#Which is mostly us-Willows fault that you're not but hey

[cambriancrew]

We've been pretty meh about our spirituality for most of the time since our divorce. But lately, that's been changing. We've been participating more in communities like /r/OpenChristian, which is an explicitly welcoming to queer people community. We've been looking at Scripture again, using the YouVersion app to compare translations of our favorite passages. We've been listening to (carefully curated) Christian music. (Absolutely hate a lot of it, especially Skillet's "I hate myself I'm a terrible person" vibe, and a lot of the "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs, "I will die for you" persecution complex songs, and the very boring clearly designed just to be easy to play and sing in church music.) We've been looking at churches to attend when we get a car again. There's an Episcopalian church not too far that looks like it has a good sized congregation, not too small and not too big. And there's a Unitarian Universalist fellowship we found that we really want to go to.

But mostly it's just been like... This is something we need. Not just for the inbuilt community and support. But also because, at least for us-Willows and Varyn and Jas, this is something strengthening for us. It's a crucial part of our identities, and a crucial part of how we view the world.

We're never going back to being a Bible-thumping, apologetics-focused, "we're right y'all are wrong" kind of Christian that we were growing up and for a lot of the time when we were married. That was a toxic mindset. Our faith is important because it's part of the reason we're so full of love for people. And THAT'S the mindset we want to curate for ourselves. Not just in matters of faith, but in ALL matters. This ESPECIALLY includes discourse.

On our Uber ride to work today, the driver was playing a show where a Christian was debating a Muslim about who Jesus is. And it was so painful to listen to, knowing that not that long ago we would have been cheering on the Christian for "winning" the debate. Except he was clearly just better skilled at debate, not in actually caring about the other man.

We don't want to be like that.

It's not going to be easy, but we are going to do our best to try.