The gift of authentic you

plus some BIG news and a chance to share your thoughts

Don’t have time for the whole essay today? Skip to the section entitled “The BIG announcement” for some exciting news and an opportunity to share your insights!

---

Dear Soulful Revolutionary,

As a junior in college, I spent a year studying abroad in Granada, Spain. Removed from the comforts of the people and places I knew, and exposed to experiences that provoked crucial questions and inspired new understanding, I was propelled into deep discernment. As I contemplated my vocation in the context of a rapidly evolving spirituality, I began a quest for a community where I could authentically abide.

To this day, I can call to mind the precise places where I sat pondering a particular question in my journal, or had a conversation with a person who made an indelible impression on me. These memories are vivid — flashes of insight that illuminated my mind and left their mark, a camera obscura for my conscience. 

Be you, unapologetically

One such moment took place in the office of my Medieval History professor, who had taken me under her wing as I struggled my way through the semester. University education in Spain is a heavily lecture-based model. One’s grade is determined by a final exam that involves regurgitating as much as possible of what the professor has said during the entire course. My professor graciously met with me on a regular basis, helping me grasp content that was missed in translation, or for which I didn’t have the proper cultural and educational foundation.

With time, these meetings became about more than academic support. Encarnita, as she asked to be called, became a mentor to me. One day, I told her that I was thinking about going to seminary. But, I said, I didn’t know how this would work out for me, since women faced significant barriers to leadership in the nondenominational churches of my youth. I wasn’t sure what my next step would be upon returning to the US. I poured out feelings of confusion, disappointment, and loneliness.

Encarnita responded with a bit of her own journey:

If becoming a priest had been possible for her as a woman in the Roman Catholic Church, she might have done so, she told me. Or, had she not met her husband while studying abroad in Greece as a college student, she might have become a nun. Barring those options, becoming a scholar of medieval history was a way for her to bring her interest in church history (which is deeply woven into Spanish medieval history) to bear. She was grateful to have found a way to use her gifts and passions, she explained, and she truly loved teaching. (This was apparent — she took genuine interest in her students’ lives, including mine).

Then, with a clear-eyed gaze that grounded me in compassion and courage, she said,

“You need to be up in a place where being a woman is not a liability, but a gift.”

This wisdom had the effect of plucking me up from the spot I was and dropping me into the life I have now. I mark this as one of a few decisive moments in my life where there was a clear “before” and “after.” This gift of insight from someone I loved and respected was the permission slip I needed to take a leap of faith into the unknown. Encarnita gave me the courage to seek greener pastures, where the fulness of my being would be wanted, valued and celebrated.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Caring, clarifying questions

Today, in each of the many roles I have — as priest and writer, mother and spouse, friend and companion, advocate and activist — I regularly ask myself:

1. Am I bringing my full authentic self to the table?

2. Am I being received not as a liability, but as a gift?

Sometimes, the answer to these questions is that I am indeed bringing my full self and being received with loving enthusiasm. Such spaces of joyful solidarity where I am known and understood are a rare and precious gift. They sustain me as I encounter other spaces that are less than welcoming.

Sometimes, what follows from these questions is a necessary departure from a community in which the preservation of my integrity has become too depleting to sustain. I safeguard my energies to strategically channel them elsewhere.

Sometimes, the challenge my authentic being poses to a community is the very gift which is needed. One person’s presence can provoke questions, surface tensions, and complicate assumptions in hard yet healthy ways.

And every once in a while, a risky, mutual invitation emerges: abide and be changed. This is the space in which faithful dissidents to the status quo are nurtured. This is the place where our most profound inner work and our most courageous struggle for social change meet and mingle.

Cultivating a community of Soulful Revolutionaries

Nearly a year ago, I started this weekly newsletter to share how spiritual transformation and social change are woven together in the world as I see it. Not long after, I added regular podcasted conversations with Soulful Revolutionaries who inspire my hope and enliven my courage.

A Soulful Revolution is a space where I seek to be authentically myself, and I offer it as a gift to you, my reader, in humble hopes that my authenticity might inspire you to courageously embrace your own inner Soulful Revolutionary.

However you uniquely choose to embody this integrative work, I celebrate and welcome you:

spiritual warrior,

agent of history,

change-maker,

risk-taker,

dream-shaper.

I hope you know what a gift your readership is to me. Hearing from readers over the past year has been a source of immense encouragement to me. Paid subscribers have motivated me to show up week after week.

I have always loved to write. This project — and your enthusiastic response to it — has helped me say aloud: I am a writer.

All of which brings me to…

The BIG announcement!

I am writing a book about the spiritual practice of social change.

This project is still in the early stages, but the work of this last year has laid a really solid foundation. As I devote more time to writing, there are a few crucial ways you can support this project:

1. Become a paid subscriber of this newsletter, which I will continue to produce (many thanks if you are already doing so! Your contributions help keep me accountable to the work).

2. Share A Soulful Revolution with friends — growing my audience now is a huge part of making this book marketable down the road.

3. Share your thoughts in the comments. If you’re a subscriber you can also simply hit “reply” to let me know your thoughts by email. I’m especially curious:

• What (or who) brought you here? What has kept you engaged? What has nourished you? What have you found helpful, engaging, meaningful, relevant? What have you not?

• What would you like more of? Are there topics or conversations that left you hungry for more? Are there stories you’d like to hear more about?

• And most importantly, would you like to read my book?

Thank you for being on this journey with me.