they are basing their literal interpretation off of what a pastor has said. The Bible literally means. Trump being elected years ago now is an example of the ways that Christians will believe pretty much anything and twist anything as long as it fits what they want it to fit, and that's what people have been doing with the Bible for a really, really long time. And anything that doesn't fit you can just explain away with other things, like God's ways are higher than our ways, or whatever you want to do because the Bible doesn't fit.

Speaker 2: 14:06

The Bible does contradict itself, but you can like. I had someone who disowned me, wrote me a 12-page letter and used all the scripture. Most of it was words of Paul, and someone else in my family was saying I'd like to write back to him and I'm trying to figure out if I should refute everything he said of Paul's with all the other books of the Bible or if I should just use Paul's words to refute what he said. That Paul said, because you can also do that. You can play that game. I can play the game where you tell me why I'm a heretic based on what Paul said in these letters to churches, and I will tell you why I'm fine and not a heretic, based on what Paul said to another church or the same exact church, maybe the same exact paragraph.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Yeah, literally yeah, literally.

Speaker 2: 15:05

So, uh, it's um, it's a mess. I I mean, I have a lot of friends still who are christians. I have friends who are pastors. I have friends who use the bible and love the bible, um, but I don't believe I have many friends left in my life who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible and um are sending my gay friends to hell, et cetera. Those are, um, those people in my life. If they are in my life, um, it might be because they are related to me and they haven't disowned me, so I haven't disowned them, but it's mutual, not disowning yet I haven't disowned.

Speaker 2: 15:39

I mean I've technically disowned anyone um, but if, if people's beliefs are harming other people, then there's not really space in my heart and life for a friendship and a relationship with them yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 15:55

Going back to this like cult tactics, that's one thing I've been realizing recently because you know there was, of course, in the last election cycle, with my family being from the South, there was a lot of separation, like my own mother didn't speak to me for eight months because I would accept the propaganda, no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 16:43

Like I totally could have gotten sucked into a cult like really easily, because that way of moving in, that way of structuring and thinking is what we've always known. It makes sense. So, with this whole Trump cult situation, I've, kind of this election cycle, been able to step back and look at it as more seeing, at least in the people that I know and love, as like they're being manipulated by a cult. And you know I'm sure you feel this way like when they come out of it, if they come out of it, they will be welcomed with open arms. I'm not going to get thrown into it by any means, but there's always a space of openness, of like, yeah, we're all victims of this. So you know there's space for that too, because I was one of them, I was completely bought in. You know, I completely bought into it for so long that, yeah, it's easy to be manipulated when that's all you've ever known.

Speaker 2: 17:37

It's easy to be manipulated when that's all you've ever known. Yeah, I've, I've been reading. I don't read a ton of deconstruction stuff these days, but I did buy the book Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon, I think her name is, and I'm reading that right now because Christine Kobes-Dumé, who wrote Jesus and John Wayne, a book I loved. She recommended it, endorsed it. Wayne, a book I loved. She recommended it, endorsed it.

Speaker 2: 18:22

And, yeah, it's very interesting to read back and see all the people who I never knew, who lived in different states, different places, who had the same kind of belief system and to or when did they start having doubts or questions? Um, and that's, yeah, it's fascinating to me. So, when you talk about if people leave the trump, call you would welcome them back. I, um, I've had some people in my life, or even Facebook friends, who, in 2020 and the years after that, would send me a message and say I unfriended you in 2016 when you were talking about racism and it was after George Floyd's murder, and then they say now I understand. Can we be friends again? Yes, welcome them back. I have yet, to my knowledge, known of someone who was on the Trump train and is still on there. That is getting off. I'm sure people are getting off, but I feel like a lot of people are just doubling down.

Speaker 2: 19:09

Yeah it gets to the point where if, like my parents are, will be voting for trump this year and the it's like. What else can I say? Because at this point, what they will probably argue and we don't talk about this anymore and they don't. I'll see them next week, but I only see them a couple times a year. At this point you can't appeal to them with trump lies. Or trump is immoral or Trump's not really pro-life. He's actually pro-choice.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Trump doesn't care about the Bible, he just pretends he does, like all of those things, because then they'll just take it to. Well, he's just a means to an end. We need conservative Supreme Court justices, or we need to save babies from abortion, or we need like they'll just go some other way and say I'm not saying it's great that he does all these things, even though they lift him up and adore him not my parents, say, but other people. And there's just really no way. I don't argue with trump supporters anymore. There's I don't have. There's no way in. There's no way. No chink in their armor like you can't do any kind of thing. Um, it's a hopeless cause. They just have to at some point say I'm not going to be um, complicit in in this evil? And um, yeah, i't.

Speaker 2: 20:38

I was driving around with my daughter yesterday and we saw these Trump 2024 signs and it just kind of hit me. I was like, oh right, I do, I live in South Carolina. It doesn't matter what state you live in. I mean, you're going to see these signs everywhere.

Speaker 1: 20:55

Significantly fewer here in Hawaii. I'll say that yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2: 20:59

Um, I sometimes forget because I'm in a neighborhood that's pretty quiet, pretty diverse, and there aren't even any signs up anywhere right now, um, but then I go out and see these and I'm like, oh yeah, there are people that are just gung-ho. I, I don't even know it's. I can't believe we're doing this all over again.

Speaker 1: 21:26

Here we are 2024.

Speaker 2: 21:28

Here we go again.

Speaker 1: 21:29

I kind of dissociate. I'm like no, I just can't believe it. But I remember saying that the first time. So you know, yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1: 21:38

I have definitely had people refriend me that I didn't realize they had unfriended me, because I don't pay attention to that kind of stuff during the whole thing until they were friend requesting me again and I'm like we're cousins. I'm pretty sure we were friends before. But fortunately I have been able to see some people like pull away from it and they're just not voting instead of voting for Trump. You know they still wouldn't dare vote for a Democrat, but they're just abstaining from voting. So I have seen a little bit of pull away from some people in my family, fortunately. You know, after the last election, one of my aunts, you know, was like I was on a bandwagon election and and that they're just staying quiet until the time comes.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Just pray, I will pray for that. Yeah, here's hoping. I mean, there's so many warning signs of what is to come. If, if this is allowed to happen and I just don't I'm just hoping that we're never in a position of looking back where everybody's like, oh well, I didn't see it coming, because this is it. It's coming like, yeah, what they're doing, christian nationalism is scary for all of us. It's not even if you're a christian. It's not what you want, I promise. Um, they're just feeding you what you want to hear. It's not what you want, but yeah, it's kind of terrifying the whole thing. And speaking of Christian nationalism, let's talk about your time in Uganda and being a missionary.

Speaker 2: 23:35

It's actually Cambodia.

Speaker 2: 23:37

I used no, I used a uganda example earlier um so we, um, there was like on your typical week-long missions trip, where a bunch of white people go over to a development you know, save them. And, um, first my ex-husband my husband at the time didn't want to go, and looking back now it's funny because he said to me we watched this promotional video in church about we have this orphan home that we sponsor and we could go over there, blah, blah, blah. And he said you're going to pay twenty five hundred dollars for a bunch of white people to go over and push brown kids in swings. Like I don't think that's really a great use of your money. And so I just prayed really hard that God would change his heart. And then God did change his heart, or however that works. And so we went and then decided after that we wanted to go back, and the girls, our daughters we have three daughters said don't go back without us. So we started raising money to go back for another time and take them with us. My husband had a heart attack in the meantime at age 34, almost died. And then, six weeks later, we got on a plane and went to Cambodia for five weeks. This is the end of 2011, beginning of 2012. Came back from there and decided we were going to move to Cambodia. Again. My husband felt like God spoke to him while we were there, that we were supposed to move there, but then, when we came back to the States, he started having anxiety and panic attacks like a post-traumatic stress thing after his heart attack, lost his job, we lost our house, blah, blah, blah. Three years later, we did.

Speaker 2: 25:18

We moved to Cambodia in 2015. And we started out as people who just wanted to help and love people and tell them about Jesus and we deconstructed while we were over there and, of course, he was cheating for most of that time and, ironically or not ironically after the cheating came to light, he would just over post on Facebook about God and all of this stuff. And, um, someone told me a Cambodian friend told me that he reminded him of the in Cambodia. If you mess up In Cambodia, if you mess up your life, then you can shave your head, go be a monk and do penance, basically so that you can earn your way back into the good graces of your family. And he said it kind of felt like that's what he was doing, was he was taking this posture of this humble monk who loves God. So much blah, blah, blah to try to get people to like him again or whatever. So we were there. We did do a lot of humanitarian work that I am still glad that we did.

Speaker 2: 26:34

I started an organization called Bamboo Libraries. We built libraries over there. We hired local people to build them and local teenagers to staff them and probably made some kind of difference in the lives of some people. I wouldn't. We definitely did not save anyone's life or change their lives super drastically. But while we were there like after working with an organization and getting fired, then the church and getting fired and I say fired, they weren't paying us. We were volunteers, like we had people back in the states that were supporting us, um, financially. And then we worked, also from cambodia, like I wrote and edited and stuff. So yeah, now my view on all of that and that changed.

Speaker 2: 27:21

While we were there, we stopped proselytizing to kids in the bamboo libraries and I put a post on Facebook people were furious about this where I said to them imagine that you take your child to story time at the library and there is a Muslim teacher there that is telling your kids that this is the way, this is the truth, this is how you get to heaven. And then they lead them in a prayer so that they can convert to Islam. And that's essentially what we were doing in this Buddhist country bringing these kids here, giving them snacks, giving them free books, playing games with them and then telling them about our God and how they need to pray to our God and forsake their family's religion for our God. And when I would tell people that and make that comparison, they're like well, but you had the truth and the Muslim teaching at the library doesn't have the truth. So that's the difference. And you can't make someone understand that. How do you know what the truth is like? Just because this is the religion you were born with and you think that somehow, some way, of all of the millions and billions of people that live in the in the world, your religion, your denomination, your specific beliefs are the one true beliefs and everyone else's um are leading them down a path to hell. So we had stopped that already and just continued with humanitarian work until we left in 2020.

Speaker 2: 28:56

But but I no longer believe in or support missions of any kind, and I'm very hesitant to support white people at all, going over. What really bothers me is the money that is spent on a plane ticket and little suitcases full of toys and trinkets and what have you, and let's go change people's lives in Uganda or Cambodia or wherever. The money that you spent that I spent on a plane ticket to get there could feed them for years. You could just give money to the people that are already there. They can build their own wells, they can build their own houses, they can hold their own babies, they can do their own laundry, they can paint their own fences. There's nothing that they need from us except resources. Have a family that we're really close to, a couple families that we still will send them money when they need it.

Speaker 2: 30:03

Um, because people gave me money when I needed it. When my ex-husband left during a pandemic and left me in a new state with children who couldn't drive yet and I didn't have, I wasn't making enough money people stepped in and and helped me. So I am not against giving to people in need. It's just the paying $2,500 for a plane ticket so that you can hand out 50 cent bowls of rice to people. It just doesn't compute. It's not fair, and I get very irritated when people tell the stories of what good they're doing over there and I'm like yeah, it's bullshit, it's not, it's not the.

Speaker 2: 30:52

Being a colonizer isn't cool anymore guys yeah, that's, it's not, and so much damage has been done and continues to be done and, um, I just wish that it would stop and go away to the muslim thing.

Speaker 1: 31:11

You know they believe just as much as you know a pentecostal or catholic or bapt Baptist believes that they know the way and the truth and the light. So do the Muslim people. They have the same basis for what I believe is true, and that's something that seems to get messed. Everybody's like no, but ours is the truth and it's like, yes, they feel the exact same way.

Speaker 2: 31:34

And they are very much more devout.

Speaker 2: 31:36

So we lived in an apartment complex in 2014, the year before we moved to Cambodia that was primarily Somali refugees and refugees from Eritrea and Nepal, but so most of our neighbors were Muslim, and it was very interesting that they looked at a lot of us as the ones that were the heathens.

Speaker 2: 31:59

Because we're not stopping to pray, we're not fasting for a month, we're not giving to the poor, we're dressing it modestly, we're like all of these things that we are doing, that they are faithfully adhering to what they believe is right, and we're just like, oh, we'll go to church on Sunday, but then we'll do whatever the heck we want and we won't do this and that and that. We we're the ones who are the Easter and Christmas Christians. We're the ones that say one thing at church and live another way. We're the ones drinking alcohol and not covering our head, like all of the things that make them devout. We're not devout. I mean. Sure, some people are. There's a lot of hypocrisy, too, and so the irony of us thinking that they are going to hell, when they're actually following their religion so much more religiously than a lot of us did.

Speaker 1: 33:04

Wow, yeah, that makes sense. I was just thinking about you talking about going over there and the white saviorism. I know you do a lot of reading and have a lot of interest in this. You know white supremacy and the effects, which is amazing, to not only be able to take responsibility for past beliefs but to start in a new way and to start doing things in a different way, to like really own the impact that you're making in the world. I think it's really impressive. You're very much into that. So I like how do you feel about that? Like the, the white saviorism and like this? I mean for me, like, when you talk about doing this mission work, it just feels like it's more to make the people who are doing it feel better than the people that they're doing it for. It's like okay, your kids get to go on this vacation and call it working for god, basically, and all the things that you do like.

Speaker 1: 34:08

How do you see that playing out not only there, but like here in the united states?

Speaker 2: 34:12

well, I write a lot about this in my poetry, where I I grew up hearing about, like unreached people, groups in other countries and the lost and people who are oppressed, not even realizing the groups in the United States of America that were being oppressed by other people in the United States, and often by churches, and not getting the full truth of history, having it glossed over, whether it's Native American genocide or enslaving people from Africa. And then, even when they were free, making at every single turn, making laws that prohibited them from getting ahead in any way, and it's all tied together like we did not live in a very old country and everything that happened was very, very recent. So you see videos of white people throwing rocks and screaming at ruby bridges um, a little six-year-old black girl trying to go to school, and these people are still alive. Like this is not ancient history, slavery didn't even end that long ago. And so when I started realizing this is about well, I mean, it started like a little before Trump, so my deconstruction had started. I had met more Black friends at my church, I had started to read a little bit more, and as I was reading Mildred D Taylor, and I honestly do not remember any other Black authors. It's possible there were one or two, but not any that I recall. So I just I started.

Speaker 2: 36:11

I made a commitment I think it was 2017, that I was going to intentionally read Black authors and other authors of color, and in December of that year, I started a bookstagram just an Instagram account, where you talk about books called White Girl Learning, and the name was based on a book by Jacqueline Woodson, who's a queer Black woman Her book Brown Girl Dreaming. And so I just started reading books, started posting them and then. So now it's been six and a half years and I have not looked back. So all the books you see behind me on the bookshelves are, um, books that I've read by authors of color, and I now, instead of me looking at myself as I have the answers and I'm the savior and I can go help people, it is let's listen to these voices speaking the truth, speaking about all kinds of things Like some of them are speaking up against racism and white supremacy. Some of them are just writing really great novels. Some of them are telling the truth of history. Some of them are telling the truth of history. Some of them are writing theology, but realizing what you miss out on when you.

Speaker 2: 37:25

Your default is reading white books, and I have people who get upset with me saying that why are you specifically reading black people's books? Like, I just read good books. I don't care what color the author is, and so I encourage people go look at your bookshelves, look up the authors. Tell me how many of them are white. I'm going to make a guess that 96% of them are white, and so that's just what happens, and you aren't just kicking good authors. You are conditioned to see this, and they're the ones getting the publishing deals and they're the ones getting the dollars and they're the ones getting the attention. You have to actively seek these other books out, and they are good books. Like I'm catching up on things Like Toni Morrison, octavia Butler, alice Walker, these black women who have been writing for years and years, and those people.

Speaker 2: 38:27

I don't do anti-racism education or any of it really is like the time that I went snorkeling in okinawa, japan, in 1997, and you put your face down in the water and you, your mind is blown. You cannot believe that there is this brilliantly colored coral and all these different colored fish and all of these. Like you, you, you don't see that when you look out at the ocean, like you have no idea. And here's, 75% of the earth is water and all like this is the main deal. And then you've got the land, especially if we've just lived in our tiny little corner. I think of that.

Speaker 2: 39:39

I live in Columbia, south Carolina, where I moved during a pandemic and I worked from home and didn't get out much. And even to this day, four years later, I will go to a new part of Columbia and feel like I'm in a different world, like I didn't know this part was here, I didn't know. So you stay in your little town or your little city or your little state and you have no concept of what's going on around you. Like me, I've never been to Hawaii. I have been to Okinawa, which is funny. The kids there, for their senior trip, took a trip to Hawaii because it was like not very far yeah, it's like California yeah um, which I thought was cool, because I don't even remember where.

Speaker 2: 40:28

I don't think we took a senior trip. Yeah, yeah, and too, karate Kid 2. I remember asking someone um, because I loved Karate Kid 2 when I was I forget when I watched it as a teenager maybe and I'm like, where was Karate Kid 2 filmed? I want to know where, on this little island, it was filmed, and they're like Hawaii.

Speaker 1: 40:48

I said no, wait a minute what?

Speaker 2: 40:51

but, yeah, you live in Ohio for 39 years. You don't like imagine trying to understand what it's like to live in Hawaii, like to be in until you go there, and if you don't go there, at least reading about it or watching it, or like watching nature documentaries One of my kids loves animals and was obsessed with nature documentaries there for a while probably still is. Where you can just cameras can go now, where you can watch these mating dances of these tropical birds, like things you never knew were happening every single day and we don't know. And so that's how I felt about starting to read literature that was written by people who were not white, people that grew up in Midwestern United States. It's a whole new world, and so you really, really are missing out.

Speaker 2: 41:55

Like not even mentioning the fact that you're not learning the truth about history, you're learning what the victors right, they wrote the history. So you've got people saying that we came over here from Europe and we found this land and we claimed it because it's our God-given right. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you learn the truth and history is connected to the present. There is no time ever when history broke off and then we started over and it's all connected, especially in the US, with the Native American genocide and slavery is connected to this day, and that's another thing indigenous peoples in the United States like I. According to the history books, there used to be Native Americans and now there aren't. Something just happened. I don't know what happened. Well, there are Native Americans in every state in this whole country on reservations, off of reservations, still trying to preserve some things that they once had and holding on as tightly as they can, because the white people that came in just decimated it and didn't care.

Speaker 2: 43:09

So, yeah, just, it's been a really cool adventure, slash, really hard thing to do and it has been the best thing I've ever done, and I just try to bring other people along on that journey with me. You hear the word woke, as a little like that word, and it's like why would you not want to wake up? Like why would you not want to wake up to truth? And let's say you learn something and you're like I don't think that that could really be true. Well then, examine it and see. But I was taught not to examine things like. I was taught that that's dangerous. Why, why could I not read that book and see if I think that it doesn't match up, yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:58

Yeah, I can imagine a conversation I had with some people in my family I'm not going to get into specifics because I still love them, but you know I was. I was just telling my niece we were talking about abortion this was a few years ago and and I was just kind of giving another perspective that there's more than one way to think about this and I remember my family got really defensive and really upset Don't tell her about that. And I'm like no, she needs all of the information and then she can decide for herself.

Speaker 2: 44:25

We're not gonna filter it Like I've seen the results of that, but Well, you know why they don't want you to have all the information right, because then you're gonna use your brain. You're actually going to use your brain. It's the same with I have people that I love who still believe in young earth, creationism, that the earth is just 6,000 years old, because they believe the Bible says that. I'm like do you know how many of your brain cells you have to shut off to believe that that is true? And not even realizing you don't have to believe that. You can still go to church and believe the Bible or love the Bible and also believe real, true facts about science.

Speaker 2: 45:10

Oh gosh yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:11

Yeah, I, um, definitely it's a science, isn't? Isn't scary, I? But I remember like learning that like I wasn't allowed to participate in Earth Day growing up because that was new age, and so on Earth Day at school I would have to go sit in the library or do something else while the other kids were doing activities. Because that was new age. I mean, really me learning about how to take care of the planet is something that I needed to be sheltered from. But if you think like this control perspective, what I know personally from connecting to nature has been one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. Being in community with nature, understanding that I'm not in dominion over it, but that we're in this together, that me and the earth are in this together, has been so illuminating and opening and really increased my intuition and other things. And that's why they don't want us looking there, because that's where the power is and that's you know.

Speaker 1: 46:08

I had was talking to Dr Christina Cleveland about this. It's like the places where they're telling you not to look, look there. There's a reason they're telling you not to look. No, they demonize black women. But black women have so much wisdom. I mean, those are the original mothers of humanity. They know stuff Like look at the black women, don't look at trans people. These are our two spirits. These are the people that have this divine, masculine and feminine, in their lives. They have so much. Look there, talk to them, ask questions. If someone tells you not to look at something, please, please, for the love of literally for the love of God, let that be your reason to go and look at it.

Speaker 2: 46:47

It's scary at first.

Speaker 2: 46:48

I remember Sarah Bessie's book Jesus Feminist that I read, I think, in 2014. And I was like, oh, should I be reading a book with the word feminist on the front? And I thought, well, it's Jesus Feminist, so maybe it's OK. But thinking how much I had to untangle and unlearn before I could even allow myself to do this, so I get the cognitive dissonance. I get that people are terrified of this stuff. But that's where all the beauty is, all the wealth and, yeah, the nature. Here we've got God creating the world and calling it good If you believe that.

Speaker 2: 47:31

But yet you, you don't want anyone to go listen to the trees because they might they might not like your preaching anymore, because God might speak to them through God's creation and it literally opens up a whole entire new world in so many ways, and you realize how sheltered, how oppressed, how pushed down, how it's so sad. And a lot of people are very bitter and very angry about it, with good reason. That's why they're lashing out now. Because wait, you didn't. You lied to me. You didn't tell me this was out here. You told me that gay people were evil. You told me that the Muslim people were evil. And and what I encourage people to do go talk to those people yourself, go me. That's what did it for me Like having gay friends having black friends meeting Muslim neighbors, having gay friends having black friends meeting Muslim neighbors, and then you can't reconcile it because you're like wait a second this person is kind and fun and I thought you said they were evil and mean and had an agenda and all of that.

Speaker 2: 48:47

And it's easy if you put up those walls and literal border walls and figurative walls and don't let anyone get close to you, then it's easy to see them as of them, see them as others, see them as enemy. But when you break down those barriers and go to them or let them come to you, it's really impossible to hold those harsh beliefs and have all that fear.

Speaker 1: 49:14

Yeah, I understand the backlash too, because my inner teenager is real pissed off, especially now like I'm currently unpacking the damage that was done from the purity culture and just the way that it's caused me to view men being raised my whole life to believe you know that they hold this position over me and that all they care about is sex and like all this.

Speaker 1: 49:39

So you know there's so much to unpack there that I understand the anger, I understand the backlash and I feel like it's also easy to fall back into that trap of othering.

Speaker 1: 49:54

So in this, like when I first started promoting podcast, I, you know I have let out a little bit of like making the poking fun at the evangelicals that are freaking out about me starting this podcast. But I'm trying to keep it light and I really have, you know, I'm trying to keep it positive because that's just, that's just more of the same oppression is to other each other and to be like that's us versus them. I feel like we've been tricked into that long enough and and I don't want to be a part of it and I can see that like um, yeah, that happening in a lot in some of the ex-evangelical community. It's like sometimes being the opposite of what you don't want isn't the answer either, but like finding a middle ground in there that works for you somehow, or not even a middle ground, but a different place that works for you in general, yeah, yeah, it's hard.

Speaker 2: 50:48

I do think there are phases that you have to go through, um, and I. I think anger is definitely there and and and I think you also need to speak up against it. And for me, now I'm more um, more likely to talk about the positive parts. So even I, I wrote a poetry trilogy and it starts with a book called Unbelieve, where I'm personally unbelieving all of these things. And then Jaded is the second one, and that is my reckoning with the white evangelical Christian indoctrination. So that's where I'm like get the bitterness out, get the anger out. I hate this, that, that. And then moving on to the third book that just came out, it's called Whole and it's about reclaiming the pieces of myself and creating something new. And it's not a happy ending because it's there's no ending, but it is really about I'm going to focus on what I love now, what is good about things celebrating, but it's it's both. And because I will still speak up against harm, I will still come on podcasts and talk about the things that happened in the past. It's not forgive and forget, it's what can we learn. And it's also helping other people who are still entrenched in that.

Speaker 2: 52:08

And I was just talking to a friend this morning where I said that my I don't think of my quote unquote mission field as evangelical Christians who are staunchly supporting Trump and and hate everything woke and all of that. I don't. I'm not really concerning myself with them, but who I am concerned with are the people kind of in the middle, who are starting to doubt, who are questioning. I have people from my old church, from when I grew up, randomly coming into my Instagram DMs someone I barely even know and saying my daughter just came out as gay. I want to love her, but what about my church?

Speaker 2: 52:46

I've seen some things you post. Can you help me? Like those kind of people? I want to be there for them, help them through. So, yes, we're not all going to agree on how do we deconstruct? How do we decolonize the whole white supremacy thing? Because I see, I do see that a lot where people are deconstructing without understanding how it's still oppressive to black people and other people of color. Um, yeah, so I I try to give grace to people and I hate the word grace because it's so christiany and I don't know what other words you use but I um all doing.

Speaker 2: 53:30

We're all on a journey, we're all trying our best and it's not so much I want to get along with everyone. I just want to give everyone an opportunity to try to fail to, to, to. But I'm also not going to extend olive branches to people who are actively harming other people. That's why I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to church. Would I ever go back to church? Possibly I don't. I don't want to because it's boring to me. Um, I was always bored at church for 40 some years. But, most importantly, I'm not. I don't see my calling and I use that's another'm going to stand with them because it feels too much like crossing a picket line or putting on the enemy uniform where I have to convince people oh, but I don't.

Speaker 2: 54:40

I'm not the bad kind of Christian. I'm not this, I'm not that I'm just going to take off Christian altogether and say I'm not a Christian. I am someone who loves you over here, and if these Christians try to harm you, I will stand in front of you. And if these are good Christians who are trying to help you, I will help them, help you, but there's not. I'm not going to, yeah to be. I'm not going to put myself back in that position where I'm defending God instead of defending humans, Like that's what the people who disowned me are doing and people have. I've heard people say like Joe Biden hurts God and I'm like how the hell is Joe Biden hurting God? How does anybody hurt God? You follow a God who cannot take care of himself, Right yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:34

Omnipotent, but also very fragile.

Speaker 2: 55:39

Super duper fragile, oh so fragile.

Speaker 1: 55:43

Yeah, no, it's great, because that's the thing. For me it's like, yes, I am here 100% for breaking down those beliefs and when someone says something hateful, for breaking that down and not accepting it. And this space is also for people. You know, I'm not trying to convert anybody, that's never. But people are looking for something to listen to, just other ideas, other. You know, no one message coming from here except that find your way back to yourself and you'll, you'll find your message. But one thing before, cause I do want to talk about your books.

Speaker 1: 56:16

Um, I know we've been going, I could talk to you forever, but, um, I you know, for me it's important not to use shame, because shame is, um, a result of trauma in our subconscious. Like, shame is trauma-inducing and I feel like that's what the church uses and it's that internalized shame that keeps us from looking at our own, like part in this, like the white supremacy and like you're saying, like reading all white, like really not lifting up any voices or even participating in any voices of people of color, really not lifting up any voices or even participating in any voices of people of color, like, if we go into a shame response of that, then it makes it a lot harder to look at than if you just like bring it into the light, like there isn't any shame. We're just going to shine some light on it so we can like really look at this, and that's like where I want to come at it from. Like, yeah, just even recently, like I've been kind of dealing with this, you know we're talking about Native Americans. I'm of Cherokee ancestry and just for their own for me to feel good about it, just in this conversation, I will point out to listeners that there were 60 million Native Americans killed in the Americas. There were 60 million people killed so that the missionaries could have this land that they considered theirs 60 million Back that long ago. That was a lot of people. There's still a lot of people, you know, always a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 57:37

Yeah, so there's shame in that, because I'm also of white ancestry. These parts of us that if we're ashamed to look at them, if we just feel like they're bad and wrong, then we'll never be able to like see them properly and to like evolve from it and to take the shame away from it and put it out there. I feel like that's what you're openly doing with your white girl learning with the way that you speak about things. It's just like I could be ashamed of this and hide about it, or I can just own it all. Own my place in it, own my ancestors' place and just own our place in it. And where can we move forward from here in a way that isn't harmful to other people?

Speaker 2: 58:22

Yeah, and for me, I have four books out in the world that I wrote as a conservative Christian, so there's no hiding what I used to believe. These books, purity culture, is just like it's seeped in purity culture I have. I am reading them right now, which is painful, but I have things where I'm telling wives that they shouldn't wear shirts that are too tight, like if the whole rubber band thing, like, if you like, does your shirt, if you press between your boobs, like there's your shirt, bounce back, that maybe your shirt's too tight complete bullshit. Like stuff that I was taught um, that we owe it to our husbands, like to protect them so they don't stumble, and blah, blah, blah, blah. I wrote that in a book, so it's like there it is. There is my ignorance, my indoctrination, all of that, and I share that openly, and that's that's what I encourage people to do and that's what you do. That's that's part of how shame gets dissolved or healed, is bringing it to light. That's that's what it is, and not that you have to say publicly every single thing you've ever done or thought or any of that. I'm just um, I, I, I love what you're saying and this is not about um white guilt or whatever this is.

Speaker 2: 59:49

Now that we know better, we do better, better we can admit to what that was, we can do better, we can move forward and we can make reparations, whatever that looks like, whether it's actively fighting for land back, like giving land back to native americans that was taken from them, or I do what's called micro reparations. I didn didn't make this up, but, um, helping black friends who are starting bookshops. I go find the books, people sponsor the book boxes. I give them to them, they sell them and make the money. So they're not like this is, quote unquote free money for them and it's a. It's a way that we can give back, that we can make things right going forward. We can't change anything that has already happened not things that happened last year, not things that happened years before we were born. But we can make things right, make things better now, and I just encourage people to look for ways to do that and think of it, frame it in that way.

Speaker 1: 1:00:48

Instead of I'm ashamed, I feel guilty, I have to pay a debt, no, just I'm going to make things right and make things better as I, as I move forward and from here on out, and you have like that's one thing I really love I talk a lot about is alchemy, like alchemizing our emotions, alchemizing our energy, like, however you look at it, and you've done that, you've like taken that shame and alchemized it into something wonderful, which is your poetry, and I would love to like talk a little bit about that. I know we've been going for a minute. If you don't mind, if we can talk some about your books, because I just feel like it's so approachable. It's actually just inspired me to start, you know, putting more words into poetry. Yeah, let's talk about it.

Speaker 2: 1:01:41

This is one of my favorite things to talk about and I love it when people tell me that I inspired them to write poetry, and I think the key there is that my poetry is accessible. It's not over anyone's head, it's pretty straightforward and on the one hand it might. You could also call it not really very smart poetry, like there's nothing really to unlock or to figure out or to decode, but it's in the way that it happens. I would have called this a God thing before. I don't know what I call it now, but I have a poem about not knowing what to say when I think of a God thing, but it just I was writing prose. I've been writing prose forever. I haven't written poems since first grade and somehow and I don't, I can't even actually explain it, besides it being kind of magical my deconstruction memoir that I've been trying to write for five or six years, I decided to break it up into little, bite-sized poems. Some of them are two or three short little lines, like haiku style. Some of them are a page, but I I told less of the story, like use less words to get more across, and then somehow it just spiraled into this really cool thing where that's what I do now, and then I started creating poem art where I would cut up um, I have some messed up versions of my book, what I self-published at the beginning, and so I started ripping out pages, cutting up the poems, putting them on illustrations like Frog and Toad, winnie the Pooh, strawberry, shortcake books that I buy at thrift stores for 50 cents books from my childhood and matching the poems to the illustrations and other people saying, oh, I can do that too. I self-published a book that's called Please Cut Up my Poems, where you can specifically just do that and do like this poem art therapy. None of this is something that people cannot do. You can take a Facebook post that you wrote and chop it up into little lines and there is your poem. You can print it out, cut it up, put it on an illustration and there is your poem art. Anyone can do this. And so I am just every day filled up like overflowing with excitement for this, like how simple it is, but how profound that people are sending me their poems. My next project is another cut up my poems book, but it's going to be specifically like therapy for people who've been through divorce and infidelity. So all the poems are about divorce and you can I got this idea the other day that I'm going to take some old wedding photos and put the poems on top of the wedding photos, maybe rip off the ex, maybe not, we'll see what I do with him but just different ways that you can easily positively heal from things. And that's what my poetry has been for me to heal through this deconstruction, what it's been for other people. And I feel like there's some momentum now with the third book that came out.

Speaker 2: 1:04:59

People are a little scared of the first one. It's called Unbelieve. It's got the word heretic in the subtitle, then jaded is like ooh, white evangelical Christian indoctrination. That's kind of scary right. And then Hole has got this like it's a rainbowy cover and it looks really pretty and it doesn't look scary at all. I just had a friend tell me her 72-year-old mom read Unbelieve, which I was very tickled by. Anytime my friend's 70-year-old moms read my books, I get excited. She read Unbelieve. Then she heard that Jaded was the bitchy little sister and she was scared to read it so she never read it.

Speaker 2: 1:05:33

Hole came out. He read Hole like a couple of weeks ago and then told her daughter my friend, I feel like I can read Jaded now, because Hole it turned out okay, it was not scary, and I can go back now and read the middle. Okay, it was not scary, and I can go back now and read the middle and people will tell me that they read it like as a daily devotional, which is funny because I read daily devotionals for years. And now I'm realizing, as I read more and more and more books, I used to think the Bible was this magical book that every time you read it you got something new out of it. Well, I have books now on my shelf by Black women that I'll read three and four times and I also get something new out of it every time. Because why? I'm a different person when I read it. So people are telling me about that, about my poems. For my launch team for Hole, we did this. I don't know if you're familiar with the book Sibling, no, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Speaker 1: 1:06:32

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:06:33

And so we did Siblinghood of the Traveling Poems and I sent a book to the first person on the list and they they put art and illustrations and commentary on like 10 to 20 of the poems and then they send it on to the next person and that person does it, and then the next person, and then when it gets back to me, hopefully it's going to be just filled with everybody's what they want to say, what they wanted art and yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:01

so just all of these things that have come about, that have created community. I had a woman say that her daughter was so artistic and she has, no, doesn't have an artistic bone in her body, but she started doing poem art. She's like finally there's art that I can do, like I feel like I'm making art. One of my friends is writing a musical about one of my books. That's amazing.

Speaker 2: 1:07:25

Being able to inspire and encourage people is something I have always wanted to do, but it used to be. Let me inspire and encourage you to be the best wife that you can possibly be, be the unselfish wife that your husband deserves, and things like that. So I've channeled that energy and love into what I feel is a much healthier and more positive direction. But I tie in all of those things that I care about, which is the white, like fighting white supremacy, anti-racism, writing poems to my queer siblings, and we just opened just on Sunday, a couple of days ago a new queer bookstore in my city, the very first one ever, and I got to be part of that. And it's just, there's so much love that I have in my heart that I want to spread around, and I get to do it with words, whereas before I would volunteer in the church, nursery and different things that I absolutely hated. And now to be able to do this, like help friends who are starting bookstores and and who have written books and do micro reparations and all of this and it's stuff I love is wild to me, and so I just want other people to know that too, that you can give back in a way that also fills you up and that's actually the best way to give back, because it's sustainable and it's joyful. And if you believe in God, then that's what I believe God created us to do is to be who we are and to give out of that.

Speaker 2: 1:09:11

And so many of my friends were told you can't be who you are Like. You have to assimilate. You can't bring your blackness into this white church. You can't bring your queerness into this church. You can't be a Muslim and come to our church Like all of these things that you cannot be um to fit into this box. That's yeah, that's gone. Now, like we're ripping apart these boxes and making poet art out of them. I love it. That's alchemy, right.

Speaker 1: 1:09:43

Difficult and turning it into something beautiful. You know, it's um, it's really great. I'm going to take a pause because my brain kind of stopped. There was something I wanted to point out. All the conversations, I just forget to um gather what I was gonna say. I'm just completely lost.

Speaker 2: 1:10:06

I was too busy listening and enjoying what you were saying that happens to me far too often, and usually I will take some kind of notes to try to do it.

Speaker 1: 1:10:14

But yeah, it's still, yeah, but it's funny because you were talking about like, just, you're sharing all this love and and joy and spreading all this joy, and that's like what we were taught, that we were doing when we were really spreading like yes, and not not love and joy. But it's interesting how, when you really find your own authenticity, you get back to that self and the natural byproduct is those things that Jesus encouraged us to do, right, I think that's pretty so. You're talking about your poem about God and that's pretty so. You were talking about your poem about God. I think that's really interesting because I have a here. You know I bounce back and forth between words because for me it's all just like fluid anyway, but you know, god is recognizable by people but also offensive to some people and you know, sometimes I'll say source or love, or creator, or just source energy, you know, whatever, whatever feels appropriate in that moment. So do you happen to have that poem available? I would love to hear it.

Speaker 2: 1:11:16

Oh, um, the one about oh, let's see, I don't know where any of my poems are this is a running joke with me where I well the one it's a God thing. But that's not about my name, for God, let me. I do have one. I actually just made some poem art one second, if I can find that, okay, this one is called God or Whatever. Okay, this one is called God or whatever. I have friends who talk about God being there for them, lifting them up, keeping them going, and something is doing that for me too. I just call it by other names, like hope and love, and sometimes the universe and some really beautiful friends. Universe and some really beautiful friends. So I don't have a thing. Another one this is called Pure, unadulterated Love. Chatting with friends who are done with Christianity, chatting with theologians whose God I could get behind, chatting with friends who have never believed in God. It's wild how unconditionally I can truly love people now that I have no designs on their eternal souls.

Speaker 1: 1:12:50

That's so good, I just chills all over.

Speaker 2: 1:12:53

I will say when I'm desperate, like happened in our family recently, that I won't go into, but where I am just like I need some wisdom, I need some help and I'm like mama, god, please, like I'll just say that I don't know what I believe. It's just a little bit of it is habit, but another part is a person who can figure things out. This one is beyond me. I need something beyond me, like somewhere. And, generally speaking, like I have a friend who's a pastor and he his idea of god. He said I don't even see god as happening, apart from people showing up for each other. So it's like god is not separate god, because I big problem with people giving god all the credit for something that a surgeon did or that someone else did and you're like hold up, um, giving God credit for the team winning. Can you hear me?

Speaker 1: 1:14:00

Yeah, cut out for a second there, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:14:01

Okay, Even a coach giving God credit for their football team winning and you're like maybe it was the quarterback.

Speaker 1: 1:14:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:14:10

But I, I just um. There are times when I'm like mama, god, help me, because I, I cannot figure this out. But that's the closest I have gotten lately to calling on God.

Speaker 1: 1:14:24

Yeah, I've had loved ones that have said that, like you know, I'm, like you know you're doing amazing, you're such, you know you're really just showing up in such a beautiful way and I like to tell people they're a good person, I think we're all good inside, but just like you know, you're really showing up in a beautiful way and all of this, and it's always oh, it's not me, it's God, and I'm like actually no, because we all have God and not everybody makes those choices. So no, it's you. Give yourself a little credit. Even the Bible will say that Give credit where credit's due, right, like give yourself some credit for the good that you're doing in the world, because you deserve that. Like that's part of what keeps us going.

Speaker 2: 1:15:01

And I'm tired of God getting all the credit and none of the blame. That's what I talk about a lot. I have a friend I wrote I hope she doesn't read this poem she does. Oh well, I don't mention her name, but she had like these digestive issues for 10 years and then she finally found this diet that is finally taking away the pain and she gets on Facebook. It's like all praise and glory to God. All praise and glory to God.

Speaker 2: 1:15:23

I'm like so God held out on you for like a whole ass decade and now God gets the credit for this. That, to me, is so gross. I hate that kind of stuff these days because God did not get blamed for those whole 10 years when God did not tell you what the problem was. And I'm sure that this thing that you discovered was either you doing research for 10 years or someone else that did research or some other kind of thing Same with a hurricane like praying that God moves the hurricane out of the path of your home. Well then it moves it into the path of somebody else's. Like that's there's.

Speaker 1: 1:16:10

No, yeah, I could. Yeah, no, it's true, it's true and I remember. What I wanted to say before was you say that they're not smart poems, but I would like to offer that maybe it's the smartest way to go about it, considering that the people who are reading them have spent their whole life deciphering like convoluted words, you know, trying to like interpret something that's just written in Shakespeare times and that contradicts itself and over. But you've made it very simple and clear and, from my perspective, that's the smartest thing you could do for people who need a break from that.

Speaker 2: 1:16:42

Yeah, and I will also say that some of my poems are very, um, very conventionally smart as well, like they are. I put a twist at the end, or I do this, or I use these words in a certain way that I will take full credit for getting better and better at writing really smart poems. What I meant by that was there are some that are literally just a Facebook post or something, that I rearrange the words and here they are. Like I have people coming to me now and sending me all these poems. They're like I didn't know I could write poems and I'm telling them it's because your definition of a poem is too strict. It's too in a box. A poem can be whatever you want it to be. If you can write at all, you can write a poem. So they are accessible. You will have to work on it if you want to make some of them as good as mine, right, but they are Put them into books.

Speaker 1: 1:17:42

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 2: 1:17:46

But yeah, anyone, anyone can do this and yeah, it's just really liberating and healing and fun and all of that For everybody listening.

Speaker 1: 1:17:57

I'm going to have all of your books and everything linked in the description so you can find Marla very easily there, and her both of her Instagram pages to find her on. And I want to ask you for two things before we go. So much value, I'm sorry, I'm not sorry, sorry, not sorry. I'm going to take as much of it as I can For one for people who are deconstructing, for people who are questioning or just trying to start over, what piece of advice would you give?

Speaker 2: 1:18:30

Um, I, I will say that, being on the other side of it and not that I'm not that there's like a wall and you're totally on the other side, but that it is scary um, it is hard, but you can get through it and there is something really, really beautiful on the other side. I have a poem, um, a couple poems, but about my ex and evangelical Christianity and how people said to me, even right when he left you're going to be so much better off without him, it's going to be so great. I hear you. I hear that, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:19:10

But it was also hell to get through that for a few years until I got to where I am now and same with leaving Christianity. I now it is this most beautiful place. I could never, ever, ever, ever go back to what it was like, even if there was comfort and all of that. Never go back. But that journey to get here was hell. And so for me to say to people hey, look what's over here. I am saying that because here I am and look what's over here, and I'm on the other side of a lot of things divorce, infidelity, a lot of different things that I have made it to the other side of. But I will never tell someone that it is easy or painless or no problem or you don't need any kind of therapy or you're fine Never. So I think that is actually being realistic about.

Speaker 2: 1:20:13

That is also. Encouraging because you can do it. You can do it. It will be hard. Encouraging because you can do it, you can do it. It will be hard, you can do it and it's worth it. And once you start to wake up to things, you can't really go back anyway because you know better and you won't be able to live with yourself and that's going to suck. So you really don't have any choice. It's kind of like when you're getting ready to have a baby, the baby starts coming out. You can't put it back. Like it's coming out.

Speaker 2: 1:20:43

Yeah, that's a really, it really is like that it's going to hurt, but when it comes out it's going to be, it's going to be okay Like you are going to be able to do it. So that's the encouragement that I would give like both things are hard.

Speaker 1: 1:21:04

Coming out of it's hard, but staying in it is harder. Like which hard you're? You're going to do a lifetime of hard or some a short period of hard, and it's it's a different kind of hard too.

Speaker 2: 1:21:15

It becomes a hard that you can't morally reconcile um and so you, you can't do that. You got to choose the hard that you can't morally reconcile um and so you, you can't do that. You got to choose the hard that you can live with um, and it's like leaving an abusive relationship or if your kids are being abused or something um getting out of. It's going to be hard, but watching your kids be abused or you're you being abused is a different kind of hard and that's not a tenable kind of hard. Like you've got to choose the other hard, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:21:46

And looking away is only just taking us further and further from our soul, from our truest self. Okay, so to leave us. Would you please read us your poem, which one ever you feel best about like leaving us with today? Would you read us another poem?

Speaker 2: 1:22:02

which one ever you feel?

Speaker 1: 1:22:03

best about like leaving us with today, would you read us another poem? Oh gosh, um. But I can imagine it would be hard to pick a favorite when you know there's no favorite.

Speaker 2: 1:22:08

I am actually going to go to the first book and do one kind of toward the end. So unbelieve is the first one, um, and it's called when have I Landed, because I get this question a lot, like people want to know where I've landed, where have I landed, where have I landed? That's the thing I can fly now, and damn, what a glorious view you can see so much from up here. Wow and dang. There are other birds too. I might descend a light from time to time, but why would I land in any one place for very long at all when I have wings? I've always, always, had wings and so, yeah, I won't say anything about it. I'll just leave it with that.

Speaker 1: 1:22:53

Beautiful. I got chills. I love it. Thank you for your time. Thanks for doing this a second time. I think it's even better this time. I don't remember. Thank you for your time. Thanks for doing this a second time. I think it's even better this time. I remember bits, but I'm just going to know that this was the way it was meant to be, perfect. Thank you again.

Speaker 2: 1:23:10

Thank you so much, all right.

Speaker 1: 1:23:12

Enjoy the rest of your day, marla.

Speaker 2: 1:23:13

You too Bye-bye.