Splintered Grace 💠

Sexuality & Spirituality

March 15, 2021 Bonnie Violet & Tina Frank Season 2 Episode 7
Splintered Grace 💠
Sexuality & Spirituality
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Show Notes Transcript

*my apologies for some sound challenges, my internet was messing with me a bit. *
Do these two topics go together?  Join the conversation as Bonnie Violet and Tina talk about how their Sexuality and Spirituality impact their individual lives and their relationship to one another. 

a queer chaplain 
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.

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0:02
[Music]
0:14
is [Music]
0:35
hey everybody can you believe it's monday again hi i'm tina frank and welcome to
0:40
splendor grace i'm a mature christian woman and i'm here to have an amazing conversation with my co-host
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hi everyone welcome bonnie violet here i'm a transgender queer drag queen and an aspiring roller skater oh i
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forgot to add my title i was threatened about that before we started and i forgot oh well you can you can add
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it now i didn't know what i was going to say anyways right good morning charlie glad you
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could join us again this week yay all right
1:14
so how was your weekend oh you know what i had a good weekend i
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had lots of um busy things to do we're working on our project still in san tan
1:25
so that's the bulk of my weekend i also got to uh play some games with some friends of
1:30
ours too they've got this new game i'll tell you about it real quick it's called fast track i've never played it before
1:36
it's like sorry meets um cards and it's something and you play in
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partners instead of individuals so fun we had a great time like like uno or like uh deca cards
1:51
like a deca card so you've got like this big sorry board and it's got like eight colors on it so you can actually have
1:57
four teams and you partner up with someone and the goal of course like sorry is to get everybody around
2:02
and into their safe space but you have to do it with these cards a deck of cards and the deck of cards
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have all different types of um scenarios in addition to the numbers
2:14
so it's just it's it's kind of fun we laughed and laughed and laughed but it was a lot of fun i'll have to check it out it's called
2:20
fast track fast track yeah it's pretty cool i'm gonna have to see if i can get one for us because then i
2:25
just really loved it so it looks like looks like your place is getting together
2:30
the one you're getting ready to sell yes yes it looks nice we were had to put salt in and um we took it on
2:37
ourselves and oh my goodness my body still aches oh wow but it was is so worth it
2:44
it's so worth it the to be able to sell it and hope to a family that we know is going to love it it's just going to be amazing
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we're excited about it and we also got to i got to be a church in our new building yesterday
2:57
so it was amazing we're going we're still working out a few bugs um but it'll be it's awesome
3:05
it's very exciting is it your own space because i know you guys left a school do you now have your own building are you
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sharing it no we unfortunate well i shouldn't stand firstly we are blessed to move into another school
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it's a larger space we have not yet found a place to actually build yet so that'll be in the in the future we
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hope yeah it's some school that we hire him is really awesome
3:29
nice um it seems like a lot of at least a lot of them churches that i'm aware of too well
3:35
especially with covid but during shelter and place a lot of places actually just stopped having a
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physical location but a lot of like um with the churches that i was involved with chicago
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we did like things where they just rented a space in like a um a place for seniors
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to live you know like we would do church in the auditorium once once you know on sunday
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and then um uh so they just kind of like rent space for the actual service rather
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than just having a space the whole time you know like
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because it can be a lot of well one it's a lot of money and two you then unless you're really using the space
4:16
well i think a lot of times the space just stays um open yeah you're right and that
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that's kind of why we're in a school um because we can just rent it by the hour for the
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time that we need for us to get together at church so the new space um gives us more space for more people
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in which is always nice and as we grow we want to have all those people be able to come in we also got a couple
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classrooms so that we can do some things for our kids which is nice in that in that space and
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they're also giving us opportunities during the week if we choose to rent the space and the other place
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did not give us that opportunity anyway it's a move forward i'm excited about it it's very exciting for us as a
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especially since we're such a little church um to be able to grow in that capacity during such a crazy time
5:03
yeah well congratulations thank you so it was a great weekend how about you how was your weekend um my
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weekend was good you know i just it was pretty busy just um i'm still you know practicing
5:16
with the girl group we're getting ready to hopefully film and make our music video in the next two or three weeks right
5:24
oh yeah yeah once it's once it's all done um and uh yeah and then i started my
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lacing uh lacing your narrative um with the spiritual thread workshop series and so
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that's been a cool exploration um this weekend that's amazing yeah yeah
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and i think some of uh some of the processes looking looking at my childhood and looking at my time growing up i guess in
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church in high school because that's where we're focusing on this week is you know what we're what did we learn about religion or
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spirituality as a child and so kind of in reflecting back at that i think for me
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um it's like where does my sexuality or you know the way that i exist now how
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did that fit into my childhood and it and if it didn't
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maybe why didn't or what parts are just really kind of exploring that a little bit because i know at that time in my life i
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couldn't even imagine um being the person that i am today you know
6:27
isn't it funny so that shifts as we grow up definitely yeah and so that's what kind
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of led me to us thinking about talking about sexuality today awesome so we have um
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opted to take on the or have an opportunity to talk about um sexuality
6:48
and spirituality and i think that these two things are probably things that often i don't think people think they
6:56
can exist together or that there could be some clashing so i think it's a really great opportunity for us
7:02
to kind of talk about it yeah i think it's always good to talk about things especially if there's things that we
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don't quite understand for sure um so i was gonna um put a
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that sounds good
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sexuality is a tough topic
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and as we are working here to look through some technical difficulties bear with us you guys
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so what we were able to find was an opportunity for us to
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expand this definition now we found that both of us have a i don't know kind of a narrow
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interpretation or definition of sexuality so what we did was we went through webster's because we figured that's a safe spot
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and we picked out um or we looked at all of those definitions and we made them available we're going to put them up a
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little bit at a time so that we can share those sorry
8:32
sorry disappeared for a second it's all good you know so you can't you can't you're
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gonna do all those technical things all the time yes uh so yeah just so folks know i'm
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having a hard time with my internet connection today for whatever reason so um all right so uh sexuality is about
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our sexual feelings thoughts attraction and behaviors toward people this is not just
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it's not just about sex baby i guess
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but you can find other you can find other people physically sexually or emotionally attractive
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and all those things are part of your sexuality and sexuality is diverse and personal
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and it is an important part of who you are yeah awesome all right so that's the
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definition that um when we looked it up that's what we came up with and so that's what we want to talk about today and how that
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relates to each one of us uh based on who we are as as
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family members or people just doing life together and we thought it'd be awesome to have a conversation with you guys as
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well definitely and i think landa has a great way for us maybe to start off the conversation
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uh landa lake says i've always felt that people often want to think of spiritual people
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as devoid of sexuality um it seems like people are struggling
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with hearing yeah looks like we got two here that says they can't hear
10:03
my audio sounds okay are you i can hear you just fine
10:09
yeah my mic is on well that's interesting landon spiritual
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people devoid of sexuality that's not something i had ever experienced especially as a spiritual
10:23
person um sexuality is like we talked about for it's an attraction
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it's a drawing to other people and that it doesn't always have to be sexual but
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it comes along with it especially when you find someone that you decided to do like with or to
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be in relationship with in that capacity so that's interesting
10:45
it's just me that they can't hear ah okay
10:50
so let me i'll try to switch again i don't know what to do so please bear with this you guys
10:56
uh bonnie's trying to get her um sound worked out so we're going to
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do another switch up here so you may have just me for a moment so i hope you don't mind i'll do my best to
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answer questions that you guys may have or i don't know talk about um yeah i think
11:16
it's working now okay landa says she can hear us thank you guys for helping us out on that because we don't sound fine to one another we
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wouldn't have been on a silent movie
11:29
okay so let's get back to the conversation now that we've been derailed a minute yeah um yeah that spiritual people are
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devoid of sexuality which i think is thinking about the sexual behavior as well probably more
11:42
than anything yeah um
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yes yeah i mean i feel like it's yeah for yes i would say i felt i've
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spent most of my life feeling like those had to be two separate things i think partially i think especially like
12:00
as a queer person um you know as somebody who identified as being gay
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at one point in time like i never was you know i was only kind of taught that sex was for marriage
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um and if i wasn't able to be married because i was gay you
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know in my understanding at that time gay people couldn't get married and so there was kind of this idea of
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where does my sexuality where do i exist in that you know and if i might be
12:29
like wrong you know what's my sexual i guess i don't know if the word is like
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parameters if i will as a queer person if you know heteros heterosexual people have a certain
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way to to be in god's favor um then where does a person like myself
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fit into that so when do you think you had started having those questions
12:56
it's weird because i don't you know i wasn't a super like sexual um young person so i think
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um i was not like um yeah i just wasn't i wasn't sexually
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active as a young person i wasn't super sexual i think um church
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and i don't know if church was a way for me to kind of like um avoid that a little bit you know i
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was i was kind of thinking about this that this morning as part of my reflection was
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like um what did church provide for me but i think because i was um
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in church and there was this idea of not being sexually active i'm not having sexuality if you will or
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not supposed to be like acting out on it that in some ways i think that kept me from
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seeing who i was um sooner do you know what i mean like i
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don't think i was able to explore or start to see my sexuality
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or my understanding of myself in the world around me so do you think that interaction with
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the church dictated your limited your attraction i don't
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i don't know if it was about the church itself or it was also just like me as a younger
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person that i just wasn't super drawn to that but i think it probably
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had a little bit to do with the idea that i probably just wasn't sexually stimulated if you will like there wasn't
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like i was in an environment to really kind of show me how i felt and that's not to say like when i
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was 16 years old i had my first sexual experience um with
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with a man and so like and that for me was a really surprising thing because i'd
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never thought about sex before or anything like that and it just kind of was one of those things
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that it just kind of happened and it felt so natural and it felt so normal and
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um like it just felt like it took over me if you will and i and i want to see that just in the
15:03
sense of like i felt like i knew what to do i knew how to act i knew how to carry myself
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like it would there was this interesting way of like being with myself but also being pulled
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by something um and because i didn't have the language for you know after the fact because of
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everything that i've been told i thought you know i i struggled sometimes thinking that somehow i was possessed by
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something that was causing me to do something different than what i thought was okay
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rather than just me having these natural instincts or this attraction that was
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just a part of me and me being able to like really connect with that so i think there was a really
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um because of what i was told or not told um i kind of was scared
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and stuck and i didn't know what i didn't know what to do with that and i remember telling people that i had
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had sex with a woman not everyone but there was like you know my cool my cool cousin um you know i told him
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that it was with a with a woman um it um because i don't know because i
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thought that i don't know made me a little cool i guess i don't know
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there's a little piercer in there uh yeah maybe a little bit um how about you what to what was your
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understanding of sexuality and spirituality like as a younger person like you know
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um i'm they're definitely connected at a certain level but i never
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i always thought attraction or sexuality i thought i needed to wait until i got
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married although there were certain certain things that you could do
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versus things that you shouldn't do when you and i don't know that i got that so much from church as i got that from my mom and my dad um
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and they probably got it from their mom and dad and all those things that's just how
17:03
culture was then so i don't know i just was always raised that um you wanted to not be the
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the person who who had sex with a lot of people um during high school he didn't want to
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have that he didn't you know we always were in fear of getting becoming pregnant so that was something that we
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didn't want to have to go through so when i started engaging in church i didn't engage in church until i was in high school
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and i was trying to discover myself and figure out where i mixed you know i don't know for
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for everybody but for me in high school i was really having a hard time trying to identify who i was
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um looking at you know being such a small town my graduating class was 35 people everybody knew everybody's
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business and so either you were in the group or you weren't in the group and if you weren't in the group
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then everyone treated you horribly so half of my time was all about what do i need to do to be in the group
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so it was it was a challenge you probably went through some similar things because i don't know the school was much bigger when you graduated
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so for me that was a bigger challenge for me than my spirituality once i gave my life
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to jesus then for me it made it so much easier so much easier
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and um you know i didn't i didn't really wasn't attracted to a lot of people because i didn't like anybody because it
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means me a lot so yeah i i so my graduating class or like my
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class was about double your size i think we were about 70 by the time that um we were
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done so similar but a little bit different and you know i the thing though i do think that my parents or my family
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probably informed more of my sexuality um than church um as far as like overtly
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like i feel like my parents you know tna um kind of uh
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things in film um were like something that we were exposed to you know i don't know at a fairly young
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age you know like it was like i didn't feel like my parents were trying to hide sex from us that sex was
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just like a natural part of like living you know i mean i saw
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you know i saw like you know um like i saw family members making out or you could
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tell that people were in love or whatever but like so it wasn't necessarily something that was hidden the only thing was said was
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don't get a girl pregnant um like that was a big message i think from
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my father like wear a condom don't get a girl pregnant um and i think that the way that church
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told me um was because in church they never talked about people
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like me so the only narratives and the only people that were in the bible
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or were in that way of life were only you know white mostly white will stay
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white because i feel like that was my perception at that time of like white heterosexual people
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um that there weren't gays there weren't trans folks there weren't um i don't even think like i guess there
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probably was racial diversity but that time i never really saw it or heard it or it went again it
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wasn't really talked about um and so i think that's how
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church told me is because it said i don't have there's not a place for you
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here unless you look and act in this particular way um i think
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that's how it told me that i wasn't worthy or deserving or didn't exist in a
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like i don't know christian world
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i get that you know there's a lot of old i don't know how to say it legalism
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in all of us and and it doesn't exclude the church you know some of that is from things that we've experienced
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uh things that we've been taught uh things that we've been exposed to but it's really hard to to i don't know
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i guess understand because i have so many people struggle with it that the when jesus came on the scene
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all that she's changed the legalism um is still valuable it's still
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worth but jesus fulfilled the scriptures so therefore all those things that we
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were taught to um stay away from or to be so rigid about that's all covered under mercy under
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mercy and love now that's not to say that we got a free pass to run around and do whatever the heck we want right you know if i was to
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go out and have an affair on my husband it would still be adultery it would still be seen and i'd still
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have to repent i'd still have to walk through the consequences of that decision with my husband and my family so none of that's changed
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the amazing thing is that there's always love there god is always willing to say you know what
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i forgive you um this sin isn't going to keep you from me it's not going to keep you from eternity
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um i i remember someone saying before i was listening to some teaching because
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i don't know about you but i grew up and not because anyone put it on me but i took it on myself and i'm
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finding out more and more that some of these things i took on myself you know we take on shame that doesn't
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belong to us and it's sometime it's shame based on the legalism time sometimes it's shame based on our
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culture but when we give that all up to god there's no shame and someone said once
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in a while once before when i was listening and they said you know what there's not anything that you can do
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that's going to shock god because he he knew everything that you had the potential to do right or wrong
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the moment he created you and i found great comfort in that so no matter what people say i'm
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supposed to be like no matter how they think i'm supposed to act no matter how i feel about what i'm
23:05
how i'm acting god can cover it and he wants to he wants us to live the
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life that he destined us to have now we're all going to have different types of
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attractions different types of things that are going to take away from our purpose and that plan that god has
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for us but god has always provided a way out for us we just have to be pliable
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and i think that we're all on this journey and we all have a unique opportunity to be pliable in
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god's hands so that he can fulfill his glory in our lives because that's the end of the day what we're created for so
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for me my sexuality uh falls under what i guess the culture
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would say is norm or used to say i think our culture is very different now than what it used to be
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um but seeing is is adultery for me is the same as it
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would be for you right yeah
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so i i tired of people putting um emphasis on things that don't need to be
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emphasized right well and i think part of it i think sometimes though with that sort of like
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thinking i think there's a lot of us that then have different sexual experiences before we
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come to that acceptance or maybe understanding of some of those like of where i'm at now
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is different than the way that i saw things before and when you were mentioning when you were mentioning shame to me i
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feel like that's what a big part of the function of spirituality
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of god is the removal of that shame because i believe shame is what the
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world puts on us it's what you know like if i were to have just been with i guess
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spirit creator god and just with god i would have known all
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along that i was fine like it was the it was the world and the environment around me that was
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telling me something different and so once i was able to connect with
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spirit spirituality again god again i could then um see that i could exist
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as i was and yet there might also still be some things i may want to change
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you know like for instance like the i always say like the close the more i see god and
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the the deeper relationship i have with god the more queer i become the more trans i become because
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i believe that i'm becoming closer to how god is continuing to create me and i
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think prior to a relationship with with god i wasn't able to do that like when i
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wasn't as connected i wasn't able to really let myself out because i was scared of the world
25:58
i wasn't scared of god it was easier to say i was scared of god but i was really
26:03
scared of the world i wasn't scared of the the my understanding of spirituality even it
26:10
was again the world that i'm scared of and it's still the world that i'm scared of today you know i feel really good with my
26:16
connection with my understanding of god and spirituality and creation um as as who i am so i don't know where
26:24
i was going with that how's that has that fear changed you said you've kind of
26:29
gone through different phases has that fear changed that you said you had the fear of the world around you but has there been a shift in that with
26:37
the help of god um i have less fear
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okay yeah so exactly i mean i feel like there's but
26:49
there's also a reality of safety you know sometimes there's physical fear that i still have but as far as like
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me as a person and my value and my worth you know the world don't get to tell me
27:02
that anymore that's exactly right that's exactly right right
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however i feel like the hard parts are still how the world decides to uh
27:15
accept not accept like what the world does to me is something i can't i don't have as much power over
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um and you know for me that's what spirituality functions for is it kind of
27:28
helps me be who i am more fully regardless of what the world is telling me
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i'm just listening that's interesting um see to me spirituality is um maybe it's
27:43
something a little different i i believe that in the spirit but i believe that
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i have a relationship with god and i don't want it to just be a spiritual emotional thing
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i want it to be a lifestyle i want it to be who i am um is to
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to that relationship with god and so for me that means that i'm willing
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to be pliable in god's hands not my hands not the culture's hands and that i'm
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gonna set a state set the groundwork through understanding more about who god is
28:19
so that he can manifest his life through me so for me spirituality is different it
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takes on more of an emotional side i i hear people all the time that
28:30
say they're spiritual and i don't understand what that means all the time because i think it's attached to
28:36
an emotional thing that they're going through in the moment now i have those i i like when i'm at
28:41
church and i'm in and praising god and do it i have an emotional response and that's to me spiritual but
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at the end of the day my life with god is relational and the spiritual is only a piece of that
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and the spiritual does not dictate um who i am how i am how i respond none of that
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the relational part does and so that's why i'm just asking the the differences that you've had in
29:09
that what does that look like and how does that affect your sexuality and how does it affect my sexuality i think at the end of the day i would
29:15
i'll let you talk for a second since i've talked for about 30 seconds oh no no no it was just
29:20
feeling like in in that in in your response to that i think biology might be more about the connection with spirit
29:27
the connection with our soul connection with the emotional if you will if you
29:32
want to label it aspect of the world that folks like me weren't allowed to have
29:39
so all we were stuck with was being in our bodies and being in our minds in our head once
29:45
we can then integrate spirit and spirituality into our life and connect with that then that affects our head
29:51
and it affects our body that doesn't mean that it causes our body not to be attracted to people of the same gender
29:57
anymore right what it might allow us and cause us to think more
30:03
through how our behaviors how our actions how our words are impacting the people around us maybe
30:10
a little bit more and a little bit more like truly like how we're really impacting
30:18
the people around us rather than this inability to really perceive that those parts of us because we weren't connected
30:24
with our spirit our emotional aspects and i don't i'm not speaking for every like queer person
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or you know anything that i feel like for me that's kind of a way of expressing what had
30:35
changed for me is that i felt like the detach away from this god that i knew i knew my i knew god was
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good with all of this right um but i didn't know how to be okay with all of
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this you know and and and because i was able to begin to reach and seek and connect with god now
30:57
i can begin to see myself the way that god sees me and when i can do that that does cause
31:04
me to just animate myself a little differently
31:09
in the world and that doesn't mean so and my sexual behavior
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and my sexuality can become something that gets in the way of my connection with my spirit
31:22
and my connection to god um but that doesn't equate to the gender of the person i'm having sex
31:28
with sometimes it has to do with the amount of sex or who i'm choosing to have sex or why
31:34
i'm having the sex those are the things that i get to explore and understand is this serving me or how
31:41
is this serving me and then would i get what are the effects or what are the
31:46
response like what do i want out of life what do i want to experience out of um being here and will these
31:54
things get me to that end are those things getting in the way
32:00
of that end which i believe god wants for me then um those are the
32:05
things that i just have to be honest and real with myself of are there some things that i can let go of
32:11
that are actually getting in the way of my ability to live more fully and experience more love
32:18
and all of that landa has a comment um sometimes when we are
32:30
i think sometimes when we are insulated into that relationship with the creator i believe for the queer community there
32:37
is a confusion of love and shame inculcated
32:42
i wonder if it is inculcated and i just don't know what that word means sometimes i'm sorry that we don't
32:49
understand that word i think or even i mean i get what's being said though that
32:54
sometimes when we just are in relationship with the creator i believe for the queer community there is a confusion of love and shame
33:03
that's that's unfortunate because there's a big difference between love and shame now we got to remember that um love isn't
33:10
always comfortable and it's not always easy we talked about that before um it's not
33:15
it's sometimes hard it challenges us to step out of something that we knew maybe
33:21
challenges us to do something greater and to trust that in that love and that step that we
33:26
must take that there's going to be something better than we can imagine on the other side
33:31
and landa clarifies that it means to be infused often by your parents
33:39
okay thank you for clarifying that for us
33:44
yeah well i but i think but i think that's i think that kind of brings up this idea to me that
33:49
like when we refer to god creator the divine in i think human
33:56
understandings it's always going to like fall short at some point you know like
34:02
i think sometimes when we refer to like even love like god's love is not like love that we
34:09
can explain and i don't know that god's love has to hurt i think it hurts because
34:17
of us like it's i don't think it's supposed to hurt like it god's do you know what i mean
34:24
like i feel like our relationship with it is because of us not because of the divine i
34:31
i think you're right i think we're trying to say the same thing um but i think that god is always
34:37
calling us to a better us and so he's not going to push us he's
34:43
not going to make us he's not going to demand that we do it he's going to allow us but in that process he's going to
34:48
allow us to walk through some of the negative things that we're going to choose because we don't choose
34:54
the path that he has for us and therefore he's going to love us although we're going to walk through some circumstances that may not feel
34:59
good yeah which is so interesting because i feel like so much of our like because
35:05
neither one of us did it all right and we're still and we're still not doing it all right
35:11
so to speak right and my inability if you will to
35:17
not do it all well um has created a lot of good
35:23
in me and a lot of um skill and ability to love better to care
35:30
deeper than before i don't think i necessarily had to go
35:36
through those things like i don't think that god gives us those things so that we can learn those
35:41
sorts of things i just think that sometimes that's what it that's what it took for me i guess
35:47
to um to come to know that yeah i i agree god allows us to make our
35:55
own decisions and to walk through the consequences of the decisions that we make and he's always right with us to pick up
36:03
any pieces that may be left behind or that need to be picked up so that we don't feel stuck in shame or any of those other
36:10
things that go along with it i always like to remind myself that um i'm only
36:15
in this world i'm not of this world the bible says that i'm created for his
36:22
purpose to be a part of this world but i'm not this is my destination and so i don't want to get caught up on
36:28
the things that this world has to offer and i wouldn't want to miss out on all that god has for me
36:34
and i believe that i have a purpose here god would have sent me here and so all these things that we talk
36:40
about all these things that trip us up inside the church and outside the church they're all things
36:45
that are trying to steal away from us all the purpose that god has put in our life and
36:51
i'm so amazed that um even in the middle of crazy and even my bad decisions and the
36:56
the things that i even said that were because of god that were not because of god it was because of my own selfish desires
37:03
that god has been able to turn it around so that i can have a
37:08
opportunity to love someone or to hold someone's hand so they don't remind
37:14
him that there's no reason to feel shameful to come alongside and be his hands and
37:19
his feet to help someone in need these are the roles that god has for us and all these other things that keep us
37:26
stuck these are the things that the enemy uses to keep us from fulfilling god's purpose it's not god's purpose that we even have
37:35
these horrible discussions or people yelling at one another because of choices that people have made or lifestyles that they've chosen to live
37:42
it's god's heart that we could seek after him alone and allow him to manifest his purpose in each one of
37:48
our lives it's you know life you look at our lives now and people may think that it's all
37:55
easy it's oh it's easy for you to say but it's not always been easy you know i've dealt with um sexuality
38:02
issues you know i still sometimes look at an attractive man and go oh my goodness
38:09
but that's a sexual attraction it's the same thing you know and i i need to i need to not
38:16
act on that and and not because god doesn't want me to but because it's not the right thing
38:21
for my husband either or for my family or for myself you know sexual sin is the only sin that
38:27
desecrates ourselves in addition to the person that we're having with and so we need to just
38:32
remember that that doesn't mean the attraction's going away that doesn't mean that culture is not
38:37
going to entice us to do things we shouldn't do but you know we've been created with the self-control
38:42
that if we allow god to come alongside us and guide us that we can exercise that for his glory
38:48
and we don't always get it right and that's why he comes in right well and i think the big thing to that like
38:55
the the issue is that you have made a commitment to be in
39:01
a certain type of relationship with somebody and so to go outside of that is like
39:08
the wrong right like it's the so like if somebody isn't in that sort of
39:13
commitment with somebody then they don't have the same sort of um parameters if you will
39:20
um however having a good understanding of what that relationship
39:25
is with that person and what your commitment is to one another in that circumstance or that situation
39:32
is something that i think that we all could be a little bit more mindful of
39:38
in whatever sort of relationships we might choose to have sexually and
39:43
maybe thinking more about sexual behavior um versus um anything else
39:52
but one of the things i wanted to bring up too when you were mentioning um this idea of like of the world
40:00
like versus we are not of the world but we're in the world um and i think that's a really important
40:06
thing because i think spirituality helps me be in the world um
40:14
whereas without it i was trying to get out of the world
40:19
and i could i was doing that like with drugs and alcohol and certain ways of living in some ways it took me out of
40:25
the world in other ways it helped me be in the world um and i think i could do the same thing
40:31
with my spirituality is that it's important for me not to just live in this like
40:37
euphoric spiritual space because i do believe that we're we're still in the world right so like
40:43
there's a way for us to utilize that spirituality if you will that
40:48
connection to god god to help him be in the world um because i feel like that's our
40:54
purpose i mean why else are we here if we're not supposed to be a part of a part of the
40:59
world but we're here to change the world right and i'm gonna say okay wait a second
41:05
yeah yeah but you have to be in it you have to participate you have to take part in order to um
41:14
to change anything yeah right well and i agree you have to participate and that
41:19
participation as a as a woman of faith it has to look different than the
41:25
participation of someone who's not a woman of faith so let me give you an example i was
41:31
reading a facebook post from one of my friends this morning a young woman
41:36
that i don't have a relationship with her now she was in my uh
41:41
i worked at the boys and girls club for a number of years and she was on my volleyball team we've talked about that it's been a long
41:47
time ago and she's on my facebook and once in a while she posts not very often but she's she was saying that
41:53
she was in the store and she heard this huge crash and she she says and she says because
42:00
i'm nosy she wanted to see what what happened when she got there
42:05
there were people standing around this older woman had actually ran into an end cap and had knocked a whole bunch of
42:12
stuff off and broke it this woman was beside herself she was crying she was upset she was trying to clean up
42:19
she was embarrassed and not anyone who would help her she got right down on her knees got
42:25
right next to this one encouraged her and said oh don't worry about it let me help you let me help you let me help you see that's the difference that's a
42:33
difference i don't want to be a spectator of someone's life as it's
42:39
falling apart i want to come alongside that person and i want to say look i'm here to help you
42:45
i'm here to come alongside you and we may not figure this all out today but let's just clean up the mess for the moment
42:50
um at the end of the story the manager came over and said oh honey don't worry about this we have insurance because she was like i don't have enough
42:56
money to pay for all this stuff he's like don't worry about it we have insurance for that and we'll finish cleaning up this mess thank
43:01
you for helping at this point i hope you didn't get hurt and those are the responses that we need
43:08
to have to the people around us you know man i can't imagine being on the sidelines and not offering someone
43:15
help like that but that's what i feel like god means when he says we are in the world but we are not of the world
43:21
so we are in the world to come alongside to love on to help people and to lead
43:26
them to his love and his mercy and his grace you don't do that standing on the sidelines of someone else's pain
43:33
watching them be embarrassed and fumbling around trying to find the right way to respond it's about being in there
43:38
with them saying hey let me help you pick up these pieces i'll pick up as many pieces as you want
43:43
me to help let me hold but stand by you right here i'll wait with you for the manager to come and see if you're going to owe any money
43:50
that's the kind of that's the kind of job god has for us that's the purpose that god has put in us it's going to look different for each
43:56
one of us and and i want to be qualified for that and i don't want my
44:01
sin to hinder that although i know that i have seen in my life every
44:07
single day not just sexual sin all kinds of sin right
44:12
yeah i feel yeah so anyway sorry i just shared that story no you're great
44:20
i'm just hoping i'm hoping that i'm just kind of getting in my head a little bit i'm worried that the sound
44:26
isn't coming across well and i'm a little bummed about that just share what what's on your
44:34
heart to share and when we're done it'll just it'll do what it needs to do yeah i never
44:40
i feel like we're having a good conversation about it but one of the things i think
44:45
because i was really um i feel like this is like in particular and i don't feel like we've talked i think we've talked
44:50
about sexuality there's so much more we could talk about but i feel like a lot of the times sexuality
44:56
are one of those things that and for us actually it was something that pulled us apart for a while so i think being able to um to
45:05
like talk about this i think in front of others has been really helpful too um thanks landa for the encouragement of
45:11
saying the sound is fine for you um
45:16
that makes me feel a little bit better um but um because recently and i i guess
45:22
one of the things that we might share is like recently um i i've learned that i still have some like
45:29
um uh sus suspicion i got suspect if you
45:36
will like certain um i think certain christian points of
45:43
views if you will and it's weird because i don't i'm not going to subscribe like i don't believe them but for whatever reason it
45:50
still kind of hits some of these things in me sometimes and so um the thing that i would encourage
45:56
people to do if they are trying to be in relationship for instance like you and i
46:01
are is that we can really try to
46:07
um have the conversation even if it feels a little bit difficult
46:13
and to be able to share that you're having a difficulty with it i know that um
46:19
you would send me a video say last last week or the week before and it started
46:25
hitting some of those things for me and then i was like okay well i can't finish listening to it
46:31
and then i remember just getting into my head a little bit of the fact of like i know that she's i know her i know her love
46:38
and her intent for me is not to change me like i know that however it clicks these things into me
46:44
that says she's trying to change you she doesn't believe you she doesn't think you're worthy as you know like those sorts of
46:50
things and those are the things that were going in my head and i loved that you shared them shared it with me because there was actually a
46:55
good message beyond that if i was willing to like
47:00
listen or sit through that but i also had some fear about telling
47:05
you because i didn't want you to feel like i was so sensitive that you wouldn't be able to like really
47:12
talk with me about these sorts of things and i felt like it was really important that i was able to say that to you these
47:18
certain words or things said in this way causes me to feel this certain way and this is why you know same when we hear
47:24
same-sex attraction that is a word that's used in conversion therapy
47:30
that that's language that's used to tell us that the way that we are is wrong um and so
47:37
um so but but if you don't know that you don't know that right and so i think being i i just
47:43
guess i want to encourage people to to share if share the experience with
47:48
that discomfort with the person that you've chosen to be in relationship in that way
47:54
um and it is scary and it's um it is scary i agree because that very
48:01
same kind of thing is what for our relationship apart
48:08
yeah that's yeah us making assumptions that because of this and this and this this person didn't want anything to do with us
48:14
or they didn't care for us anymore didn't love us didn't want to spend time with us rather
48:19
than reaching out to and saying hey what's happening with you are you okay um you know i don't agree
48:27
with this but are you okay you know whatever it might be and had we done that 20 some years ago we may not have
48:35
lost that time that we could have been doing life together yeah definitely
48:42
that's something like a spiritual practice in general that i'm really trying is to not assume the worst
48:48
of people um and to try to assume maybe the better you know before
48:56
like jumping to a conclusion you know what i mean um like assume the better with people that
49:02
you know you can and then have a conversation to confirm that i guess or affirm that
49:09
if you really are not completely connecting with that idea if
49:16
that makes sense yeah yeah i think that's a good practice and you know sometimes we just gotta love
49:24
people even when they're offended i'm sorry if you were to tell me hey don't call me anymore i didn't like that
49:30
video that you sent me i'm not going to talk to you anymore i'm sorry but i would have called you
49:36
i probably showed up at your house so there are things that we we i don't know
49:43
i feel like we need to pursue people with love even for whatever reason they want to retract
49:49
as long as it's genuine love and not self self satisfying their self and i don't know serving me is right or
49:56
self serving you know love is something i feel like has been perverted when i say that intentionally
50:04
um based on the culture that we we are living in and i don't think people do it intentionally
50:11
i think where we do it based on what our background is what our experience is what culture's saying to us but at the
50:16
end of the day genuine love covers it covers people it does just like i was saying when that
50:23
lady come alongside that woman who's built all that stuff at the store it covers it comes alongside it never
50:29
pushes away it never judges it never it stands strong and assuring so that people can discover
50:37
who they are in christ yes well we are coming up on the end of
50:44
the show i feel like this has been a good conversation um and i think i think it's like for us just sharing that
50:50
like i think sometimes we get on here and it's all cute and we're talking it is what it is but it it is
50:55
challenging at times and it is like something that we have to really be vulnerable with one another
51:01
and you know we are we are in the way that we because we're human i
51:08
guess um you know we're preparing ourselves well i'm we're giving the power if you will to
51:14
hurt one another um and that is a very um sacred and special thing that is not our
51:21
intent but we're still giving each other permission to potentially you know hurt one another and that's not
51:28
in a way you know what do you know what i mean like we don't do that with everybody i don't do that with everybody um
51:36
so i just want people to know that sometimes it's uncomfortable for us for both of us
51:43
um but there's so much that comes from just having the conversation oh yeah we committed that we're gonna
51:50
we're gonna love each other no matter how what our differences are agreed agreed um so well it looks like
51:57
isaac has a great long statement so we'll maybe go out with that um and then uh yeah and then call it a
52:04
day so um isaac says bonnie that was an incredibly real and
52:10
vulnerable statement i'm right there with you i had a realization that i and many queer folks have
52:17
suffered trauma from religious institutions sometimes our trauma button
52:22
in our minds it's pushed by religious language and symbols it is so hard to unpack and yet it is
52:29
also so important to do in our own time to heal i still that i
52:34
still find that i get uncomfy in religious spaces even though i seek to be ordained within
52:41
them yeah that's one of the things that i've really tried to do it's like i feel like our body
52:50
is telling us like when we have like those trigger or those things that cause that in us i think that's our body
52:56
telling us something and for me instead of like running from it which is usually what i do
53:02
i try to get curious about it i try to investigate and wonder why is it that
53:08
you're feeling this way and i do feel like it does take like a
53:14
a certain amount of care because i think you can try to get into that pain too much and it can
53:20
overwhelm you so i think it's important to be able to take care of yourself and you know do that in whatever way that
53:26
can feel okay but not to just completely run from something just because it's feeling like that maybe that's not a
53:33
feel feeling to run maybe that's just a feeling to like investigate
53:41
maybe if i i don't have anything to add to
53:47
that okay do you want do you want to take us out is there
53:55
anything you would like to share on your way out i just want to encourage everyone you
54:00
know find a foundation you know i'm i'm a i'm a christian and my foundation is
54:08
the bible so i find if i found to find a foundation it allows me to move forward from there
54:15
and find a foundation that you can stand on i i think that the bible is a great choice and and i just tell you otherwise would
54:22
be alive the bible is a foundational piece that if we focus on that and we focus on that foundation
54:29
some of these are the things that we have to manage and oversee and overcome can do that through the wisdom that
54:34
comes from those pages so you know as we share our lives with you as we share the things that we struggle with that
54:41
still struggle with have struggled with we'll continue to find new things to struggle with
54:46
i want you to know that for me my foundation is the word of god i'm strong in that and i'm grateful that
54:53
people around me don't try to take that from me they allow me the opportunity to stand firm
54:59
on on what i believe and who i am in christ and for me and i don't know i believe the world is
55:07
is called to be a part of that foundation so i encourage you find a foundation a starting point
55:13
pursue who you believe god's called you to be and um be open to the people around you
55:19
that in your peripheral because i think they're there for a purpose yeah yeah when i feel like the
55:26
foundation is for me the foundation is what it sets on it's not what actually
55:32
is built upon it and so i think part of that for me is is also being able to sit with
55:38
the foundation but also challenge myself to see and i'm not and this is just what's
55:44
coming to mind for me is like the foundation which for me i have i
55:49
have a foundation that i fall into um when i
55:54
need to feel grounded when i need to just kind of you know like feel connected but i do feel like there's an element of
56:01
building upon that foundation that is um
56:07
i think might be more imaginative like it might not be so clear
56:14
it might not have even been written yet in my understanding that um maybe
56:20
there's more um to be written and more to be said um yeah
56:28
i don't know i guess that's just where i'm at with my foundation
56:33
it's hard for me to
56:39
and i know this isn't us about like trying to like change one another but it's really
56:45
hard for me with my understanding of the bible now to
56:50
see myself reflected in there and um it's it can't
56:57
you so i don't feel like that can be my my foundation alone until i'm able to
57:05
really like hear and explore and learn more i guess
57:10
so and i know that that's not necessarily our tensions with one another but i feel like that's what hits for me when
57:17
i hear that yeah yeah
57:23
thank you guys it's been an hour already oh my goodness so i appreciate you guys being gracious
57:29
with us with some of our technical difficulties thanks for joining our conversation today i feel like we just barely scratched the
57:35
surface of some of the areas that we could have went today so this may be something we come back around to again sometime but
57:41
thank you guys for joining us if you have extra things that you'd like to add to the conversation please feel free we kind of watch this
57:48
after the show and we're happy to engage if you want to talk deeper about certain aspects of
57:55
um who we are as as people as as people of faith and our spirituality we are
58:00
open to doing that so enjoy your week and i look forward to our next conversation all right thank you so much and juan
58:06
says thank you ladies and isaac love the vulnerability and intimacy which lays out a daily
58:12
foundation take care and i'll play that outro bye bye bye everybody
58:19
splintered grace podcast is brought to you by a queer chaplain
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