Hello!

If you are new to this space or have been following along for a while, welcome. It is so good to have you here. This is my little “home” on the internet and my desire is to welcome you with arms wide open.

I write from a deep place. That’s probably the most efficient way for me to describe who I am and what makes me tick. As Janis Joplin used to stay about her own voice and artistic style, she sang to illuminate the “underneath” of things. There is a rawness to this, a fiery risk to this, but I believe in the power of this perspective and tend to use her words as a guide in my own artistic pursuits.

Outside of writing, I am an artist, a wife, a mom, and also an aspiring priest. I left linear life a number of years ago, hopped off the hamster wheel of chasing and producing, and vowed to live my life according to the song playing in my soul. The irony of course is I traded one hamster wheel for another and I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to stay off that damn wheel. In other words, I have lived through one hell of an existential crisis. It has taken me a long time and many false starts to accept that I am to walk this path and walk it slowly.

My favorite drink is a strong margarita, I use many four letter words, and I do not go to church anymore. I most often encounter the Gospel these days through the arts, through the prophets and the mystics, those brave souls that left the boundaries of an institution and vowed to follow Spirit.  I still believe with all my heart in the essence of that other kind of church, the one where two or three are gathered, talking about the deep places of life: pain, beauty, God, humanity.

Some of the hardest work I have learned to do is hold complexity and nuance when it comes to the paradox the institutional Church is. She has healed me and broken my heart more times than I can count. I love her enough to hold her tenderly, to see her with clear eyes, and I have given most of my adult life to helping her become a more loving and honest presence in this world.

I have no plan on leaving my arm’s distant love of her anytime soon. This kind of long distance relationship with the Church has allowed me to see God in so many places and people I never would have been able to see otherwise, including myself. It also allows me to remain rooted in an ancient tradition which feeds and stabilizes my wild soul. I love being in this strange, unconventional place. But that love has come with much time, heartache, surrender, and wrestling.

I still believe as humans we need containers for God, grief, and the wild reality that comes with living in this broken and beautiful world. On the best days, the Church and organized religion offer us those containers for these lived realities. Church points us to our soul’s need for ritual; those ancient communal practices that mark the thresholds of time and transitions: Life, death, resurrection. This is what keeps me walking towards the priesthood. But there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done within these places and practices to make them safe for all people. I am committed to doing that work.

In 2020, after nearly a decade of trying to find my own place as a woman working within the institutional church, I went back to school to obtain my Masters of Divinity. I graduated in May 2023 and suffice to say it was one of the most challenging processes I have ever given myself to. I knew as a woman, wanting to have a voice in this world, I needed a few letters by my name.

I suppose what I want you to know is I have done my homework when it comes to using both my head and my heart.  I have surrendered to walking and living the journey of a spiritual path.  I have gone to the root system of things, and going back to Janis, I believe Christianity, especially this milieu’s version of Christianity, needs more voices from the margins, especially feminine voices from the margins, writing to illuminate the underneath of things, all in the name of Love.  This is my aim.  

I’ve evolved a lot over the years in regard to my beliefs, but, the story of Jesus and the mystery of God, are two pieces my heart will never let go of. I will always believe in Spirit, in the life force that moves us towards those invisible realities that make the world go round: Love, mercy, justice, faith, forgiveness, grace, joy, peace, patience, tenderness, steadfastness. I still believe these things can change you, transform you to your core, if you allow them to.

So welcome, I hope you stay a while. And I hope, in some small way, this place may feel like the truest essence of church.

-M