A spiritual life

The ebb and flow of belief, part one

I am writing this on Holy Saturday. Pre-pandemic, I would have been at church every day for Holy Week, a week of solemn contemplation and ritual and prayer would have culminated with Easter Vigil tonight. We would have begun outside, where a fire burned, then quietly processed the flame inside, into the darkened space. I would have been back in church on Sunday morning for the flower-filled, shoulder-to-shoulder, loud and joyous Easter service.

But the pandemic changed everything. It brought change and continues to bring change to me as an individual and to all of us, collectively. In the four or five years leading up to Covid, I had unexpectedly found myself back in church after decades away. Now, four years or so later, I am further away from it than ever.

I used to describe myself as a spiritual explorer. I used to work in the spiritual realms, offering Reiki sessions and intuitive readings. I used to write about spirituality a lot. But I am not the person I used to be. I am not even the person I was a year ago. It is not only the pandemic, but also the changes of midlife that have rearranged me. It is the shortness of time, the ravages of aging, the political and societal revelations that keep relentlessly showing up in my lived experience.

I want to share this story with you, my story. It’s a story of spiritual exploration, finding belief and the releasing of belief. It’s a long story, so I’ll be sharing it in a series of writings. It’s also a story that feels intimate and tender to me, so I’m gently placing it behind a paywall.

The last thing on earth I would want to do is position myself as some sort authority in your spiritual life. This story is not about me telling you what is true or what you should believe. But it is an invitation to explore, and it begins beneath a picnic table in rural Kentucky.