Queer As Faith

The Book “Thou Shall Not Suffer: 7 Steps To A Life Of Joy” by Mark Anthony Lord

Thou Shalt Not Suffer: Seven Steps to Live a Life of Joy, is Mark Anthony Lord’s guide to shifting consciousness and building a foundation for a life free of suffering, using practical steps and prayers, including a chapter on forgiveness, to live with greater joy and integrity.

About the Author

Rev. Mark Anthony Lord (he/him) is a Chicago-based spiritual teacher, healer, and channel, and an ordained New Thought minister. He founded Chicago’s Bodhi Spiritual Center, co-founded Living The Course, a global A Course in Miracles community, and now offers private channeled healing sessions and Ascension Circles. He helps people heal their relationship with God through forgiveness and Holy Spirit channeling, and writes the Holy and Shameless Substack.

Follow him at Mark Anthony Lord or check out his website https://markanthonylord.me/.

Queer as Faith Cohosts

Rev. Rainbow Weldon (she/they) is an ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister and the founder and curator of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy, and spirituality. They are passionate about helping folks transform self-doubt into a more joyful, creative, and authentic life.

Follow them Rainbow Weldon

James Masters (he/they) is a Kansas City artist working in watercolor, gouache, and ink, and a studio artist at Images Art Gallery. He runs the Pure Joy Snail Mail Club and writes the Inspired2Be Substack.

Follow them at James Masters

Transcript: Queer as Faith — Episode 5.5

Cleaned and edited for readability.

Welcome back, beloveds. Reverend Rainbow here with you today, and we are trying something new in the weeks between our full episodes. Every other week, we are going to bring you a practice based on the topic that we recently discussed. This week, we are reflecting on the practice of forgiveness.

We just had Reverend Mark Anthony Lord as our guest on the podcast talking to us about forgiveness. And I’m going to offer you one of his practices and teachings based on his book, Thou Shalt Not Suffer, Seven Steps to Live a Life of Joy. In this book, he has a whole chapter on forgiveness and talks about this idea of 70 times 70, right? We’ve all, well, maybe not all, but we have heard this idea in reference to the biblical practice of forgiving 70 times 70.

So the exercise as laid out by Mark Anthony in this book is a forgiveness circle. He says he created the following exercise to facilitate a shift in consciousness as you build a solid foundation for a life free of suffering. And the idea is to imagine seven concentric circles, each representing a different layer of the relationships in which you live. And he has outlined these with the suggestions of your relationship with God, life, spirit, your higher self, with yourself.

The next one being your relationship with your family or framly. I know a lot of us in the queer community have great ties to our framly, chosen friends, family, as well as our intimate relationships, perhaps with partners, lovers, friends. And then our acquaintances or colleagues, other kind of more distant connections, then moving into the circle of the establishment, right? Companies or institutions, government leaders. And then lastly, the circle of your beliefs, individual and collective.

So the idea is to write a prayer based on forgiveness in relationship to each of these seven circles. And each day begin with the innermost circle and work our way out. So starting with forgiveness with our relationship with the divine, all the way out to the collective, our beliefs and the collective consciousness. And read the same prayer, he suggests, 10 times throughout the day for a week. Multiply those seven circles times 10 repetitions over the course of seven days and you have 70 times 7.

So what I’m going to offer today is reading a few of the prayers that he has given as an example. And you can listen to these prayers or use them as a jumping off place or inspiration to write prayers in your own words. And maybe prayer isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s just statements of release, statements of forgiveness, of letting go. So I’m going to start today. I’m just going to select a few. We’re not going to go through all seven prayers today, but I wanted to offer this practice as something you can do on your own.

But let’s start today by reading this prayer around forgiving ourselves. So take a deep breath. And again, I’m reading from Thou Shalt Not Suffer by Mark Anthony Lord.

I ask that total forgiveness be activated within me and for me. I ask that I be freed from every judgment and limitation I hold against myself. For every lie I have ever told, I ask that forgiveness free me from the ripples of their effect. And that I be lifted into my full integrity, always confident to speak my truth with love and clarity. I ask that forgiveness flow through me specifically for my body temple. I open to allow all of the abuses, words, and actions that my body has endured to be healed. For everything I have ever done, said, or thought that is less than holy, less than grateful, and out of alignment with my integrity, and for all the ways I have hurt others and myself, known and unknown, I ask that forgiveness heal them and me so that only care and connection remain. Holy Spirit, please set in motion the power of forgiveness, for in my ignorance and fear, I know not what to do. Please allow the power of forgiveness to set me free completely and forever from the past. It is over, and it is so, and so it shall be.

Take a breath. And he suggests if issues are concerns around suffering from self-hatred or inner judgment or unworthiness, to focus on just this one area for a whole week. Take the time to read this prayer 10 times a day for seven days, each time slowly and with intention, and create a sacred space, maybe lighting a candle, some space where you can close off everything else, all other distractions, and be present to this practice. And then after a week or so, continue with some of the other circles and prayers.

So I’d like to end with reading the prayer around forgiveness in relationship to the establishment.

By the power of this prayer and intention, I ask God, spirit, life to activate the healing power of forgiveness for all establishments, organizations, institutions, political leaders, and systems that I have judged and put outside my heart. Being man-made, they have limited me or projected upon me ideas about who and what I am supposed to be. I forgive them for judging me as being inadequate and flawed in any way. I forgive the religions that taught me there is a separation between me and God. I forgive them for the overreach and abuse of power and yielding it over innocent people. I forgive them for hurting people and making them feel unworthy. I forgive the school systems of my youth and all those who are trapped in it still, perpetuating a system that doesn’t honor the entirety of students. I forgive my government, and I forgive myself for seeing them as arrogant, selfish, narrow-minded, and fear-based. I forgive all political and national leaders around the world and all entities that act out of hatred and fear. I forgive any and all corporations that are operating out of greed at the expense of our environment and people’s lives. I forgive the arrogance of the medical system and know that doctors and nurses are only human, trapped by beliefs like everyone else. And I affirm the truth that God is with all of us. Dear loving universe, please allow the power of forgiveness to set us completely free, forever free from the past and the stories of separation and greed and lies and lack. Oneness prevails, and so it is, and so it shall be.

I’m taking another deep breath. And just a reminder that when we say we forgive these harms and hurts and systems and things, that we are not saying that it is okay or that we are simply allowing it to continue without change. But the forgiveness comes first with our inner will…

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Special Guest

Rev. Mark Anthony Lord (he/him) is a Chicago-based spiritual teacher, healer, and channel, and an ordained New Thought minister. He founded Chicago’s Bodhi Spiritual Center, co-founded Living The Course, a global A Course in Miracles community, and now offers private channeled healing sessions and Ascension Circles. He helps people heal their relationship with God through forgiveness and Holy Spirit channeling, and writes the Holy and Shameless Substack.

Follow him at Mark Anthony Lord or check out his website https://markanthonylord.me/.

Queer as Faith Cohosts

Rev. Rainbow Weldon (they/them) is an ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister and the founder and curator of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy, and spirituality. They are passionate about helping folks transform self-doubt into a more joyful, creative, and authentic life.

Follow them Rainbow Weldon

James Masters (he/they) is a Kansas City artist working in watercolor, gouache, and ink, and a studio artist at Images Art Gallery. He runs the Pure Joy Snail Mail Club and writes the Inspired2Be Substack.

Follow them at James Masters

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Transcript: Queer as Faith — Episode 5

Cleaned and edited for readability.

Rainbow Weldon: Thank you so much. I’m super happy to be here. Thank you.

Rainbow Weldon: So for those of you who somehow do not know Mark Anthony Lord yet, he is a spiritual guide, a minister, he is a spiritual teacher, and one of my spiritual teachers. We go back, I can’t even believe it, somehow like 20, 25 years maybe? Like 2004, 3, 4?

Mark Anthony Lord: 2004 is when we met. So 22 years.

Rainbow Weldon: Over 20 years. And here we are. So I’m super excited to have this conversation with you. And honestly, you are a big part of this happening, because you and I were doing some mentorship, some coaching work together. And from that really came this idea, that you were very much encouraging me to follow my heart and be boldly me and talk about queer spirituality and bring this spiritual teaching of New Thought, in whatever way it’s evolving, to me and through me to the queer community. Part of that evolution through Queer Spirit Collective is this podcast. And we are diving into many different topics, but we’d love to start with you just telling us a little bit about your spiritual background growing up. What was your experience, both from the lens of being queer, being spiritual, and kind of that intersection?

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah, happily. Again, thank you for having this conversation. Thanks for bringing this energy into the world at this time. So I was raised, way back when, Catholic, and it was definitely when gay and queer was going to hell. And that’s what I was thinking, like seven years old, that God hates me. I am the rejected one. So it was a very rough childhood, also sexually abused in the Catholic religion. So it was stacked on me in my formative years. So I threw everything out. And then through a need, through addiction, that brought me back to God. That was about 24 years old.

Actually, I should back up a little bit for the purposes of this. Actually, around 14, 15 years old, I did discover Unity. My family started going there. It was called Church of Today in the Detroit area. Huge. Thousands of people would come on a Sunday. So I did have that influence planted inside of me. Then went wayward. And it was really through 12-step recovery, going to a 12-step treatment center that Jack Boland from Church of Today got me hooked up to. He was part of saving my life. And that really launched my exploration of spirituality.

And my counselor there said to me in 12-step treatment in that center, she said, two things, Mark: you need to get a new God, and you need to learn how to forgive, or you will die. And I credit that moment as literally, it was like sliding doors. I just went another path, and I’d done nothing since those days except live in the spiritual world, make it my living, make it my life. And yeah, decades, decades of exploring, decades of digging out God within me, discovering new aspects of it. And forgiveness truly healed my life. So yeah, kind of a quick synopsis of it.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah. And what I so appreciate about your essence, your teaching, is your authenticity, your vulnerability, and you keep it real. And that allows me and others to relate to you and realize, oh, it’s not like once you become a minister or you’ve reached enlightenment, yay! You know, but I think sometimes people can put those ideas on themselves too, right?

Mark Anthony Lord: Oh my God. Let me, yeah, I’m sorry to interrupt, but when we were at Bodie together in Chicago, really the reason I left was, about a year, I was having dreams of walking down Castro Street in San Francisco, the gay street, naked with butterfly wings. And the queer spirit was waking up. And I had done ministry being the good boy. I had done ministry being the gay guy who acted straight so you all felt comfortable. And I didn’t know this. This wasn’t conscious. But when the queer part of me, which I also disowned, because when I came of age being gay, queer wasn’t a positive word, right. And so all of this, and non-binary, all this stuff is waking up in me. I didn’t know how they could coexist. And I left Bodhi. Yeah. Because I didn’t know how to make this all come together.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, because I have recently been on a very similar journey. And it’s hard. Leaving a community is, oh, that’s a whole other conversation, a whole other podcast. A lot of grief involved, forgiveness, opening our heart, and stepping into full authenticity. And I’m sure there are many more opportunities that await me on that journey. And I love knowing that you are down that path a bit, too, and can learn from that experience. Yeah.

James Masters: And we had a whole podcast about forgiveness. And I’m interested, because we had a few different definitions for it, a few ideas behind it. How would you define forgiveness, and what does that mean in your life? You’ve mentioned it a couple times, and it’s a pretty loaded word.

Mark Anthony Lord: I get a little nervous, because I’ll be honest first, and then you can tell me to stop. I think most every New Thought minister, most people, are only halfway there.

Rainbow Weldon: Mm-hmm.

Mark Anthony Lord: They only get halfway there. And I’m like, no, close, close, helpful. But I’m really Course in Miracles when it comes to forgiveness. And forgiveness says it causes us to look past what never happened. And it brings us home to God. And what never happened is hard to, you can’t comprehend it with the mind that is in the experience of, that is still trying to feel the past. I get it. Rectifying it is, and it is impossible to rectify what never happened, with the Course in Miracles saying this, or what happened, with the Course in Miracles saying this is a dream that never happened. But it never happened in God. It never happened in our divinity. And so forgiveness takes us to our divinity. And it is there where the story, the whole experience of it, dissolves.

And I had a mystical experience where literally, I was in so much pain from the sexual abuse, and forgiving it, forgiving it, forgiving it. And there was one magical moment. It was a true miracle, where I felt God take me out of the trauma of it and say, see this as I see this. The whole story melted like candle wax. And all I saw was light dancing with light. That’s all that’s happening. Behind every suffering story is light dancing with light. I saw it. I saw it with my being. I became it. And so to me, that’s what forgiveness does.

But people say things like, oh, well, you don’t have to forget. You forgive, but you don’t forget. Or it’s for you. It’s not about the other person. I’m like, no, it is all about the other person. It’s about me and my brother being stuck in a lie of pain, and forgiveness is given to both of us. Forgiveness is for everyone. True forgiveness heals me, but then it becomes the gift that sets everyone else free. Otherwise, it’s not a selfish act. It’s a shared act. People don’t want that. I want the freedom of my persecutor to stay over there in the dog yard.

Rainbow Weldon: Right, right.

Mark Anthony Lord: You know, so for me, I know it as everyone is lifted up by it. You know, Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Anyone who’s doing something outside of love does not know what they’re doing, and they do not deserve to be persecuted, period. Most people are still trying to persecute and forgive.

Rainbow Weldon: Oh yeah, I hear that. And I’m curious, what would you say to someone in the middle of a situation where there’s a lot of hurt, and there’s definitely a willingness to want healing and forgiveness for all involved, but it feels impossible because of the other person’s position? So how does this, asking for a friend, move to that place, when sometimes it can feel like, according to my friend, they are open for all that healing and love, and then instead what’s happening is that is being manipulated and taken advantage of, in a way so that there is just more attack, even though I know it only takes one person to stop the attack, defend, attack, defend. That’s where sometimes it can feel a little sticky in the midst of it. Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: Why would you have your friend call me?

Rainbow Weldon: I think that’s what needs to happen.

Mark Anthony Lord: Good answer. Deeper into that. But so here’s the deal. Thank you for asking that, because I don’t want to leave this out. We don’t do forgiveness. We don’t solve the problem with love. Look, we can’t. The Course in Miracles gives us the best gift. It says there’s the Holy Spirit, which is the symbol of God in you. It is the divine. It is the blueprint of your perfection. That’s what does the work. So when I forgive, when I do forgiveness, I ask that the Holy Spirit set me free. I ask that forgiveness be done unto me. That me can be kicking and screaming, and it needs to wail. It needs to scream. It needs to process in the physical realm. So I’m not saying bypass that. That’s what people want. I think we all want to bypass our feelings and our pain. But forgiveness, I believe, has to take us into it and through it. So it is something that is done unto us, and it will lead us through.

And a lot of people, what they don’t want to do is, forgiveness also leads us to our power, which means we have to say, fucking stop. Not here. This is done. Like, forgiveness causes us to stand. And that’s scary for those of us who, you know, we’re not good at that yet. We don’t know how to stand for ourselves. We know how to bend over. We know how to overgive. We know how to do a lot of things. But, you know, we want forgiveness to come in and wash it all away. But I find that forgiveness brings us through it. Yes. But then it causes us to stand stronger than we ever have. Say no when we mean no. Say yes when we mean yes. It brings us to power.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah.

James Masters: So you bring up a really interesting story, kind of issue, when it comes to forgiveness: it brings us into our power. It gives us the ability to say no if something’s not healthy. You know, I think forgiveness isn’t just letting somebody beat me up over and over and over again. You know, I mentioned the Marianne Williamson quote, you know, sometimes forgiveness says, I do forgive you. Now give me my keys and get out of my house. And so from a queer perspective, an LGBTQ+ perspective, I think that’s important when we’re talking about sometimes family dynamics that might be unhealthy, or religious dynamics and how that can be unhealthy. Do you have any recommendations when it comes to that, in somebody who really wants to forgive, but also wants to have some wisdom related to the relational dynamic that might be hurting them?

Mark Anthony Lord: You mean like a family situation or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. There’s no doubt those are the hard places to play. And those are the places where, from a very young age, we were conditioning ourselves to not be ourselves. And so the family system is really set up that says, hey, wait a minute. You’ve been spending 25, 30 years not being you in this system. Don’t make me mad, and don’t make me bad and wrong, because now you’re deciding to be different. You know, the whole thing is getting restructured and reorganized. It’s very easy to point to the queer person and go, you’re the one. You’re the one calling for change. You’re the one doing this. But the reality is, it’s one system that is ready for its change. And yes, queer people are called by Spirit to do the dynamic spiritual work. We are a phenomenal tribe. And the way the ego’s world keeps us down is by making us feel guilty and ashamed, making us feel bad about who we are. When that’s healed and we stand in our fullness, our queerness, our power, then the system itself will crumble around us.

And we may have to say, you know, I’m not coming to this family gathering, because it doesn’t match who I am. Or, I never say that, you guys. I go to my family gatherings, and I don’t show up in my queerness and my big fabulous colors. I show up as me that fits in and belongs in love. But I don’t feel minimized. I don’t feel sacrificed. I know they love me. And I feel like I’m kind of in service. I’m not asking them to be who they’re not available to be. I have YouTube. I have other people to be that thing to me. So when I go to family now, I don’t need them to change. I don’t expect them to be different from who they are. And I really do feel like I just get to go and love them. Do I leave sometimes going, gosh, it’d be nice if someone asked me something about my life, which they don’t. They don’t, because they don’t know how. They don’t know how to be interested. And I haven’t known how to bring it, maybe. I don’t know. For me, it feels okay. And I don’t feel compromised. I feel like love is happening. And it is about recognizing, as a mature person, those needs aren’t going to be met by my biological family.

Rainbow Weldon: Yes.

Mark Anthony Lord: You know, that’s totally fine, because my queer community is a hell of a lot of fun. Like, friends living is fantastic, right?

Rainbow Weldon: Right. Exactly. Yes.

Rainbow Weldon: Well, you’ve mentioned Course in Miracles a number of times, and I know that we first knew each other through Science of Mind, Centers for Spiritual Living, and you mentioned Unity when you were younger. So I’m curious, like, not necessarily related to those specific structured teachings, but overall, how has your spirituality evolved and changed? Perhaps changed in some of your own beliefs or practices, but also then what has felt kind of consistent through all of those different evolutions or different avenues? Because then there was also the oneness and different things that you explored too.

Mark Anthony Lord: I’m definitely a seeker, aren’t I? You know, I have a love for each of them, starting with Unity, because Unity healed my relationship with Jesus. Unity is so heart centered. Unity is founded in healing. That’s phenomenal. Like, Myrtle Gilmore had a healing. And out of this healing, saying, I am a child of God, therefore I do not inherit disease, this movement changed, came into being. So it was mystical, and it was very heart centered, and very, very beautiful. And I loved all of that. And that, I had a nice integration and healing around the Bible. Oh my gosh. Unity and the metaphysical Bible. You know, I’m obsessed about that. That was truly healing for me.

And then to go to Science of Mind, which I was never interested in, because it was called religious science. I’m not into religion. I’m not into science. But neither of those, they just didn’t speak to me. When I moved to L.A., I find Agape with Michael Beckwith. I didn’t know for a year it was Science of Mind. I had no clue. It was just so Black church celebration power. And I started taking classes. I was like, oh my God, this is Science of Mind. And Science of Mind has the law. It comes out of the reasoning. It comes out of this place of discovering the law, using it with your word. And it’s strong. It’s clear. So to me, they’re both missing components, because one has, you know, but to me, they live together. I love the heart of Unity. I love the law of Science of Mind. And then to me, Course in Miracles is a oneness teaching that is infallible. It is invalid for me. It has a way to point at the lie and the illusion like no other teaching has.

So for me, Course in Miracles brought me back to Emma Curtis Hopkins, the foundations of New Fathers. Those founders, they were non-negotiable. Emma Curtis Hopkins: there is no evil. There is no matter. Course in Miracles brought me to understand that. And to practice that. And honestly, I wish more New Thought ministers would get back to the pure, strong centered principle, because I think that would help them grow. I really do.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah. So would you say then the kind of consistent part of all that was like this oneness concept?

Mark Anthony Lord: I don’t think I would have known it at the time. I mean, they met me at different times in life, and they helped me move forward in powerful ways, you know? So I hope that helps. I don’t know.

Rainbow Weldon: Oh, yeah.

James Masters: I’m really interested, just as someone who has been a student of A Course in Miracles, like, what has your relationship been with A Course in Miracles? People usually have very interesting stories about that. I know for me, like, I had the book. I actually went through the workbook and then just kind of set it aside for a long time, and then picked it back up again, and, you know, really started getting into it again. And so I’m just interested in, you know, your relationship with the text itself.

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah, I bought the book like in the mid to early 90s, and definitely put it on the shelf for years, tried to read it. You know, I’m definitely one of those guys that was like, I don’t get this. But during the 90s was when Marianne Williamson was coming out with all those cassette tapes. So I would devour Marianne Williamson, because she really did have a brilliant way of bringing the teaching to life. And so that was really my entry point. And then in 2003, I read Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard. That cracked it open. Then suddenly I was reading the book. I was like, oh my God, this makes so much sense. But it took a long time for it making sense to become something that was living me. Like, the Course in Miracles, its greatest gift, which I don’t experience in Unity or Science of Mind, is reliance upon the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit does all of it. We don’t even talk about the Holy Spirit. Like, you know, Science of Mind, Mark, I don’t need a middleman. You know, they’re sort of very proud about their, you know, one connection with God, where the Course in Miracles is like, don’t kid yourself for a minute. You can’t put your way out of hell. Don’t even try. Don’t try. Use this.

James Masters: Your best efforts got you here.

Rainbow Weldon: This question is just coming to me right now, and I’m kind of forming it in the moment, but thinking about queering spirituality and the kind of queer lens on things, is there anything that has popped out to you in A Course in Miracles, if you were to look at it through kind of a queer lens, that has, or anything in the teaching that you’ve studied, that has helped your queer heart heal in some way?

Mark Anthony Lord: I love that question. And you guys, I’m so blunt. So bleep out my judgments. I’m so done apologizing and being nice.

Rainbow Weldon: Oh, I appreciate that. Just say it.

Mark Anthony Lord: Just forgiving, not apologizing.

Rainbow Weldon: Just forgiving.

Mark Anthony Lord: So what I want to say to that is, a lot of the Course in Miracles world is just very intellectual and white and sort of disconnected from the body. They’re misunderstanding the teaching, which is like, I am not a body. I am not a body. And so, you know, the ego looks for its bypass anywhere it can find it. And so that becomes a reason for people to stay up here and not let the body be used. That just wasn’t my experience. Like, to me, the Course in Miracles says, you know, your body is an instrument to be used by the Holy Spirit. So it’s to be used for my healing, which means the feeling nature of it, the experience of it, the breath work. All of that are vitally important to me. And that’s what the course led me to. It led me into my second chakra. It led me into bringing my sex and my spirituality together finally, and really deep diving into the gay sex culture, and facing all of my shame and all of that stuff that I was trying to keep buried while I was being the good minister.

Rainbow Weldon: Yes.

Mark Anthony Lord: And there’s shadows in the gay culture, sex culture, for sure. But there’s also a freedom that I didn’t allow myself to have. You know, to me, that’s where the course led me. It was like, you know, experience all of this. Set yourself free. I love my queer self more because of it. And this has been hard, to come out queer in my 50s.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: I was not binary, because, again, my generation doesn’t relate to it. Like, I need you guys who are 15 years younger, 20 years younger than me.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: Because I relate to you more than my generation, for some reason. It’s like the way I can just feel all of myself here. I don’t know about you guys, but as a queer man, I can feel this part of me when I’m in a room with women. I can feel this part when I’m with gay men. I can feel this part. Like, I never feel fully here.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: There’s something about a queer environment where I just

James Masters: breathe deeply.

James Masters: I love that. I really appreciate that you brought the body into the conversation, because I think that sometimes that’s what’s missing in our spiritual conversations. And I get what you’re saying about the body identification with A Course in Miracles. One of the things I appreciate with Myrtle Fillmore in particular, who you brought up earlier, if you really just summarize what her work, if you read through the letters and what she was talking about, it was the unification of body, mind, and spirit. That was her entire intention. And then even if you go back to Emma Curtis Hopkins stuff, that was her, that’s what she was trying to communicate too. And I really believe that the next generation of spirituality isn’t, it’s one thing or the other, but it’s this blending of all three. That’s what I am seeing. And I’m even seeing it in a lot of teachers now and speakers. So I just appreciate that you brought those together. Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah. Cool. Cool.

Rainbow Weldon: Yes. Tell us a little bit about some of your own spiritual practices, or way, that you mentioned breathwork, right? But how do you kind of move from that headspace, or intellectualizing spiritual principles, into actually embodying it, and opening the heart, and really that full, like, connecting, aligning with all of our energy centers? And yeah. So tell us a little bit about some of your practices.

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah. And I think the body is important, for me, in my path. And I think also, all the way back to what I mentioned, like being sexually abused at such a young age, that is also, like, you disconnect from your body, you know, really, really, like, in a traumatic way. So reclaiming that, getting back into it, is really important. I’m just like, I’ve done so much plant medicine that has been very powerful, and I’ve experienced healings in the body. Now, plant medicine is very visionary for me. It’s out there, but it also includes the body. I feel it in the body. It’s a phenomenal thing. So whether it’s ayahuasca or psilocybin or bufo, I’ve done all of those, and they’ve always been body-related for me. So that helps me.

I used to be a dancer, and so I’d make myself dance. I’m always like, get up, turn on a song, move my body. That helps me get into it. I mean, I have my meditations, I have my journaling practice in the morning, and I think those are very important. The breathwork, the dancing, the just, even being here now, you know, I did a lot of Tantra work when I left Bodhi, and Tantra really is very body centric and breath centric, and healing, getting that second chakra sexual power alive and moving. I mean, you know, and that’s not about the act of sex at all. That’s just getting energy awakened inside of you. That’s very body experience for me.

So, yeah, so it’s all those things that add up. But also my spiritual practice is, I’ll give you two very specific ones. When I’m out walking in the city, because I live in Chicago, there’s lots of people passing by. And my work is, you are one with God. You are one with God. I just shoot private little zaps. Because I don’t want my mind wandering down stupid avenues and dividing thoughts. I focused. So I just, from the person sitting homeless to the person driving by, and everybody else in between, that’s just a, I think that’s a good spiritual practice, because your mind’s going to wander. It’s going to wander to do something. So if you can train it and use it intentionally, I never lose. I never lose when I do that.

And something else I do pretty darn consistently, as soon as I do catch myself going off a tangent, or stuck in an attack thought, or beating someone else, beating someone up in my mind, what the mind does, I catch it and I do that breath. I’m like, Holy Spirit, right here. Right here. Change my mind. Like, it’s very on the field.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: So those, I mean, like, I’m doing, I’m kind of touching those throughout all my days, you know?

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that’s kind of, we’ve talked some in previous podcasts, too, about the evolution of our spiritual practice, being at first kind of rigid and structured, like you’re learning something, right? So you’re like, you have to do your daily practice, and your journal, your meditation. And then it gets to a point where it starts to be integrated into those everyday moments. And how can I allow this interaction, notice this thought, and move into it as an all the time way? But I do think it takes, we have to learn, like any dance steps. You have to learn the positions and learn the different steps, and then you can start to improvise and really bring it to life. So, yes, thanks for sharing that.

You know, I had another question, and you touched on it a little bit, around the idea of, in A Course in Miracles, kind of the illusion and the Holy Spirit. And then, like, this is all, the body’s not real. How do you experience the, what seems like a paradox, and it is, you know, but, of being fully alive in the joy of being this physical incarnation, right here, right now, and surrendering and opening to the Holy Spirit, in that something greater? I guess I’m asking, because sometimes what I’ve, questions I’ve had asked of me, well then, okay, if it’s all an illusion, or this isn’t real, it goes to the, well, why does it even matter? And would I be better off just going ahead and being in one spirit world, or whatever? It’s like, how do you move through a little bit of that paradox, or that nuance, of appreciating both in the moment, and make one better or more than, I don’t know. I know this is very binary, kind of, and I know the answer is beyond the binary, but I’m just setting you up, right? Very binary. Spirit or body? And then how do you navigate that? You queer it.

Mark Anthony Lord: It’s a good question. The first thing I want to say, and I wish people did this less, especially post-Miracles people: the body’s not real. There is a deep truth about that, but it’s not helpful. I think a better word is, the body is not what you are. Or all of that, what you are. Well, it’s not your identity.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: And that causes some identity. I put makeup on. I want it to look younger. I want this to be thinner. We actually do make it. We can nod and go, oh, yeah, I’m not my body. Yeah, but look deeper, because you really do believe you are.

James Masters: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: Well, that’s really the message. I don’t need to get into, is it here or isn’t it here. That’s my first step when I say, put the word real aside.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: And thank God it’s not what you are, because it’s going to age, it’s going to ache, and then it’s going to go. And so what we’re saying, in every one of our teachings says this, we are that something in back of it. We are that spirit that is eternal. So to me, it says the same thing. It says the same thing. Now, there are nuances that can go deeper, that are a little trickier as you get into it. But what I love in the Course, this was a game changer for me. It’s the only place I ever saw this. It talks about the story of Adam and Eve. And it says, in The Course in Miracles, nowhere does it ever say that Adam woke up. It says he fell asleep. And then, and then, then this story unfolds. Then he’s cast out of the garden. Then all these things are happening. And it says, and the world is still awaiting a collective awakening. I don’t know, that blows my mind. It’s so correct. That’s the missing piece. Because people have a God, that God threw them out of the garden, made them go out and disappear, exiled them. But the Course says, wait a minute, Adam fell asleep, and nowhere did he wake up. And while he’s sleeping in the garden, in the consciousness of heaven, he’s dreaming of this other world, of this other reality. And I love that idea. To me, I can relate to it.

So what’s the other reality? What’s the dream? Don’t worry about it being the table. Don’t worry about it being the light. Don’t worry about it being the things right now. The other dream is any thought that you’re overlaying on your experience, that is not love. If I believe I’m unworthy, that is not God’s thought. But if my world is overlaid with, I’m not worthy, and that’s how I’m seeing everything, I am living in an illusion. It’s the illusion that I’m not worthy. And from that illusion, everything I’m experiencing is bumping up and matching with that. You walk by me and don’t say hi to me. I think it’s because I’m not worthy. I’m creating an illusory fake experience. All the while I could be enjoying love and everybody. We have illusions of lack. We have illusions of not being good enough. We have illusions of shame. We have illusions of thinking that we’re bad and guilty. That’s what is not real. And those illusions have captured our mind, our eyes, our ears, our words. I mean, aren’t you glad that’s an illusion?

James Masters: Yeah.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah. That was such a, to me at least, a very clear distinction on, like, what is the illusion. Yeah. It’s really the misperception of, exactly.

Mark Anthony Lord: Misperception. And after, the Course says, the Course takes your misperception, and the miracle is moving you to your correct perception, which is oneness.

James Masters: Even the thought that I know what’s going to make me happy in the next moment, that’s just the dream. Because I don’t know. I mean, I have had achievements where I’m like, wait a minute, I’m not nearly as happy.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s the deeper layers that the course brings us to. When you’re ready to be humble and say, I don’t even know what makes me happy.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: That’s such a beautiful surrender. But, you know, not everyone starts there.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: Beautiful. That’s a good conversation. I’m all lit up here.

Rainbow Weldon: Yes.

James Masters: Yeah.

Rainbow Weldon: If you could go back and tell your young queer child anything right now, what would that be?

Mark Anthony Lord: Gosh. Gosh, now you’re going to take me into a prac session. That’s a great question, but I don’t want something trite, you know?

Rainbow Weldon: I know, yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: But what I’m feeling is, you took me to, and maybe this is just what I need to say first, is like, it was so painful to feel like a girl on the inside, and to have this boy’s body. And both of them were correct. I’m not transgender. I’ve wondered that. Like, I really had to, like, go, I’m such a girl on the inside, but I like my body. Like, that was the weird, that’s what made the difference for me, was that. Say, no, this body feels really good and natural to me. And there’s this whole girl.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: And that’s really, it’s so lonely. I really thought God made a mistake. Something got wrong. Something was wired incorrectly. And so, that, it was just so hard every day. And the moment my eyes open, I’m pretending. I’m trying to pretend. Everyone could see it a mile away. You know, I mean, music would play, an indoor recess, and I couldn’t.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: I wish we all went to school together.

Rainbow Weldon: Right.

Mark Anthony Lord: All right. So, so it was so hard. You know, what I know is that somehow I was surrounded with some golden light of protection.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: Don’t know how I was. I was never hurt. I was never hit. I was never, I mean, I was made fun of. I was definitely bullied. I was definitely scared.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: But something, something kept, kept me safe. I wish I could answer that question, Rainbow, but even saying like, you’ll make it through, it all feels a little trite, or something.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: I don’t know.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: But I will say to you, like, just to be witness, like, I don’t know how I made it through.

Rainbow Weldon: It was so hard.

Mark Anthony Lord: And God bless all of us out there, who are all these kids that still, even though we’ve come a long way, don’t feel safe to be themselves. I’m sure yours was a very different, Rainbow. I don’t know if you knew. Did you know that you were? I don’t know what your orientation is today.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah, I identify as queer. And when I was younger, it wasn’t, even though I had all these examples, right? Like, I actually had an out gay male minister when I was, you know, a kid and a teenager, and was around a lot of, you know, queer folks and gay folks. I always felt different, and yet it wasn’t, but I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like that wasn’t what made me feel different, you know, but there were moments, like, where I didn’t understand, when I was five years old, why I couldn’t run around the neighborhood in just shorts, because it’s hot in Atlanta. And why the boy next door, look, body looks just like mine. Why do I have to put on a shirt? You know, so like all of those kind of things, where I’d always just kind of question the things that were more of these gender binary things, and like, but why? And, you know, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have the experience of feeling like I knew, and I was hiding something. It just was kind of, I was even blind to it myself. But then when I came out, when I moved to Chicago as a young adult, looking back, it was all like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. I just, you know, for whatever reason, had really thick blinders on. And it continues to evolve and change as well. And what that looks like, which I think is the nature of life. We’re always growing and changing and changing. Along for that ride, for sure.

James Masters: Yeah, yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: What about you? I want to know your childhood now.

James Masters: Oh, I mean, I grew up in a very evangelical, you know, Christian background. And so I experienced what psychologists would call, so, sexual orientation, gender identity change efforts, right? Conversion therapy. So, three official programs. When it comes to identity, like, I knew very young. I just didn’t have the language for it. But the way that you described your experience of like, I’m a girl on the inside and a boy on the outside, and that makes a lot of sense to me. I definitely don’t fit in a binary category. And I think that, you know, when I was very young, I came out as gay, and that seemed, you know, to make sense. And I don’t know if I would use that label now. I think that the one thing, that as our understanding has evolved, and we have new labels, we have new ways of, you know, talking about our experiences, I appreciate that, because I find, you know, oh, that makes a lot more sense. You know, I wouldn’t necessarily say, I mean, I would say I’m gay now. But I’m more than that. Like, you know, there’s more to me than that. And so I just really appreciate how we’ve evolved, you know, this conversation within the community.

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah, I do too.

James Masters: You guys are amazing.

Rainbow Weldon: Well, we are kind of, I feel like we’re just rock and roll through so much great content, getting near the end of our time. But one of the questions that we like to ask is around this idea of, what do you think the world at large, or kind of society, could benefit from learning, or benefit from knowing something that the queer community embodies? That was kind of a really odd way of asking that question. But James, do you get what I’m saying? Or can you ask it more succinctly? Because I kind of felt like I went on a journey with that one.

James Masters: There was a journey. I don’t know where you were taking us on that journey, to be honest.

Mark Anthony Lord: How would the world benefit from it?

Rainbow Weldon: From queerness, essentially, yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: I thought you were going somewhere else, but yeah, I can wrap my...

Rainbow Weldon: But wherever else you thought I was going, maybe that was a little spirit moment. So if something else came through you that you want to share, feel free.

Mark Anthony Lord: I do want to share this, because this is like, what could the world benefit from, period, from us right now, our spirituality. One of my heroes is Byron Katie. I’ve spoken about her more times than I can count. And it’s so simple, her teaching. She says, there’s my business, your business, and God’s business. And whenever I’m in your business, I’m in hell. Whenever I’m in God’s business, I am in hell. The only place I know peace is in my business. I call that living in my hula hoop. And we all lived in our own hula hoop, meaning clean up your own stuff, heal your own relationship. But we’re obsessed with pointing out there, in the big world. We’re obsessed with projecting out there, oh my God, this horrible president, this horrible political party, this horrible food system. Out there, out there, out there. It is the grand illusion that keeps us in our suffering. If everyone would just get in their own hula hoop and do their spiritual work, do their forgiveness work, do their own work here, that is intimately connected to healing the macrocosm. The microcosm is the expression. And in fact, waiting for the macrocosm to change is the perfect way to keep us all stuck. So I don’t know, for anyone who has ears to hear, stop focusing out there. I’m always like, what’s in my hula hoop today? What is mine to forgive, and mine to do, that I can actually do? They’re connected, but the illusion is they’re not. So that’s one thought I had.

But I do like the second part of the question. And what I love about the queer world is there is, and it is probably what everyone would say, maybe, I don’t know, it’s very evident to me, the inclusivity. The way, I was at a gathering, a kind of a potluck, a queer potluck here in the city. And about five or six queer people live in this gigantic two-story, like, they took over this place and turned it into a community place. And there’s probably 30 to 40 queer people there. It was gorgeous. The different clothings, the different styles, the different gender, everything in the room. And I feel like the outside world would have called it a room of freaks. I’m calling it a room of beauty and color and aliveness, and no judgment. You guys, like, no judgment. Also, like, they had a, in the corner, they had a, you could pile up clothes you’re not using, for people who need them.

Rainbow Weldon: Yes.

Mark Anthony Lord: The sharing.

Rainbow Weldon: Yes.

Mark Anthony Lord: The sharing in this household was stunning.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah.

Mark Anthony Lord: It was beautiful. That’s what I want the world to see, and to, you know, practice that.

Rainbow Weldon: I love that. Yes. And I do agree that queer spaces allow me to notice and quickly release my judgments around anything, but especially, like, appearances and stuff like that. And like, but wait, but like, I might feel a little discomfort, or like, oh, I want to just, and then I immediately question it, because my nervous system is in such a state of safety and joy in this space. And I’m like, well, why do, why does that even matter? Good for them, you know? And then I’m like, ah, you know, and that, bringing it back to, like, just, that is a spiritual practice, you know, and opening to the love. And sometimes the love can be contagious in those spaces, to the freedom and the joy. And another thing I really appreciate about the queer community is what you said about the sharing, and the willingness to show up for each other, generosity, generosity of spirit. And generosity of, like, complimenting and loving up and supporting, you know, I feel like there’s just such an energy of support and care as well, which I think is, would love to see, the ideal for all, for all beings, you know?

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah, the other thing that can happen, interesting, when you walk into a room where everyone is so free, and dressed so creatively, it also hits in me that, like, ooh, do I have the courage to do that? Like, you know what I mean? Also, it tests my edges, and says, why am I so boxed up here? And I don’t know, but it makes me wonder, could I wear that skirt?

Rainbow Weldon: Right.

Mark Anthony Lord: You know what

James Masters: I mean? Yeah. And when we’re able to, oh, this is how I want to express, we’re giving other people permission to do that, too.

Rainbow Weldon: Mm-hmm.

James Masters: I love that. Well, before we close, can you tell us, do you have any projects that you want to share, that you’re working on, or where can people find you? Is there anything you want to share with the...

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah, my website, markanthonylord.me. That’s my actual name. It’s Mark Anthony Lord. Okay. And what I’m really building right now are my, what I call intuitive channeled healing sessions, where I connect to the Holy Spirit, and through that connection could really kind of deep dive in, like, kind of more surgery kind of thing, could really go in and see, and just, my psychic abilities, largely through the course and the work I’ve done, have really opened up, and they’re in service to God. And I love doing those. I love doing those kinds of sessions. I’ve also created some programs that will be remodeled and reformed, because that’s what I do nonstop. But really, I think mostly, if anyone’s looking for some deeper assistance, and to really dive in and get some more deeper work done more quickly, I love to do that work. And I’m grateful that I have that gift, and I love sharing it. So you can learn more on my website. I’ll actually give you guys a link, so that you can have a half price code for that.

Rainbow Weldon: So beautiful. Thank you.

Mark Anthony Lord: And we appreciate you. I want to come back and hang out sometime. Please don’t let this be fun.

Rainbow Weldon: Oh, for sure. Yes. We will put you on the recurring cast list. How about that?

Mark Anthony Lord: Yeah.

Rainbow Weldon: I love that idea. Yes. And yes, be sure to also check out Mark’s Substack. You know, that’s another place that you can follow along.

Mark Anthony Lord: I just changed the name, by the way, to Holy and Shameless.

Rainbow Weldon: Yeah. Holy and Shameless. Check out Holy and Shameless. Saw that today.

Mark Anthony Lord: Yes, it’s great.

Rainbow Weldon: And I love that intention of just being boldly authentic, and no more hiding in the corners of shame. Because, yep, we’re here to be free and liberated, and love and enjoy this thing called life.

Mark Anthony Lord: Yes.

Rainbow Weldon: Well, thank you so much, Mark Anthony Lord. And good to see you and be with you always as well, James. And until next time.

James Masters: Thank you guys. Love you all. Bye.

Rainbow Weldon: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Get full access to Queer Spirit Collective at https://queerspiritcollective.substack.com/subscribe

Rev. Rainbow Weldon (they/them) is an ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister and the founder and curator of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy, and spirituality. They are passionate about helping folks transform self-doubt into a more joyful, creative, and authentic life.

Follow them Rainbow Weldon

James Masters (he/they) is a Kansas City artist working in watercolor, gouache, and ink, and a studio artist at Images Art Gallery. He runs the Pure Joy Snail Mail Club and writes the Inspired2Be Substack.

Follow them at James Masters

Transcript: Queer as Faith — Episode 2

Cleaned and edited for readability.

Last week we had Amy Steinberg on the Queer as Faith podcast and we discussed creativity. This week we want to offer an activation for creativity.

Creativity is often thought of as a specialized talent. That person is a singer, author, painter, etc. Essentially creativity is thought of as a task and in our culture, the goal is often to find a way to monetize.

Within New Thought, creativity is frequently thought of differently. Eric Butterworth, a prominent New Thought teacher in the 70’s and 80’s referred to creativity as a hallmark of a fully functioning person.

Creativity is a state of being in tune with the inner rhythms of your inner nature and experiencing the free flow of divine processes like guidance, life, substance, and love.

So, why is Creativity Important? Creativity is essential because it is the means by which we move from survival into abundant living. Creativity is an innate part of being human. We are a thinking, feeling, and creative species. In Butterworth’s words, “To be human is to be in the express business of embodying the divine element within you in the outside world.”

When we express ourselves creativity it is a continuation of the divine effort that made humanity in the first place. Without the release of your inner genius, the soul becomes starved by a preoccupation with the material aspects of life.

The one thing to keep in mind is that we do not generate creativity from outside of ourselves. It is something that is released from within. It is true we can learn skills and techniques that can enhance our creative expressions. However, creativity is something we release when we are in the flow of life.

One major way we can access our own creativity is to practice receptivity. Humans do not create the energy and inspiration needed to be creative, we just need to provide the conditions for the existing energy to express. So, creativity is receptivity.

One way to tap into our creative potential is to take give ourselves a bit of space to still the noise and get into the intuitive flow of the Infinite Mind. God, being infinite presence is fully present in it’s entirely in every point in time and space. This means that the natural creative flow of the universe is equally present in it’s fullness in every point in time and space. The same level of inspiration that motivated Mozart, Davinci, Picasso, and Shakespeare is also within you. This level of mind contains the “wisdom of the ages” and provides the flashes of inspiration that transcend logic.

The purpose for creativity is the full becoming of your potential. Although, I don’t like the word potential. It almost seems too much to live up to and many people used that word to create shame or guilt. In my nervous system workshops I lean more into the word capacity. Our capacity often changes day by day and when we are less interested in potential and more interested in capacity, we are able to create miracles in our lives. The practices that help us create peace and calm in our experiences are the same practices that expand our capacity each day. Whether it is prayer, meditation, yoga, time in nature, a religious sacrament, and so on.

Tapping into your creative flow is a catalyst for self-realization. This is expressed beautifully in a section of Robert Browning’s poem Paracelsus:

TRUTH is within ourselves; it takes no riseFrom outward things, whate’er you may believe.There is an inmost centre in us all,Where truth abides in fullness; and around,opening out a wayWhence the imprisoned splendour may escape,Than in effecting entry for a lightSupposed to be without.

Creativity goes beyond just self-realization. It is the expression of your imprisoned splendor. There is something within you that wants to be expressed. Expressing it is a service to the world. As our beloved friend Amy Stienberg often says, ‘The fruit is not for the trees.” When you express yourself creativity it your gift to humanity.

Queer Spirit Collective is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Get full access to Queer Spirit Collective at https://queerspiritcollective.substack.com/subscribe

Rev. Rainbow Weldon (they/them) is an ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister and the founder and curator of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy, and spirituality. They are passionate about helping folks transform self-doubt into a more joyful, creative, and authentic life.

Follow them Rainbow Weldon

James Masters (he/they) is a Kansas City artist working in watercolor, gouache, and ink, and a studio artist at Images Art Gallery. He runs the Pure Joy Snail Mail Club and writes the Inspired2Be Substack.

Follow them at James Masters

Transcript: Queer as Faith — Episode 2

Cleaned and edited for readability.

Rainbow Weldon: And welcome back to another episode of Queer as Faith, the podcast with your hosts, me, Reverend Rainbow, and...

James Masters: James Masters.

Rainbow: Wherever you may be on the screen, it looks like this to me.

James: I don’t know. I think it shows up differently. After we see the recording, I’ve noticed that the placing is a little different, especially for vertical view. Like sometimes you’re above me and sometimes you’re below.

Rainbow: So I’ll just do all the directions.

James: Yeah. We’re all, you know, there’s oneness here. There’s unitivity.

Rainbow: So today is another episode where it is just James and I, and not that “just” accurately describes it, because we have so many wonderful things to share with you.

James: I was going to say our conversations are a lot of fun.

Rainbow: I agree. But no other guests today. And we want to talk a little bit about this idea of authenticity, and especially the intersection of our identities of being queer as well as spiritual. And how do we show up authentically as both of those in spaces where often those can be antithetical. But both you and I have chosen the path to walk both of those worlds in a fiercely, audaciously, boldly, authentic way, I would say.

James: Yeah, absolutely.

Rainbow: Yeah. So I was just looking at your Substack article called “You’re Not What You Think You Are.” And you talk a lot about reclamation and being your true self. So maybe you just kind of start there and tell me a little bit about what inspired that article for you and why you think it’s an important topic.

James: You know, I mean, full transparency, the thing that motivated me to write that was I was kind of going through a challenging time with a few colleagues. And I was realizing some of what they were perceiving was not necessarily what I was trying to communicate. And I think that they were creating an entire storyline behind something very simple. Like I had to take a step back on a project and there was a whole narrative that was taking place sort of behind the scenes with the board and everything that wasn’t necessarily taking place in my personal life. And when I realized that, like it came up in conversation, I was like, you know, it just reminds me that I’m not who I think I am. Like I have this idea of this is James. This is the personality. I’m all of these different things. I’m an artist. But there is a self beyond that, a capital S Self that is deeper than those perceptions and those judgments. And I mean, everything with that situation worked itself out. It was wonderful, which I trusted that it was going to. But that’s really what motivated me, is we’re not the thoughts and opinions of ourself. We’re not even our own thoughts and opinions. We’re certainly not the thoughts and opinions of others because they have a very limited perspective, right? But even our own perception and what we think of as personality, there is a self beyond that.

Robert Holden, who’s an author, writes a lot about A Course in Miracles. He always poses the question of, who are you after the final judgment? Who is that person after the final judgment? And that’s sort of what I was leaning into in that particular Substack.

Rainbow: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it’s so interesting to find that nuanced space of embracing our uniqueness and our personality and all of our unique quirkiness and weirdness and silliness and gifts and talents and preferences and all those things that make us who we are, and to remember that I love the analogy about the waves in the ocean, right? So we are all these unique waves and experiencing the ocean itself as a moment that is this beautiful wave. But let us not also forget the ocean. We can’t just look at all the different waves and think that’s all that it is, you know, we are made of the ocean.

So that kind of, you know, and I’m noticing how much in spiritual spaces there is a lot of hierarchical language. And so that’s just been something recently I’ve just been noticing and trying to see if there’s some ways to shift it. So even this idea of like, I’ve always said my higher self, right? Our big S self, low s self, right? Small self, you know, so it’s like there’s all these comparisons that still no matter what, it makes it sound like one is better than the other, as opposed to this more linear essence of like we are all one and then we have an aspect of us that is individuated. I don’t know. That’s just something I contemplate a lot and how, you know, this idea of like inner guidance and listening and trusting ourselves and filtering things, not just through the lens of the status quo world, but through our own personality of what works for us uniquely.

But I often find the stillness and tapping into that bigger energy of the collective, of spirit, of God, of love, it helps to inform me in a way so that I don’t just get caught up in more of what I would call the ego or small mind thinking of comparison and judgment and this or that, and how to live in that space of allness.

James: Yeah, I agree. And I do think the uniqueness is the point, right? There’s no two waves alike. There’s no two daisies. There’s no two flowers. There’s no two birds. Everything is an expression of this one divine mind, right? But then the uniqueness is the point. The challenge, I think, is when we get caught up in, I have to embody this label. And I know I’ve done this particularly with jobs. I get really emotionally invested in, oh, this is just my identity. And I think with this conversation, one of the most valuable things we can get from this conversation is that, yes, we came here to express in that way, but when we allow that to become our whole identity, if something doesn’t work out, like if the funding gets lost, if something doesn’t work out exactly for that role and you might have to shift roles. And I think that that might be a better way of saying we’re not the roles that we play. We’re bigger than the roles that we play. And that’s the bigger self, not separate from those identities and those roles, but that there is a self that is beyond the roles that we take on and the roles that we express as.

Rainbow: For sure. And funny, I just actually wrote my latest Substack, as from when we’re recording this now, not when you’re listening to this, around this topic too. And I called it The Sacred Unraveling because for me, it was the past year or two has been what I’m now seeing as the sacred unraveling, right? Like a bit of that dark night of the soul, ego’s journey, our ego death, and discovering who I am outside of all those roles and labels, as those circumstances in my life have all kind of shifted one by one.

And one of the more recent ones being changing from being this spiritual director, senior minister, pastor, pulpit minister role of ministry to queering ministry and creating Queer Spirit Collective, this podcast, writing through Substack, all these things that I’m doing. But letting go of, or first realizing how much I had wrapped up my identity and who knows what, like worth, value, all these different things to that. Both the productivity of it, but also, because that’s another thing that informs our mindset is capitalism. That’s the world we swim in. And it’s like, how to be more productive? Go, go, go, go. And so it’s like, I’m choosing to slow down, to be more, but also to sit in that quietude of who I am outside of the role of minister, of anything that I’m doing.

And that’s just one aspect. Like I mentioned, I’ve had a domino effect of change from also really being caregiver and daughter when my mom transitioned. What does that look like now? And that was so much of my time and energy. And then as well as separating from a long-term relationship and experiencing divorce and going from parenting full-time in the same house to now co-parenting and shared time. And so all of that changed in such a short amount of time, relatively speaking, that it kind of was like the universe saying, okay, Rainbow, you’re going to get to know you now and you’re going to slow down, chill out, see what you love, what you want to do, not let any other voices come into play.

And so it was like getting in touch with that wave, the individual self of me, and first kind of dropping down into that vast nothingness through a lot of stillness and quiet and meditation and spiritual practice and connecting with the one, and then allowing love. So it’s almost like I’m seeing this analogy now, right? Like, okay. It just feels almost like one wave kind of came to shore and then the water pulls back up and gets all mixed up. And now this is kind of like second generation, midlife, second half of Rainbow forming a new wave. But still that uniqueness of all the things that I am as Spirit expressing itself through me now from what I know and have experienced now, which is what I also know is that that also too will change because we’re always growing and changing and becoming. And so it’s more like, who am I now? What am I becoming now? And what, outside of any roles or labels or hats that I may be wearing?

James: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it can feel painful. I mean, there’s a grief that goes along with that separation of our ideas, who we are as this particular role. And, you know, it’s called a lot of different things. Chemicalization in New Thought, some New Thought circles, but then, you know, the dark night of the soul. Although I don’t really think the soul can have a dark night. It’s really the dark night of the ego, but it’s very real when we’re going through it. It can be very painful as well. So, and I think that honoring that, you know, knowing that we’re not stuck in that, like there is something else going on. And that’s, it’s really the transition of, you know, that idea of the small self, not that it’s separate, but the idea of that small self being our identity to, well, who am I without these particular roles? Like what, who am I?

And I think that there’s some core principles that we can take on and go, oh, I mean, we are creative. I believe every human being is creative. Now, I don’t think that means every human being is an artist, but every human being has something within them to express. And I think that sometimes when we go, not sometimes, a lot of times when people go through these dark nights, they come out with this new creative potential unleashed. Have you noticed that? I’ve definitely noticed that every time I’ve been through my own dark night experiences is that something new is expressed that feels more in alignment with the true identity or my authenticity.

Not that I go from bad to good. I like it in the Bible. Paul says we go from glory to glory, right? And I like that perspective much better, instead of going from bad to good, because I think that we’re all constantly changing. I know for me, one of the most important lessons that I learned is to love myself through all the stages. Even if I’m a chaos gremlin, which I can be, which we all can be, right? We all can be.

Rainbow: Let’s just embrace it.

James: Yeah, learning to love that part of myself because when we do, then we do a lot less damage in relationships and in situations and circumstances. Oh, for sure. Rather than trying to reject that part. And so I think, you know, what do you think about that? Recognizing that all of us is worth loving.

Rainbow: Oh, yes. I think that is so part of that healing journey. And to actually fully be authentic, we get to know ourselves and love all parts of ourselves. So then we’re not ever feeling like we have to hide anything or be shameful of anything or just have to be so aware of like how we show up in certain spaces or places. Like all of that is a very guarded way of living based on because there’s a right or wrong or shame or whatever that can be ingrained in us that we don’t even realize we’re operating that way until some things start to open up or shift in our lives. And then we’re like, wow. And can become aware of like, oh, that was holding me back or that there’s that belief or there’s where that came from and that, you know, and choosing to let that go and love ourselves in that process and give ourselves the compassion for, well, that’s why I was reacting in that way or, you know, why I have these certain behavior patterns or habits. And once we become aware of them, then we can love ourselves. And just say, you know, like, yeah, I get it, with all that you’ve gone through.

James: Talking to myself right now.

Rainbow: Right? Like with all that you’ve gone through, Rainbow, of course you’d be grouchy and whatnot. You know, whatever the situation may be that we may be judging ourselves, thinking that we’re supposed to be perfect and beautiful all the time and kind and loving. And a lot of the positive spirituality that we both engage in with New Thought can make it feel or seem like we only want to talk about what’s good. And we’re only doing this right if we’re feeling happy, happy, joy, joy. And yet those can just be masks or band-aids on top of the wound instead of allowing it to get in there and really experience itself, the feelings.

And what I’ve noticed too is when I’ve actually paused and give space to the feeling, it moves through me. I name it, acknowledge it, move my body a little bit, doodle about it, share with somebody like, I’m feeling, I’m just feeling down. I don’t get it. I’m sad. I’m thinking of this and that. I’m noticing that. Whatever the process may be, but giving ourself to then just... For me, the go-to has always been, without even realizing it, really, it’s just that default, right? It’s just go into doing. Keep moving. Go do something else. Get your mind right. Focus on what you want. Keep it positive. And it’s like a trick that can work. But if there’s something that hasn’t quite been brought to the surface in a way for healing, it’s going to come up and it’s just going to come up at some point, that’s going to be a lot less convenient is what I’ve experienced. And so giving myself that time.

James: And I just refuse to abandon parts of myself anymore. I have found ways to express those feelings that are not necessarily positive, right? I do it in my artwork. But even those aspects of ourself, I found, at least in me, they need to be expressed. That is a requirement. And I abandoned, you know, so many times I’ve just abandoned those parts of myself over the years. And those things will just keep coming back around, whether it’s, you know, in relationships or in circumstances or in jobs. We will just keep recreating it until we’re able to find a way to express without harm. And for me, it was painting pictures. Like I was able to put fear on, you know, on the canvas. I’ve put, you know... trauma and anger and all of that stuff on the canvas. And the craziest thing is those are my top selling paintings. Like the ones that are, and I’m telling you, like, I remember, in fact, I would not even be in galleries today had it not been for one of my most, to me, it was horrifying. Like I was scribbling on a paper and I was like trying to make it as ugly as I could because I was painting what it felt like to have anxiety and fear and running that tape over and over and over again. And so I was putting that on a piece of paper, allowing myself to express this is what it feels like. And in a support group that I’m in, one of the support groups I’m in, I posted, I said, this is how I’m feeling right now. And immediately somebody said, can I get a print of that picture? And I was like, what? Because it was literally the ugliest thing I’ve ever painted. And that was when I started... You know, that was kind of the first domino that, you know, I started, I made a print of that one. I said, well, if I’m making a print of that one, I might as well make prints of these other, you know, few that I really liked. And then I, you know, I went to an art event, you know, to sell prints and to sell originals. And it just kind of spiraled from there. So it was actually one of those, I’m going to express this really somewhat dark feeling on the paper. And somebody resonated with that realness and was like, I need that. I couldn’t imagine having that very ugly picture on my wall, but you know what? To each his own.

Rainbow: Yes. And I think that’s what really creativity and art is such a beautiful catalyst for. We can relate to the authenticity of the feeling that was coming through it. And it is like you said, we resonate with each other’s humanity and not just the happy, happy joy stuff, but allowing ourselves to love and embrace all of that. And it’s not easy and it’s not like there’s some easy formula. I’m like, well, how do you feel your feelings? I’m like, I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out.

James: But when you do, let me know.

Rainbow: Yes, exactly. The baby learnings I’ve had so far are to acknowledge it. And to not go to a default, go do something else to ignore it. So giving it enough space to just be with for a bit in some kind of process is often helpful too for me. I’m very kinesthetic. So like moving my body or like I said, like doodling or journaling, painting you shared. Yeah, and I think a lot of great art comes from that place too. So then it’s a reminder for other people and an invitation to feel. It’s okay to feel.

James: It’s okay to feel. And it doesn’t, you know, like we, one of the things we said while we were prepping for this, one of the things we were talking about was, you know, that idea of capital S and lowercase s self. And the capital S self came to express as the, you know, like we are the expressions of this and that all parts of that expression are innately good. All of what we are is God. And I love that statement, you know, I’m not all of what God is, but all that I am is God. And I really like that. You know, I am an expression of divine love. I am an expression of... And in that expression, I have a variety of human experiences. And that variety of human experiences equals the goodness. It’s how we evolve. If you look at how biological evolution works, there’s usually something within an environment that is challenging a species. And they have to overcome that. The ones who have a specific characteristic that are able to push through whatever challenge is being faced. That is passed down genetically, that characteristic. And that’s how evolution takes place. And I think that soul evolution is pretty much the same way. We have to face something. It’s like, oh, this is going to kill me, right? But it doesn’t. Something in our spiritual DNA, something foundational within us changes and shifts. And then we get to carry that. Yes. On and on and on.

Rainbow: I love that. And when you mentioned the small self, capital S self or whatever. Again, it reminded me the point I was making earlier about when I noticed how much hierarchical language there was. That’s when this idea of always self came to me. And as opposed to my higher self, I started calling it my always self because it’s also that part of me that is eternal, never hurt or harmed. That is that essence that is always self. That is that cosmic stuff, but yet it’s also uniquely Rainbow in this life. I don’t personally believe that it’s like Rainbow. I don’t know, like it is expressing itself right now as Rainbow. And there’s parts of me that are always through perhaps different even timelines, dimensions, who knows what quantum physics is opening up the world on that, but that there is some kind of, as Ernest Holmes puts it, continuity of the soul. So I’m calling that Rainbow right now because that’s my name now. But I’m not saying it’s like exactly who I am now has always or always will be. Like I think I have different forms and expressions and different dimensions. And maybe some of them are happening simultaneously. And as I work and heal something in my life right now, it goes out in other healings, other aspects of my soul somewhere. I don’t know. These are things I just think are fun to contemplate.

James: There’s certainly a ripple effect though. Not just with our own soul, but there’s a ripple effect on the planet.

Rainbow: Oh yeah.

James: Creativity, when we express ourselves, when we show up authentically, there’s a ripple effect that gives other people permission to do the same thing.

Rainbow: Yes.

James: I’m a part of a group that we create bad art. I love that. That is the goal. And the reason behind that is there is a ripple effect that just allows people to be creative. Not to be creative to be in a gallery or not to be creative. Just be creative. And so there is this ripple effect every time we make a choice.

Rainbow: Yeah. Yeah.

James: But, you know, for authenticity, there’s a ripple effect, I believe, that happens on the whole planet. And, I mean, it would make sense because there is, you know, we are all interconnected. You know, Unity, you know, that’s kind of the reason why Unity has the name Unity is that, you know, that interconnectedness of all things.

Rainbow: And I would definitely notice that idea of being more authentic and even vulnerable in it. Providing permission for other people. And I would say that was something I definitely came naturally to me as that kind of pulpit ministry minister that I think could be sometimes a little bit queer in the way that it challenges the status quo of I’m not trying to show up and look like I have it all together and tell you this is what you need to do because I know and I have it all together. And I would share very authentically. And be willing to laugh at myself when I made a mistake, when I stumbled over a word or said something. You know, we’ve all had those moments where, well, at least I talk fast. So, right, like I’m talking and sometimes a word comes out and I say something that I definitely didn’t mean to say. And to be willing to be like, oh, well, no, and just go with it, laugh at myself and like moving on or like had a moment of like, you know, stepping up on the platform and kind of stumbling and tripping. I’m like, oh, okay, you know, instead of like having to be like, I have it all together and how, don’t dare, you know, act like you noticed that. I make a big funny scene about it, you know, and laugh about it. I’m like, well, did we just, you know, get that step? No, it’s been here for 10 years.

James: I think that’s one of the biggest... oh, go ahead.

Rainbow: I was just going to say, the feedback I would hear from people is like, wow, when you share this, when you did, thank you, or I thought of that here, or I was able to be more this or to, not be so hard on myself or start to laugh at myself more or when I make a mistake in front of people. I admire how you would so willingly be able to say when you made a mistake or make a correction or whatever. I think that is definitely something that the world could use a lot more of. People just be willing to admit that it’s okay to be weird and different and make a mistake.

James: Yeah. Well, I think that’s one of the biggest challenges and pitfalls within ministry itself or any kind of community leadership is that needing to present as perfect, needing to show up with... I just think that’s a big pitfall.

I did want to go back to the capital S and lowercase s self. To me, I think the biggest example of the two, what did you call it? The permanent or not? Always self. The always self, right? The always self is what we would have before called the capitalized self. The always self is like joy. It’s something intrinsic. It’s something that is not conditioned based off of our conditions, right? Whereas happiness is definitely... That is a different quality. You know, I have the Pure Joy Mail Club and I’ve had people ask me like, how can you put this out all the time? Are you just happy all the time? I’m like, absolutely not. No. But there is an innate joy that comes with, you know, my practices that I’ve cultivated for 20 years. And so I think that that is, you know, it is really relative to what we’ve been talking about. So happiness, you know, if I have the right job, house, car, and spouse, oh, my life is good and I’m happy. But the reality is the presence of joy and the presence of peace and the presence of love, all three of those things are intrinsic. They are not about circumstances. They are not about, you know, I mean, we can love people and say, you know, this is not healthy. I have to walk away. We can love people and, you know, while they’re walking away and, you know, bless them. And so there’s all these different aspects and elements to our lives that, you know, we have that inner self, that higher self or that always self. There are qualities to that that are a bit different than the physical qualities, the way that we express in this realm. Does that make sense?

Rainbow: Oh, totally. And that was a lot of my mental work in those recent times too when a lot of circumstances and conditions in my life were changing and quite challenging to be like, okay, how can I know peace? How can I know joy in this moment without, you know, it was a very dire financial situation, you know, and it’s like, okay, how can I know joy? Comfort and safety and love and joy and peace and trust, even though this and this and this looks like this. And not saying that I wasn’t also feeling all the feelings and doing things in this kind of conditional world, but also doing the work in consciousness in my mind to tap into those innate qualities of who I am and then kind of let that guide, lead, be the magnetic force for the new conditions to come into my life, to line up, to be that resonant match of who I am today. And having gone through all of that and finding such a deep space of love and self-acceptance, then those conditions start to shake up and crumble and change. And in that, that to me was the most challenging part, the not knowing, the crumbling, the in between spaces of this old thing isn’t working and or, you know, death, you know, it just is now and it’s not there anymore. So whether it be, you know, things not working or falling out of your life for other reasons, and not knowing what’s next, but yet knowing that, taking that opportunity to sit in that space and allow it to shape me, to help me grow and change and become an opportunity to love myself and a lot of alone time instead of the activity of life and doing everything for everyone else, sitting in that discomfort long enough to really feel the generative nature of that coming up and coming through me and the joy and the beauty and helps me specifically like getting in touch with awe through nature and creativity and creating things and having deep thoughts of conversations or enjoying other people’s art and other things when, you know, because sometimes in those places as a creative, you do feel like your well is dry and you have nothing, you know, until, so it’s just soaking up the love and the energy of the people in my life that I would choose to be there consciously, and allowing that to, again, be that kind of like resonance. It’s like a tuning fork and allowing that vibration to come from within of love, of joy. So no matter the circumstance, being in that space, feeling it, it’s right. It’s like circumstance happens. We feel it as a human, have all the thoughts about how good or bad it is or whatnot. Get through our anger and frustration, our fear, notice it through the process. And I mean, it’s not like it’s so linear, but, you know, and then it’s like, oh, experience some joy. Oh, a little bit of shift to freedom. Oh, look at that amazing sunset. Oh, look at this moment. And then, you know, it’s just an integration process of evolution, of growing, of becoming. But those qualities of the always self exist. Are eternal and are the same. I like this idea of like truth or whatever being like the same for everyone. Not necessarily how we experience joy, but the quality of joy is the same for everyone. And those are the qualities of the always self that we can tune in and tap into consciously and through different practices.

Do you have a spiritual practice or something?

James: Well, I’ve been meditating for as long as I can remember, for 26, 27 years now. It started out even within the evangelical Christian church. I got really tuned into the Christian mystics. And that’s when I started contemplative prayer. I wouldn’t have called it meditation back then and centering prayer and all of that. Yeah. I mean, I think creative expression is a spiritual practice.

But there was one thing that you had said about not knowing what’s next when you were going through all of this and you’re like, ah, not knowing. Have you ever though? Like seriously, because I’ve never. I’m always surprised. I’m like, oh, okay. I’m usually surprised in a positive way. Not always, but yeah, I’ve never known what’s next.

Rainbow: Yeah, I often, I would try to think I would know by making, moving really fast and making a plan. And thinking, I have a plan. But at that point, most recently, I didn’t have a plan. I just really had to surrender and see what was unfolding as opposed to my ego mind saying, oh, this is happening. We’re going to make a plan and make it good. We have resources. And there’s something that then... It’s a different experience from then having everything just like surrendering to, I don’t know what’s meant.

James: So it’s not having a routine is what was happening. Because I know I experienced that too. I have a question. Did you notice that when your routine was broken, when all of those things were happening, did time slow way down?

Rainbow: Time has gotten so weird recently. Both slowing down. Because it’s not just like the everyday, you know, and then feeling like, whoa, at the end of the day, sometimes like, that was today? This was all one day when, you know, this happened or that conversation or this place, and now I’m here. And then there’s been other times that it’s like, you just blink in a way, like, it’s like, oh, now it’s been a week. But like, it’s like in the moment, I do feel of more fullness in the moment when I’m fully living in the moment.

James: Yeah, that quality of not having predictability or that, you know, to me, when I was kind of going through what you went through with stepping down from pulpit ministry, when I lost that sense of predictability, time just went bananas. And it seemed like, I’m like, wait a minute, it’s still, you know, like April. It’s still April. It’s still, you know, it’s like, and it was interesting. I got a lot of creative stuff, you know, especially when it was the most challenging, when shift was taking place and the most challenging, I was like, and I think that there’s science behind that. One of the reasons why it feels like time is accelerating as we age is because we get caught in these routines. And I went through a period where everything shifted, except for my relationship with my spouse. Everything shifted at the same time. We moved to a new city. And then we moved three times in a year in the new city, finally bought a house. And then my job shifted more than once. And it was just so much was taking place. And it was just like time was molasses during that short period. I mean, it’s still different now through my transitions. But I was just curious because I do think that when we get in the routine, it does feel like time just goes by much faster.

Rainbow: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, and I think I’ve heard that too scientifically. I think it has something to do with like our brain learning new information and creating new synapses and processing things differently than when we are doing the same thing. We’re kind of more on autopilot. But when we take time to learn something new or create something or be in that space, it definitely expands our experience of awareness and time.

James: I will say creative expression though, time always seems to collapse. Oh yeah. Like if I’m painting a picture or even sometimes when I’m writing for Substack, like I’ll be there for like five, six, seven hours and not even realize like that amount of time has went by. I’m always shocked. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen, I post videos of my time-lapse of paintings. And so I’ll like put it down into like, cause the algorithm’s like, you know, one minute videos. And so I’ll take eight hours and I’ll put it down and it looks just, it’s, I don’t know, it’s kind of funny, but I’m always surprised at like, oh, like that’s, it’s been four hours or five hours.

Rainbow: Yeah. Hyperfocus.

James: Yeah. Well, and I think that too, you know, there’s different hemispheres of the brain, particularly within the amygdala when you’re, that affects emotion and perception. And so when you’re in the right hemisphere of the amygdala, your sense of time shifts, it changes, and you don’t realize. I know too, sometimes I’ll look at a painting that I’ve done and am I surprised at the outcome, like at the, what I’ve painted. Like, I don’t remember doing that part or, you know, it’s. Oh, wow.

Rainbow: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Getting lost in that. I do that sometimes with writing or going back and listening to my talks. Like, did I say that? Or like afterwards, when you said, and I was like, did I say that? I have to go back and listen.

James: You know, I’ve had that happen too. And I’ve listened to the recording and I didn’t say it. Oh, that’s okay. You had that happen too. Like, that’s the one thing I have found so interesting when it comes to public speaking is there are so many times when people will come up to me and say, when you said this, and I’m like, wait a minute, I don’t remember talking about that. And I think that people hear what they need to hear in whatever circumstances that they’re in.

Rainbow: Yeah, definitely. People filtering through their own lens and hearing it. But that’s kind of fun, too, because when you’re kind of presenting something from your heart in that way or a creative expression, I know art does that a lot, too. People perceive it in different ways. Yeah. And that’s, again, why we are all unique in different waves of the same glorious cosmic energy expressing itself. I love that idea of Spirit getting to know itself more fully through us as us uniquely as we express and how fun that is as well. Yeah. Yay.

Well, I would love to hear, I think as we kind of start to wrap up this episode, and I found myself saying, I think it was just last night, naturally, I did something weird with my body or something, right? Like a little silly something. And I was thinking like, if I could share or teach or whatever, anything to people at this point, it would be to be more free to do that, right? To just like move your body or express yourself in some way or make a weird sound like blah. And instead of like feeling like we have to hold back and live in these little boxed in lives. And so I just kind of said that naturally. And then was like, is that true? And I was like, you know, it kind of maybe is true. Like right now in my life, that would be the thing that I want to share with the world or invite people into a more whimsical, authentic, silly, creative way of being. And also it’s like everything we talked about today, you know, feeling our feelings and not making some feelings bad or wrong or shameful. And, you know, and it’s not, I also want to say, I think sometimes that people can think, well, I’m just being authentic and really they’re, you know, expressing themselves in a way creating ripple effects that are harming others or intruding in other people’s experiences in a negative way. So it’s like, it’s not authenticity. I think sometimes people can think it’s like, well, I just want to stand up right in front of you and go, you know, and block your whole view, but I’m just being me. It’s like, no, I think...

James: I think that’s why spiritual practice can be helpful or, or even having a foundation, you know, being anchored. Like for me, I know the biggest anchors is, is it loving? Does it create peace for myself and for other people? Does it bring joy to me and other people? And I think that having that anchor, kind of you can be whimsical and you can be silly and you can be, and maybe not like...

Rainbow: What’s your intention behind it? What’s your motivation? What’s your pure heart’s desire in expressing that? So yeah, so I just want to kind of give that little caveat, but also to share, to say that, and I’m going to contemplate that some more on like ways to help maybe create something around that of sharing that more with the world. But I think the first part is just being it and living it and influencing those in my circle. But I wanted to ask you, like, from this whole conversation today, if there’s like one piece you would want to impart that if you could be like all of humanity now with a snap of my fingers, would know or be or do something differently.

James: So I, if I could impart one thing to all of humanity, I would, I would try to impart that, that every human being deserves love.

Rainbow: Yes.

James: Like every human being is worthy and deserving of love. And that means including from ourselves.

Rainbow: Yes.

James: Like I had said earlier, that was probably the pinnacle moment of shift and change in my life. Not that I immediately became perfect or anything, but that regardless of what I was experiencing, I wasn’t going to abandon any part of myself, that each and every part of me was worthy and deserving of love. And that there’s a reason, you know, like with what you were saying, there’s a reason why people behave a certain way behind people or, you know, what people do. And so, yeah, I mean, if I were to impart one thing, just summarize it. Love yourself. Just love yourself.

Rainbow: Exactly. And I think that is the underlying thing that complements what I just shared, because if you truly do love yourself and know yourself, then you give yourself the permission to be free, to feel your feelings, to express yourself authentically. But that love, that self-love and that deep love, knowing yourself as Spirit, as God knows you and loves you, is the foundation for all of that.

James: It’ll save you on a lot of really difficult relationships too. Because if you are self-fulfilled in love, you’re not going to be looking for it out there. Like you can experience it out there. But yeah, it’s not dependent. So it will also save you. And if you love yourself, you know, oh, this isn’t healthy. I’m walking away. I love Marianne Williamson. One of my favorite things that she ever said was, sometimes love says, I do love you. Give me my keys and get out of my house. I think that’s brilliant because I think that sometimes people assume that love means we just let people do whatever they want to do. It’s like, absolutely not. If you love yourself, you’re not going to let somebody mistreat you because you know you’re worthy of being treated well.

Rainbow: And not putting your own needs...

James: Exactly. Even if I screw up, like, yeah, I say things all the time, like, oh, I wish I wouldn’t have said that. Now, obviously, I make it right with whoever, you know, if it happens, I try to do my best to make it right. But I also run to the mirror and I look at myself and I say, I love you anyway. I love you anyway. Like, you know, because we all do that, whether it’s, you know, our nervous system got triggered and all of a sudden we say something that’s like, oh, that probably wasn’t the best thing to say in that particular set of circumstances. But yeah, self-love.

Rainbow: Self-love, yeah. And then that idea of self-forgiveness, too, of being able to forgive ourselves when we do make a mistake. And go back and do some of that. I think a lot of it comes back to the inner child wounds, too, and being able to love those reactions or those things that we might say unconsciously might be that voice coming out of the wounded 12-year-old or whatever. And so to realize that, to go back and say, oh, sweetie, honey, I get why you would feel that way or say that or do that. I love you. I love you. You’re safe now. And to love yourself through it all. What a beautiful way to wrap up this episode. Everyone, take yourself... no, just kidding. But I am giving myself a little hug. So if that feels good, find a way to treat yourself this day with some loving care, affirmations, whatever.

James: And we love you too.

Rainbow: Yes. And we love you. You are loved. All right. Have a good week, everyone. Bye.

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Special Guest:

Amy Steinberg is a singer, songwriter, comedian, playwright, and licensed New Thought minister based in Asheville, NC. With 9 studio albums and 5 one-woman shows to her credit, including MINISTAR: A Cosmic Soul Revival, she blends music, comedy, and spirituality into what she calls sacred creativity. She leads The Garden of Good, a weekly creative community on Zoom, and wrote the book Make Good: Cultivating Joy with Creativity.

Amy’s Stuff: amysteinberg.net · About Amy · The Garden of Good

About the Hosts

Rev. Rainbow Weldon (they/them) is an ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister and the founder and curator of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy, and spirituality. They are passionate about helping folks transform self-doubt into a more joyful, creative, and authentic life.

Follow them Rainbow Weldon

James Masters (he/they) is a Kansas City artist working in watercolor, gouache, and ink, and a studio artist at Images Art Gallery. He runs the Pure Joy Snail Mail Club and writes the Inspired2Be Substack.

Follow them at James Masters

Transcript: Queer as Faith — Episode 3

Cleaned and edited for readability.

Queer as Faith with Amy Steinberg — Written Version

Rainbow Weldon: So, hello and welcome to Queer as Faith, the podcast, with your host, me, Reverend Rainbow, and...

James Masters: James Masters.

Rainbow: Yay! And our guest today is Amy Steinberg. Hey!

Amy Steinberg: Are you going to make me cry like out the gate?

Rainbow: Well, of course. Yes. Well, we are so excited. So the idea of this is to explore our identity and faith through a queer lens. And of course, Amy, you are a friend and a beloved fellow... And I always say one of the most creative people I know, you always inspire me and you’re always doing something. We were just talking about your one woman show and Ministar. And I was like, dang it, I missed it because you’re on to the next thing. It’s always like every few months, every year, whatever. You’re doing like three things at once. And then it’s like, as you were saying, like it comes up, it comes through you and you kind of have that process. Now it’s out in the world somehow, somewhere. But it seems like for you what’s more important is the drive to create for your own kind of healing process.

So we’re going to be talking about creativity and spirituality, queering all of those things, sexuality, and the intersection of all of those through this queer spiritual lens. How about, Amy, just tell us a little bit about your story, your background, both as an artist or creative, and your spiritual journey.

Amy: Well, my head started coming out on the toilet, and that is why I have a potty mouth. I was born in Boston. I grew up in Florida, and I was raised Jewish, and really big emphasis on the ish. Like, I did all the things, but... I never believed in God. In fact, God, I never didn’t believe in God. It was just a word, really.

And then I found spirituality. I mean, if we want to talk about my spiritual path, the next thing that comes to mind is 12-step programs. Although that’s not true because in high school when I was smoking weed and I was pulling tarot cards and really into astrology, I’ve always been drawn to the esoteric and to... more than the eye can see, let’s say, you know?

And then 12-stepping, I was really deep in that program of recovery, which recovery, the word recovery, right? Comes back to what we were talking about before about healing and revealing, right? Recovery intimates that I have something to recover, which is already there maybe, or I like that word, but I also feel like it’s limited and that’s what happened is I was drawn to New Thought. Because I was seeking. Part of the step work is find your God. Find what you believe. What do you have faith in? What can you have faith in? And things like I was writing before I came to New Thought or discovered New Thought were things like I am exactly where I need to be. And many other songs that were spiritual that I didn’t have like really a philosophy that connected to other than my own inner knowing. Like I hadn’t heard from Eric Butterworth or Ernest Holmes or any other thinker yet. I had just, it was inherent in me to believe that I’m right where I need to be. I’m unfolding perfectly. Like life is amazing. Wow. I’m in awe. I’m a person who’s always in awe. And that’s, so that’s where I am today is kind of, I like to retain the awe. Like I fall out of awe a lot and that’s the only word that I can kind of, because I feel like it’s not something I know or practice anymore. I think it’s something that I embody and I express. And so it’s different because I feel a little bit lost. Like I feel a little dizzy spiritually because for so long it’s about knowing, it’s about schooling, it’s about learning, it’s about quoting, it’s about, and then it stops being about that. It’s like all of a sudden it’s like, oh, what can I live? What can I express? How authentic can I be? That’s my latest question because, you know, I’ve gotten into standup comedy, which you can’t do standup comedy without being completely authentic.

Rainbow: Right.

Amy: So a lot of it’s pretty dark, right? Because we have dark thoughts. We have dark ideas. We, you know, we make fun of ourselves in our minds. So anyway.

Rainbow: Keeping it real.

Amy: That’s it. I could ramble on about myself literally forever. So somebody has to stop me. Like there needs to be a buzzer that goes off.

James: Ding, ding, ding. So, well, and I love what you said. And we actually had started, you know, before we introduced, and this is the show and all of that, we were talking about the healing and creativity. And because you had specifically said, you know, you did this one woman show, Ministar, and it was a healing process for you. And then we got into this whole conversation before we, you know, before we were able to jump into the show.

Amy: You know, I wanted to touch upon something that Rainbow said really quick. I’m sorry. Should I let you finish that thought? You’re on a thought. And I just, you had started with the whole, like, I missed Ministar, like you’re onto the next thing. And it was so interesting to, it has been interesting to accept that about myself. Like, because for instance, I go to this, when I started Ministar, I was like, oh, Broadway. Like I want it to be a Broadway show and I want it to be this big thing. And I want it to be, you know, which is interesting because it’s called Ministar. So really I’d have to change the title to Megastar to get it, right? Because in itself it was small. It was an idea about embodying the space that you’re at, not necessarily, you know, fame or anything like that. It was about wholeness, right? Integration. Anyway. Where was I? Oh, so coming to that place of realizing, wow, I want to do the next thing is a hard thing. I think too, I don’t think our society really supports the idea of like being a mini star. That’s not good enough. You’re not good enough if you’re doing, if you’re a mini star, you should be a mega star, right? There’s a lot of like this energy. So knowing, cause I’ve already had this idea for another show, which is called Over the Top, right? Because I’m always over the top, right? I’m always too much, over the top or whatever. And there’s so much real quick. I know I’m rambling, but I want to share this idea. Sometimes I’m in my own head. The idea of like, life is like riding a bike up a big, beautiful hill, right? And it’s this journey. It is. I think it’s this shape. It could be. It might be this. I don’t know. Everybody has a different shape. I think my life has been like this. And so I think when you get to about 50, you’re at the top. And that’s what Ministar was. It was like, oh, here I am. This is me. And now I’m going down. And it’s like, whee! I feel like this sense of like, remember when you rode a bike down the hill and you put your hands up and you just freedom of like, you are you and it is it and that is that. So count your calories. Okay, that’s enough.

Rainbow: I love that. And I know we interrupted James and we’ll get back, but I just had another thought too. It’s like, I think there’s something interesting around this discussion too around midlife because that’s something I’ve been really contemplating recently in this stage of life that we’re all of us. I know we all look like we’re babies, but we are all... I know, and I feel like a baby.

Amy: Yeah, me too.

Rainbow: I know I do too. You know, but that journey, and when you get to that point, like I feel like I’ve had a couple of pinnacle career experiences, right? Like when I, to me, when I spoke at the Asilomar conference and got to speak in Merrill Hall, and like since being a little kid growing up in CSL and Science of Mind and hearing about all the greats speaking on that, that was like a pinnacle moment for me. And then since then, it’s kind of like, well, now what? And it’s like coasting down and opening up to new things coming through when the borders that I had, you know, the like glass ceiling, so to speak, in my own mind of what would be a pinnacle. So it’s like we go, go, go, we learn, we go. And now we get to integrate it and be it in so many more fun, queer, creative ways. So anyway, that was my little tangent. I love that.

Amy: I love that idea of like a moment or this is going to be the thing. Like there’s a thing that happens that all of a sudden there’s a thing and it’s like, well, there’s no thing. It’s just a collection of moments and things. You know, realizations and wow. I mean, you are, that is amazing. That is amazing. I remember the first Asilomar conference I went to and thinking, wow, you know, I can’t believe I’m, you know, whatever. I’m not saying that about me. I’m saying that about you. I’m saying it’s amazing that you spoke. I’ve never spoken at one of those big conferences. That is amazing.

Rainbow: Thank you.

Amy: And you probably, I don’t know, haven’t spent much time just sort of looking at yourself and being like, I’m amazing because our thoughts go, what’s next? What’s next? What’s next? How else can I be amazing? So I think I should just look into the camera because it looks like I’m looking at you. I hate that. I wish they would figure out how I can just look at you and look into your eyes. How have they not figured that out yet? Okay. But I’m looking into the camera and I’m saying, Rainbow Weldon, you are amazing. Congratulations on being so young and being a speaker at one of those conferences because that is amazing. So receive that.

Rainbow: I receive that. Thank you, Amy.

Amy: Yes.

Rainbow: And what you said too about your show and then letting that go and just letting it be instead of attaching to it. As creative beings, there’s something new coming through and it’s okay to just kind of let it go.

Amy: You guys, can I just tell you about the Broadway journey? Cause it’s been so funny. So last year, this time of year, one year, exactly. Almost. I went to New York first time in nine years. Okay. First time in nine years. It was like, I was a kid in the candy store. I went and saw some Broadway, some shows and what did I see? I saw a Broadway show, but I can’t remember. And I did a sold out show. So it was like, I was a star. I stayed midtown, right? And I was, why am I telling you this? There’s a reason. Oh my God. I hate when I do that. Okay. Anyway, the second time I went, I saw a Broadway show that I walked out of. It was so bad.

Rainbow: Oh, wow.

Amy: Walked out of it. It was so bad. The third time I went and saw another amazing Broadway show. I think what I’m telling you this for is to... Wait, you were, oh my God, I’m going to put, I’ll put the pieces together in my mind. You were talking about, I know, what were we talking about? You were talking about the letting go of dreams and the process, like that you think it’s going to be one thing and then it’s another thing or there’s no there there or like the journey, right? So like I come into it with this and then I go and then I’m like, whoa, I don’t want that. Like I saw a terrible Broadway show that was just like, I could tell they had poured like billions of dollars into this and it was like bad. And I was like, well, maybe I don’t want to have that pressure. Cause I thought, wow, what the pressure of, cause when you do a Broadway show, it’s millions of dollars are behind you. And if it’s a one woman show, it’s all that pressure. If you want to know what you want, look at your life. Yeah. I want to be a mini star. I want the pressure of 15, 20, 50 people. That’s the pressure I want. So that’s what I have. Right. Anyway, rambling, but talking about like what the desire and then the there there and then the process and the letting go and the, I don’t know, the Broadway thing. You said something about theater show. I don’t know. Next thing. I’m sorry. It was rambling. You could probably cut that whole part out.

Amy: Okay. But you’re saying that’s like, that was like a dream or a physical experience.

Rainbow: And then to be able to let go of that, I realized, well, is this really what I want? Yes. Open for that.

Amy: Do I want to do what I might think is necessary for that? And do I want to do the same show? Oh, that was maybe what it was about. The same show every day.

Rainbow: Right.

Amy: You know, for whatever, even if it’s months. Like, I mean, it could just be a short run. And I still have the idea that it would be great, but it’s like, I don’t know. It just, there’s something about...

James: Isn’t that innately true about creativity though? Because like the whole thing about being creative is there’s something always emerging, always coming forth, always being, you know? And so I do think sometimes, you know, we get locked into, this is what I need to do. And most recently, just for the past couple of years, it’s like, oh, I paint pictures and that’s what I do. And now I’m starting to go, wait a minute. Is that like what James does? Like what does James do? Oh my God, I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Amy: I mean, it is what you do and, you know. I could see you totally like, like the way that, like I just looked up at the wall of this piece that I found at a thrift store that’s all brooches, all old brooches and it’s a flower. I didn’t do it. Somebody else did it. But it’s obvious that that person found those objects and it inspired them. And I could see you doing, you know, just, that’s just an example of something that’s out of the box that I could just see you doing some other expression. That’s just amazing. Yeah. Visually or it doesn’t even have to. It could be spiritually. It could be writing a book about queer spirituality and stuff. I don’t know.

James: Well, and I’m thinking, you know, like you moved on from that show and that, I mean, like that’s Ministar was kind of when we developed our relationship is, you know, when you were doing that. And then now it’s like, oh, I’m moving on to comedy. And that facilitated the healing that you needed at that time. And I think that’s what creativity is. And it is constantly evolving and growing. I mean, it could have been an amazing Broadway show as well.

Amy: And you never know. Like, I’m not dead yet. You know what I mean? And I’ve got other shows that I’ve done and stuff like that. Yeah. I have this funny joke that you guys will really appreciate that I’m just going to tell you because it kind of resonates with what we’re talking about, which is that Wayne Dyer said, if you poke an orange, what do you get? You get orange juice. Because that’s what’s inside of it. So when you get poked, what comes out? Like, is it anger? Is it resentment? Like for me when I was in my 20s, like when you poked me, the only thing that came out was like insecurity and fear and defense. And now if you poke me, all that’s inside of me is weed and pizza. So I basically just look at your face and I think, do you look more like a pie or a slice? And can we go smoke? And if not, we’re probably not going to hang out.

Rainbow: Oh my gosh, I love that.

Amy: But my point with that joke, it’s funny that that is a joke, obviously, but the point of the joke is what happens when you get poked? You know, I love that teaching of like, what happens when you don’t go to Broadway and you’ve told everybody you want to go to Broadway? Nothing. You just love yourself. What happens? Do you feel like a failure? Or do you just kind of smoke and eat a piece of pizza and call your bestie and go for a walk and love your life as it is because it’s a miracle and it’s never the dream we think it is. It’s always the little our reality that we get to superimpose big our reality onto and go, oh, how can I see this differently? How can I process this from a good space, from a growing space? Yes.

Rainbow: Yes. Yes. And if everything is energy, it’s like, what’s the energy that we are embodying? And what is the thing in this moment stage and place of life that is eliciting that feeling of contentment and joy and love? Safety and love and creativity and sometimes it’s being out there in a big way and sometimes it’s, you know, I feel like I’m kind of in this nesting stage and rebuilding and recreating this next part of my life and a lot of it has to do with just like tending to my own space and home and doodling and writing just for me, even though I always kind of have that mindset of like, what’s this going to be and who’s this for? Trying to let that go and just do it for me. And then there’s moments where I feel something coming through. I’m like, okay, I feel ready to share again, you know, but it’s just like with everything recently and all the grief and change that I’ve been through.

Amy: I was going to ask, can I ask you on this, like about this? Can I just ask you about like, so what is it like for you stepping, like, cause you stepped down from like a pretty big role. Like, what’s that like? I mean, it was all conscious and joyful. Like, there wasn’t like, it wasn’t like, I’m leaving here. It was like, I’m ready to leave here. Like, right? Pretty much, right?

Rainbow: Yeah. I mean, it’s bittersweet for sure. There’s a lot of nuance and different things to it. And the bigger picture is, yes, it was time. It was time to change. Do you think you want to go somewhere else? Yeah. No, it’s not like I just want to go do this somewhere else. Right, right, right.

Amy: That’s what I’m saying. Do you want to do pulpit ministry anymore? At this point, no. You don’t know.

Rainbow: Yeah, I’m kind of like you and Broadway, right? Right. Like you did it. Yeah, several people have asked me that question recently, I guess, because I’ve been kind of getting out into the world again after many months of just quietude and being with myself and asking, who am I now, right? And what am I? And who am I? And what’s the meaning of life? And all of that when you strip away all the roles of minister, partner, wife, daughter, you know, when all of that changes and you’re just left sitting with yourself and quiet and getting... being willing first to sit in that discomfort long enough to then get that insight and guidance. And when all of us being such creative people and what’s next and la la la la la la, the hardest and most uncomfortable thing I’ve done in my life is just to pause. Like when I took that sabbatical and just create for me and be with me and watch TV and lounge around and eat the best vegan ice cream and, you know, just like whatever.

Amy: So I really like this word that’s kind of a buzzword right now in healing circles, or I don’t know if it’s, maybe it’s old, but I’ve just been learning it, is repair. Like I hate to think of it like there’s something that was wrong to repair, but I do feel like when you give, give, give, give as a minister, especially like a pulpit minister like that, like there is a time, I think, for repair. That’s why you have those sabbaticals. I can’t even... You know, a sabbatical. I mean, I think that’s why I haven’t, well, I stepped into public ministry for a minute, but for long-term anywhere because of the drain, the drain that happens, that what people want from you, what they project onto you, all of it is so draining. So I think you taking this time to like refill your well and figure out like, who am I if I’m not a mirror for everybody else? And who am I if I’m not a leader for everybody else? And who am I if I’m just me?

Rainbow: Yes.

Amy: And that’s exciting. And I wish we lived closer. We would have been having coffee all the time throughout this hibernational period.

Rainbow: Yes. Yes. And what about you, James? Also, I feel like you’ve had like a shift with like, what’s the word? Yeah. Institutional spirituality.

James: Yeah. And I’m not opposed to institutional spirituality. I think that there’s a place for it. I think that the institutions, what they’ve done is they’ve preserved information very well. But in my specific, the tradition that I align with the most, which is New Thought, was an anti-institutional. The whole point of the New Thought movement was moving away from institutional, hierarchical. Myrtle Fillmore is a good example of this, who’s one of the co-founders of Unity. They did not want to ordain people. They did not want to give people titles. And if you go back all the way to the founding of that movement, I kind of fell into this concept because I’ve always been anti-institutional anyway. When I started developing a class about the powerful women within the New Thought movement. And I started reading about Emma Curtis Hopkins, who is really the founder of this movement we call New Thought. And yeah, she was so anti-institutional that she created an institution that created Centers for Spiritual Living, that created Unity, that created all these other organizations. And then she closed it on purpose. She closed it to stop it from turning into...

Amy: Oh yeah. I don’t know that story.

James: She stopped it from turning into an institution. On purpose. You don’t know that story because she closed the institution. That’s why you don’t know that story. There’s a phenomenal book called The Forgotten Founder of New Thought, Emma Curtis Hopkins. I highly recommend every New Thought person read it. Okay. Because then when you start learning about Ernest Holmes and the way he did things or the Fillmores and the way they did things.

Amy: Wasn’t Ernest Holmes also the same though? Didn’t really want it to be a church?

James: Exactly. No. He did not want to get into titles. He did not want to get into creating this. And it’s interesting in this movement anyway. So yes, I have definitely been considering my place in this idea of institutions and it’s why I’ve leaned into, oh, I’m just going to do things in the art world and I’m going to do galleries and stuff. And I’m still philosophically aligned with New Thought, but I also see in some ways, I think that we’ve kind of turned it into the opposite of what the founders were looking for and looking at. And maybe that’s a good thing because it did preserve the knowledge and it did preserve the information. But yeah, but I don’t know if it’s a good representation.

Rainbow: Yeah. It’s like the next evolution of that now. And maybe we don’t need those institutions in that way to preserve it. And we’re getting it in so many ways in pop culture and other things. And this energy itself is wanting to express itself and be known through all of us. And something you’re just saying made me think like all of us are creative and spiritual beings, right? And with our career and all of those things, that’s something the three of us really connect on. And so I’m curious to hear from both of you what that, what do you see as parallel experiences of either when you’re in spiritual practice and how that feels similar to the creative process or creating and or different? Because I know for me, praying has the same energy as when I am dancing and it’s like in that now moment or when I’m like, drawing without thinking or like channeled writing, right? Like there’s so many parallels and connections because I think it’s the same energy really just coming through us in different ways. So I’d love to hear.

Amy: I mean, the word that comes to my mind is consciousness, you know, like it’s being like whenever I’m conscious, consciously conscious. So I’m like aware of my awareness and it doesn’t necessarily have to mean directing the flow, just being in the flow. So that could be, it could be both, right? So directing the flow is like praying, right? Carving out and then just, you know, visioning or presencing or creating for me. Like when I’m doing art, a lot of times I’m ripping fabric. I’m literally just ripping the fabric and letting it rip where it wants to rip and then moving it the way it wants to move and then gluing it. Like that’s my new thing is the fabric thing and coming upon something and being in the flow, being conscious of the connection, I guess. What is it? It’s the consciousness of the connection between the tool and me as a vessel and... But also like sometimes kind of the Buddhist thing when I become conscious and I start to think about, oh, I’m then I lose it. It’s almost like you can’t touch it.

Rainbow: You can’t touch it. It’s more like allowing the flow to allow you without the thought getting in the way of like, and then the thought is going to, it’s going to come. And is it in the way or is it just, is this just how creation is, is like this, this wheel that’s like, is it staccato? Like my life is very staccato. I mean, I do like the idea of legato, but for me, it’s very like I’m in the flow and then I thought, and then I’m in the flow and then I thought, you know? And I can’t, I mean, I could, could I stop my thought? Do I want to stop? You know, this morning I woke up, I’m going to be very vulnerable and honest with you. This morning I woke up, I’ve been having severe neck pain. And it’s causing dizziness. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I woke my partner up and I was crying. And I said, I just want to feel normal. I just want it to go away, the pain. I just want to feel normal. And she’s like, you’re going to be fine. She was so sweet. She was saying all this nice stuff about me. You’re amazing. You’re going to be fine. You’re Amy Steinberg. You’re going to heal. You’re going to be amazing. And I said, I was crying. And I was like, when they made Amy Steinberg, they didn’t make, they put too much creativity in. Because that’s what’s my neck. It’s like, I’m like this. I’m like this. Output, output, output, output. And I’m like, there’s too much in there. Like, I would love to be more flow than staccato. Like, and have less of this, it’s like a rushing fountain coming through me at all times. Like, and I’m like, you know, it can be exhausting.

Amy: What just came to me is like, you know, those superhero movies and how there’s always the part of the journey where the superhero has to learn how to handle their power. I feel like it overwhelms me and it gets my neck. So it’s like, what are some practices? And maybe you have some. And the dizzy thing. I asked somebody, what is, because I’ve been dizzy. And I asked somebody, what is that spiritually? Do you get dizzy?

Rainbow: Yeah. The past week I’ve been having vertigo at night. I think it’s like inner ear stuff, but it’s so weird. That is so weird.

Amy: I’m so happy to hear that you’re dizzy. Okay, so this is what it means spiritually. Because I’ll tell you what it is and you’re going to hear it and it’s going to resonate. Okay. Because a friend of mine who’s like a weirdo, you know, Somra from the Garden of Good. I don’t want to call her weird, but she’s just like one of those people that knows all about sound healing and vibration and Reiki and very that. Like I’m not very that. I’m very like touch taste, but I love that. And I trust that when someone’s aligned with that. And she goes, oh, dizzy. I said, what does dizzy mean spiritually? And she said, it means you’re between worlds and you’re calibrating. You’re between worlds spiritually. Your identity was once this, and that was becoming this. And I know that you identify with that. And this comedy thing is very different energetically. It vibrates at, I think, a much lower vibration than spiritual work. Spiritual work is very like, Garden of Good is very this. Oh my God, love, love, light, light. It’s up here. And then comedy is like, yeah, I shit my bed. You know what I mean? It’s like very that. So I didn’t shit my bed, but... You know what I mean? So I want to bring comedy up here somehow for me, you know, bring awareness and bring spirituality through that. But it’s very dizzying because it’s like comedy is dark.

Rainbow: Yeah. And not to make one good and one bad. It’s not one good and one bad. It’s just different.

Amy: It’s just different. But it’s just different frequencies. Yes. Yeah. And then integrating those two. And I totally resonate with that for sure.

Rainbow: Have you had any dizziness, James? In the past year?

James: Well, I would say early this year. I thought it was mostly related to, and it probably was related to, the whole job transition and transitioning into a new world. Wow. Very interesting.

Amy: It’s going to go away for us, Rainbow. I’m just knowing that. I’m knowing that it’s temporary. It’s already gone. It came through. Even maybe this podcast, this joining of energies, is shifting it from literally the one to the other. Because this feels like with you guys, I feel very like authentic and... spiritual. I just stayed with a friend of mine in New York who’s an atheist, like realist, like none of this energy talk. She would just be like, it’s not a thing. She’s just very that. And I was in her energy for five days. And I realized leaving, I’m not that. I love spirituality. I love the idea of a power and the use of it and the tapping into it and the singing about it and the raising vibration. I don’t want to lose that. Just because I have been leaning a little bit away from church and pulpit and identity as minister, you know?

Rainbow: Same. Yeah. But how to bring that into the world in a greater way. And perhaps isn’t that what the whole point was anyway?

Amy: Maintaining your vibration so high. Emma Curtis Hopkins, mic drops and walks off stage.

Rainbow: Exactly. We need like a graphics department. We can have a little.

Amy: Yes.

James: We’ll work it. We’re all creative artists. I love it.

Rainbow: James, for you, what would you say that parallel is around creativity and spirituality?

James: Well, actually, going back to what Amy was saying, I mean, we kind of switched to, then we’re dizzy and then we’re talking about creativity. Here’s my challenge with creativity is in our culture, everything needs to be monetized. Everything needs to be. And immediately once I try to go, okay, so how am I going to monetize this? It’s gone. Right. Like the flow is gone. The channel is gone. Everything is gone. And I’m like, I think that’s the most frustrating thing when it comes to creativity itself. And I mean, Amy, you’re probably the most creative person I know. And I was going to ask you about, you have all of these avenues of creativity. Like you’re a visual artist, you’re a musical artist, you’re doing comedy. And you find a way to monetize most of it. And that to me boggles my mind because I swear every time I’m like, okay, so I have this, you know, I have a gallery showing that’s coming up and I have to paint pictures and I’m like, immediately don’t have any flow to it. And so how do you keep the flow?

Amy: Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t think I keep the flow at all. In fact, just the other day, I saw this wonderful thing about Picasso or something. I’m going to have the numbers wrong, but it was like something like Picasso painted 1,200 paintings and sold like 30 or something. You know what I mean? Something like that, right? And I feel that. That more than I feel what you’re saying at all. Like, I feel like last night at the Garden of Good, I was like, yesterday my dog had fleas. This is life, right? Yesterday my dog had fleas and I finally had to just go ahead and buy the Trifexis, which is $150. And, you know, you have to throw it on a credit card or whatever. I mean, I’m sorry to like reveal my financial situation, but I feel like I’m always living on the edge financially. I am abundant. I have a home. I have a car. I have money in the bank. I’m not broke. I won’t claim that at all. But I am always like, is this going to sell? And a lot of times it doesn’t. And in these times, I will tell you that has slowed down. And that’s why I do different things too, because I think I have a small following of people who love, I have a couple collectors that like collect all my phases. Like I have one woman who has like several of my paintings from different phases and I would love to go to her house and be like, oh, that, cause I’ve grown, changed so much. And I think it is important to recognize, that’s part of my Ministar like identity is knowing that like, okay, I don’t have a million followers. I don’t, but I have 10 that love what I’m doing and that get fed. Right. So how do I give them something? They have more than 10. Yeah, I was about to say, definitely more than 10. But I’m saying to you, James, find your people, because that was another thing that I love this girl on Instagram. She’s one of those life coaches, art life coaches. Have you seen her? She has like short bangs and long hair. Her nails are always different colors. I love her, but she talks a lot about that, about like, you know, cultivate your garden, right? Like the Garden of Good, I think when I started it, I wanted it to be like hundreds of people and be like overnight, this big thing. And it’s turned into this really lovely, it’s about 15 to 20 people every week. That’s it. And it’s people who are being fed by it and growing by it. And I am trusting and knowing that it is... So last night in the garden, when I got a love offering, like afterwards, it was just like, okay, you’re on the right track, like talking about the monetized things. I want to bring it back to the question, which is that it’s really a matter of trust. It’s a matter of believing that. And you know, I don’t all the time though. I don’t guys, I was July. I had mostly no gigs and I had nothing coming in. Right.

James: Oh, just a second. Can we take a short break? Sorry.

Amy: Yep. Actually, I think I can even pause. But I was just telling you that I didn’t have any gigs all July. And I do everything sort of monthly. I think monthly, of course, because bills are monthly, right? And then I had this house concert that I had no idea. I had an art salon and a house concert. I had no idea how it was going to go. I made it all love offering. I wasn’t going to charge anyone. It’s my birthday party and a house concert. And I put my art all over my house, which I don’t usually have my own art. I have other people’s art. But I put my art, like it was an art salon. And I sold five pieces. Yes. It was amazing. Like I recommend something like that, James. You know, like taking your, what you have, your resources, gathering your 10 best friends and putting all of your art around and be like, this is me. And then they’re like, I want that one. I want that one, you know. And people will drop money in your bucket. Actually, I did.

James: The last workshop that I did, I actually did sell a couple pieces of art. And I have a subscription program that people are actually subscribing to.

Amy: Oh, girl. I know that you are selling. I know that’s not the question. I just wanted to encourage you.

James: I think my biggest challenge is once I try to monetize, when I’m thinking monetization, because I have to pay bills. And I think that this is a struggle for a lot of creative people. It’s a struggle for me. That’s the answer. Once I start thinking of monetizing something is, wait, I’m just sitting there. I can’t write anything. I can’t paint anything. It’s just like that. And that I think is the biggest challenge. Being a creative person is like, oh, and I still have to pay my electric bill.

Amy: That’s why I started an OnlyFans. Just kidding. I’ve thought about it, though. I can’t lie. Like a feet only. I have really cute feet. Like, why not? Like, just a name. I mean, we’ve all thought about these things, right? Or have we?

Rainbow: I’m with you, Amy. You have nice feet.

Amy: I do. I have beautiful toes. I love my feet.

Rainbow: Oh, my gosh. Maybe we need to talk offline about starting one. It must be a New Thought thing.

James: Do we all have really nice feet? I have really nice feet too.

Amy: Shut up!

James: It is a New Thought thing.

Amy: Can you imagine if we all just dropped out of spirituality, started a feet only, became millionaires?

Rainbow: I was like, what are you doing now? This is what we’re doing.

James: That is hilarious.

Rainbow: But we just do it for like a year and then we can take a break. Take a foot break. And then we can use our money.

Amy: Exactly.

Rainbow: But use this as a mental trip. What would it be like to imagine? We did that, right? And now we all have millions of dollars. Millions of dollars. We don’t have to think about money. What do we want to create and who’s it for?

Amy: Immediately it’s a traveling circus of New Thought. Extravaganza. Yeah. Beautiful. That would be fun. With art and music and spirituality and speakers and games. We need to do this. All right. This is coming.

Rainbow: But yeah, but I love that thought. Like, right, what would I do if I didn’t need to make money? What comes? What comes to your mind first? Well, I’ve been in such a quiet space, like a rest. Like, I’ve just been like, it’s okay to not do for a while.

Amy: Maybe it’s a tent filled with mattresses. I’ve always had this idea to be like a traveling... The Church of Steinberg would be like mattresses. So we just like lie down together. We cuddle puddle. Yeah. We listen to music.

Rainbow: Sound healing, little movement, little journaling and doodling spot, you know, like interactive.

Amy: Maybe there’s like, there’s a tent for that at the New Thought Extravaganza Traveling Circus. There’s like this, the mattress tent. Everything’s air conditioned, by the way. We’re not trying to rough it anymore. This is midlife. Too old for that. I’m an indoor cat, okay? I’m a mall walker, all right? Yes. Oh my goodness.

Rainbow: We have talked about so much, but I want to also, you know, you were talking about the word repair. And when you said that, I thought I had this visual of, cause I know you do fabric art too, but right? Like, like mending a seam and like repair and how, when you do that though, like you can add color or you can add, and you can make it something new and beautiful from what was there with the willingness to come together to the repairs, like things coming together and making something new. Ooh, that’s interesting to use that as a metaphor as opposed to the...

Amy: Is it called kintsugi, the Japanese thing? So with the kintsugi, like you can see it and it’s like this big gold thing. But when you’re sewing, you can actually do front to front and make it so that you don’t really see it. It’s like, so that it’s, so that’s an interesting way to think about repair as well, right? Like that, and I’m not trying to be devil’s advocate, but I’m just saying, I just thought of that as you said that, because you can make it colorful and be like, this is, you know, we’re amending. And it can also be like repaired well to where you can’t even see it. Oh, yeah. How much do we love that when there’s no scar? When it heals and it falls off and it’s like.

Rainbow: And both are great. Both are great. And both are needed in different times. Sometimes you want to carry that scar on your heart out loud and proud. And other times that journey has become seamless and integrated that you don’t even think about it, but it’s still made different who you are. I mean, the scar is always sexy, right? Like, period. I almost see, I almost forgot what we’re doing. I was about to show you my scars. I had my gallbladder removed recently. Oh, really? And so I’ve got some scar action going on. And I love seeing my scars. I just rip up, whip up. I’m like, what’s my scars? Like anyone. You can cut it out.

James: You want to see my scars? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you brought up kintsugi. And, oh, here’s a scar.

Amy: Can’t really see it.

James: It’s adorable. You have...

Amy: Great skin. It’s so creamy and like ivory. Thank you. Sorry, that sounds creepy. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s weird being like kind of bisexual and being like having had relationships with women because sometimes I’ll say something to a woman because I was straight or dated mostly men for most of my life. So like women, like I’ll say something. That’s not like a creepy lesbian thing to say. Like, so I didn’t mean it that way. No, I don’t. And James, you also have creamy skin.

James: Thank you.

Rainbow: Yes. Back to it. James, you remember you had a thought way earlier. Was there something you wanted to come back to? Or I can pivot us with the next question.

James: Well, I mean, I wanted to circle back around to the idea of creativity being a process of healing. You know, Amy brought that up, but like, how does creativity heal us? I don’t think we really covered that. And I think that that’s an important part of the conversation as well. Because I think I know I said it, Amy said it. I mean, Rainbow, has creativity been a healing process for you? And what does that even mean?

Rainbow: For sure. Like it’s, for me, it’s a way to process my emotions and to move that energy through because I can easily overthink. And that does not serve me very well. I need to put on some music and move my body. I need to get some art pens out and doodle and, you know, and creating something in that way is very healing. And for me, and it’s that journey and writing and telling the story and like processing events through writing about them in a way that is also has some kind of message that others might benefit from as well because usually if one of us is having an experience and something that we’ve grown and learned through, then it’s relatable to at least a few other humans. So yeah, healing, creativity is extremely healing as a way for me for processing. Yeah.

James: And what about Ministar? How did that affect you? You know, you said it was something that was healing. How’d that affect you, Amy?

Amy: It was what came to mind first when you were asking that question because that’s what my sort of dissertation or whatever for my doctorate for consciousness is about, is about how did, what happened? Why, you know, how did I, how did this work this way? And for me, this particular production I did in, I need to find the exact number, but I think it was like 10 cities. And every city I faced, not only with the production itself, like dealing with people, places and things in every different city, having a different audience, having different observers, having different people, they’re having different obstacles or different, every city had a different setup, literally, like every, some cities had a big audience, some had a small audience. So it was the journey of observation, of seeing myself through other people’s eyes and the different ways other people processed it, right? So how they reflected it back to me. That’s how it grew and it changed. Like I remember Kansas City was actually a real big turning point for the show because I hadn’t done any preparation for it. I was just, I was in a very sort of, I was in a dark place actually when I did it in Kansas City. And it was a turning point because I realized how important every single aspect of doing the show was. I needed to work on it. I needed to figure out the arc. I needed to be clear. I needed to be kind to everybody I worked with. I rubbed up against somebody there and I needed to be, there were just some things that I learned like big life lesson stuff. So doing a production by myself in itself about myself was so healing to learn who I am and what it means to accept all the parts of myself and celebrate all the parts of myself in song. I realized that my Broadway dream was my teenage dream, not my adult dream. My adult dream is just to be happy, to be in joy. And that is a choice every single day to be open. And that came at the end. Like the last time I did the show, was it here in Asheville or was it in Tucson? The arc has been to let go, to release, to enjoy, to celebrate. That’s what every single time. And I also created a jacket for every show. You know, that was part of the experience. So I have the collection of jackets, which I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. I was just downstairs yesterday looking at them and I was like, God, these are all so beautiful. Do I need to do some kind of display for them or do I need to sell them? Do I need to put them out in the world? What do I do with these? And what were they for? Just as a costume, as an expression of creativity, really. Did you make me one? Did you make me one? I mean, I have them. So it’s like, what am I going to do with them? And people wanted them.

James: All of the, oh yeah, for sure. They were amazing. Each one was very unique and very amazing.

Amy: Anyway, I don’t know how, the question was like, how did the healing happen? And it’s like, I think it’s through the observer effect. I think it’s watching other people watch me. I think that’s what theater, being observed is, and being, it being processed through, and because I also think that art does what Rainbow said, that when you’re alone and you’re scribbling and you’re screaming and you’re dancing, that’s also healing. But the way Ministar healed me was through the audience. Like I think the audience was a huge, like my mother was in the audience in Florida. And I talk about my mother in the show, like quite a bit. And she and my brother, my brother seeing the show, my brother saying, the first time doing the show, all the way through from the beginning to the end, was me to my longtime drummer who has been drumming with me in my basement on my piano. And he cried and said, this is the best thing you’ve ever done. This is you. This is all you. This is comedy. This is theater. This is music. This is it. This is you. And him crying, that process, he was like, and part of the show was about like sort of my mommy hole, you know, like my mommy shaped hole. And he was, and he, part of the reason he was crying was he was like, I cannot believe that you, that you’re, that you for one minute would ever think, you know, that you’re not this thing. Cause all my insecurity sort of comes from the mommy stuff, which is healed. It’s fucking healed. Like I spent so much time with my mom down in Florida, after the show, talking about it, processing it, that I don’t even feel that way anymore. Like, I don’t have a mommy hole. Like, I am. Anyway, it’s funny.

Rainbow: The mommy hole is a...

Amy: Funny, like, there’s a lot of jokes connected to the mommy hole. Would you say there’s something in being witnessed or sharing your story and then the way it’s received, you finally are like, okay. Being vulnerable and authentic. And this is me. And then you realize you’re still here. You’re still safe. You’re still loved.

Rainbow: Yes. Yeah. That’s beautiful.

Amy: And, you know, one of my favorite classes to teach was a class I wrote called Creative Expression where people just sang a song. So say that again. The act of being witness. Yeah. So the class that I had created was about people just being exposed and other people clapping for them. You know, the first time I did it, there was a girl in the class who was tone deaf. And she sang Brave by Sara Bareilles, which I have an interesting relationship with Sara Bareilles. That’s totally another, it’s like a story, it’s like a play that I haven’t written called, you know, The Bareilles Barometer. But she sang it totally off pitch. I’m brave. And the whole room stood up and clapped for her after. It was unbelievable. Every person in the room, because I said before we started, I said, everybody here, nobody here is really a singer. Like everybody’s getting up here and being vulnerable. So when everybody’s done, your job as the audience is to scream, clap as loud as if you’re, as if, you know, your favorite artist is up there. Every single person. It was so healing just to be loved. Yes.

James: That’s awesome.

Amy: Oh, we hear you so much better now.

Rainbow: Oh, fascinating.

James: You hear me better? Yes.

Rainbow: Oh, yeah. Do you hear it better? Mm-hmm. Okay, good.

James: Fascinating. Fascinating. There was one other thing that you said too that I really think for me has always been a part of the healing process is you said that through that you accepted all your parts. And can you kind of expound a little bit on that? Because I know for me that is healing.

Amy: Well, it was really funny because during the time of writing The Dollhouse, I also became aware simultaneously of IFS, Internal Family Systems stuff. And so it was like my way of doing my very own IFS type of stuff, which is like there’s these characters that live inside of you. But it wasn’t exactly that. I did have my teenager. I did have my diva. I did have my little inner child. But I also had these spaces within me that I created, right? So... For that inner child, I created a space of sweetness. That room, there was a room. You didn’t see the show, right, Rainbow? So basically there were five spaces in this dollhouse that I found at a thrift store. And each space represented an aspect or a part of myself that needed healing, revealing, witnessing, whatnot. I didn’t know what I was doing. I literally went to thrift stores and let spirit say, whoa, you want that? The first thing I found were acorn candles that went in the first room, which was the room of possibility, which... You’ve probably heard that song. I’ve sang it a lot in different places. So then the space next to that was the space of sweetness, which is like for that inner child that needed that sweetness that maybe didn’t get the sweetness it needed for cultivation. Second floor was the part of me that was the teenager, the rebel. I called the F word floor, you know, friends, family, fuckery, like all the addictions, all the dreams, all the fantasies, F fantasies. And then the top floor was the diva and the divine. So the part that we’re talking about, the integration between the spirituality and the authenticity, the full expression that’s also kind of self-involved, you know, it has to be kind of to be expressed. So yeah, so that journey and the integration of the parts and seeing them as this home, coming home to the wholeness of this place within is... And it was just really fun. And I mean, some of the songs were really fun and some of the, I did a lot of comedy in it. Like I did this opening prayer was really funny because like I said, I’m contacting my ancestors and I was like, but first we pray. But first we pray. But first we pray. But first we pray. But first we pray. I was very like enjoying my theatrical side. Yes. I did a puppet thing with my inner critic that was like, do this, do that, too skinny, too fat, too much, too little, too late. You missed it. It’s really cute. It was cute, right, James?

James: Yeah, it was very good. It was one of my favorite Amy Steinberg experiences.

Rainbow: Wow. There must be a revival at some point. Yes. Yes.

James: Have you thought about just recording the show?

Amy: That was sort of the latest, like, okay, I need to make a new record, right? Like, because it’s time. I’ve made like one every couple years for the last however. And I thought, well, that’s the record to make, right? The Ministar, like all those songs, you know, this hasn’t been recorded. [Amy plays a demo of her song] Be your witness. Like that hasn’t been recorded, you know, like so many songs that I’ve been, Room of Possibility hasn’t been recorded. And, oh, can we get into an interesting discussion? I’m very curious about your, your thing about something. Speaking of a new record, I downloaded this app called Suno. Have you guys heard about Suno?

Rainbow: No, I haven’t.

Amy: It’s AI. It’s AI. I know. Here we go. And I was introduced to it months ago, and I was like, oh, I would never. I would never. I’m a creative genius. I would never use AI for anything. Well, I downloaded it, and... Holy mozzoli. Like it took Room of Possibility. I said, I put it in, I put Room of Possibility in there, which is terrible because now I guess AI owns it or something. I don’t know. I don’t even care. But I put it in there and then I was like, make me an instrumental version of this that is big Broadway, like huge drums, horns, strings. I want a full orchestra. Go. You guys... Like, unbelievable, right? Like, unbelievable. And I’ve been, like, really on the fence of, like, do I make a whole record of this unbelievable? It’s me, because then I sing over it. And it’s my song. Like, AI’s not writing the song. AI’s just producing the song, which is different. It’s a nuance. And producers are pissed. They’re like, oh, we’re going to be out of work, of course. And they’re stealing our stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I’m just like this, like, well... What is a person like me to do where it’ll be $15,000 to do anything close to that? Whereas it’s $30 a month and in two months I could create an incredible, you know, that’s co-produced with AI. Co-produced. Because you go back and you change it and you can fix it and you can, you know. What do you guys think about that? What’s your honest opinion? Yeah. I’ll start.

James: My honest opinion is I think AI is an accessibility tool for a lot of people, especially financial accessibility. I have a friend. I was talking about this. I’m on Substack. And a lot of the writers on Substack use AI as an editing tool, as an accessibility tool. And Substack just put out a new AI detector on there and is scanning everybody’s post and detecting whether or not they’re using AI. To edit or to write? Well, to edit. And I guess if it rewrites stuff, it’s going to pop up as AI. Even if the authorship is still the person who’s submitting it, if AI edits it to a certain point, it’s still going to come up as AI generated. Well, it reminded me of I have a friend who’s written three New York Times bestsellers, but they’re not like they’re the authors of these books and they write for Hay House and they fill up notebooks of just their ideas and their thoughts for months. They just sit there and fill up notebooks. They hand the notebooks to Hay House. Hay House has this team of editors that take the notebooks and put them into an actual, and not everyone has access to that level of resource, but who’s the author of that book? Who’s authoring the book? And I think that’s the biggest question that’s taking place in my community on Substack is like, well, who’s the actual author? The person with the innate ideas? Or in your case, the person who wrote the music? Or is it the AI who’s assisting in creating the finished product? I personally think that in situations like for authorship, I approve of the use of AI. Because here’s the thing. Corporations are going to use AI whether we like it or not. Right. Right.

Amy: The music on the radio is going to be, it’s already, there’s AI stars. A friend of mine sent me a song. And I was like, and she was like, oh my God, I love this new song. And I immediately knew it was AI. The AI voice, I just knew. And I was like, that’s AI. And she was like, oh, I love it. Because she’s not an artist. She’s a listener of art. So then I’m like, okay, who am I making art for? Am I making art for artists? Or am I making art for the listeners of art? Because I sent that Broadway production form of Room of Possibility to someone. Should I pop it on here, you guys? I wonder if you could hear it, if I pop it on here, just to hear a little bit of it. Now, this is a demo, so keep in mind that it’s a demo. In other words... It’s not mixed properly. It’s not anything. You like that? Do you guys want to hear it? Like a hair of it?

Rainbow: Yeah, if you can get it going. Okay.

Amy: Yeah, I can. I can. But you tell me your opinion of it while I find it.

Rainbow: While you’re doing that, you know, my biggest concern is more environmental and about the data centers and the whole system at large. Right, right, right. Where... My activism around it comes in and the fact that the large language models in their creation like stole a bunch of people’s books and all these data breaches to even get to the point that it can do the great editing. So it’s less of, I agree with what you are saying about like, I think it’s more about the idea and the concept. It’s not that I think very much if you’re using AI as a tool that you still like, you know, the originator, you are the creator of that. I just have more ethical concerns about the broader picture of it and the impact on the environment, which was something that first I didn’t even know about years ago. And I was like, yeah, I’m all tech, forward, what’s next? How can we use this to better? We can work less and we can do that. But like everything in our capitalist society, it gets corrupted and it’s just creating more billionaires. So there’s systemically things around it that I’m really concerned about, which makes me less likely to want to use it. But I also really get how it could be so beneficial because I’ve always said that too. Like I have all the ideas and my brain just doesn’t work as well to sit down and edit and to write in coherent way. Like even when I just write emails, I’m like, duh, duh, duh, duh. And then the automatic things popping up with like all this grammar stuff. And I’m like, oh yeah, that’s actually how to say that more clearly. And that’s like super helpful. So that’s my two cents.

Amy: Well, I’m struggling with finding this, sadly. Yeah. Well, more to be revealed, perhaps. Yeah, it’s just like very, you know, over the top.

Rainbow: Like if you put it out there and you’re honest about...

Amy: Oh, I would definitely be like, this is co-produced. Because it wouldn’t be produced. I wouldn’t just... You can’t. It’s not good enough yet. All it gives you is this, and you can download what’s called the stems, like each instrument, and then you can’t go with what it just gives you. If you do, it’s just not good. So you have to take it and alter it. I’m trying to think of what it reminds me of in the past, something that you have to edit it. You can’t just use it. So there’s a lot of effort still. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. I’m so torn about it. I keep paying the $30 a month. It’s been like three months that I’ve had it. And I’m so ethically and morally because of the environmental concerns, because of my producer friends that would just sneer, you know, because of whatever. I think they deserve the death penalty. They’re taking up so much water. I know, what, Amy? What are you talking about? I just feel like water is eternal. And I don’t know. I want to know how bad the environment is. But I also feel like there’s going to be a way... I’m going to know this. Maybe I’m just ignorant, but I feel like there’ll be a way to use the water that we already use to recycle water, to be able to use these. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just in the matrix.

James: It’s a new technology, though. We need to find an ecological way. We do for everything, right? Don’t we?

Amy: Look at what we’re doing with cars. We’ve changed. We’re changing. We do eventually, yeah.

James: A whole industrial age that almost destroyed the planet. They had to find more ecological friendly ways. I feel like that with AI, when it comes to the ecology, I agree. That concern, I mean, Amy’s use of it is not like, I think that’s the biggest concern when it comes to the ecological implications of it. I always ask that GPT and I’m like, how much water am I using by having this conversation with you? It’s like about three drops. And I’m like, okay, I’m going to go guzzle some water.

Amy: I think you’re peaking, James. I think you’re really loud. Do you see it? Like you can see the wave. Do you see the wave? Yeah.

James: That’s so weird. So I’ll back off. Is this better? No, what I was saying is corporations are going to use them. And the real question is who’s going to benefit from the technology? Because the technology is out there. Like, you know, we’re not going to be able to. Whether it was done ethically, the technology is not going to go away. So are we just going to let big corporations benefit off of them? Is it going to be an opportunity to democratize music and writing? And even with the question about Substack, my biggest question is, well, is this a marketplace of ideas or a marketplace for pros? Because I was on Substack for the ideas, not necessarily for, you know, polished prose. Like that’s like, I knew you thought that’s what I was interested in. So anyway, just my two thoughts.

Amy: Those are valid points too. And I don’t want to be like blase about it, but I also know I’m going to die and we’re all going to die and there’s no point to anything and we get to put meaning on anything. And I just find like there’s an evolution of humanity that it’s, we’re probably going to be extinct. I can’t imagine we’re going to keep going the way that we are with war and all this stuff. It’s an insane world. If we don’t obliterate ourselves, I don’t worry about Mother Earth. She’s going to outlive us. I doubt it. I mean, I don’t think, what is it, billions and billions of years and then the sun’s going to explode and we’re going to... I mean, it’s all so weird. We’re on a ball going around another ball. Technology is amazing. I’m so, I’m in awe of it. And that’s what I sat with when I, and then it’s so crazy to be like in awe of something, but also think like, what will people think of me? Like, is this bad for the environment? Like, am I a bad person? Like, should I uninstall this? Should I stop paying this app? What’s going on? Am I destroying the planet? Like, and then I’m like going to this place.

Rainbow: Questions and only you can answer. And that’s the thing.

Amy: If it sits funny in my gut, which has been sitting funny in my gut. So I’m like, okay, well, maybe you can use it for ideas, but you don’t, we don…

About the Hosts

Rev. Rainbow Weldon (they/them) is an ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister and the founder and curator of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy, and spirituality. They are passionate about helping folks transform self-doubt into a more joyful, creative, and authentic life.

Follow them Rainbow Weldon

James Masters (he/they) is a Kansas City artist working in watercolor, gouache, and ink, and a studio artist at Images Art Gallery. He runs the Pure Joy Snail Mail Club and writes the Inspired2Be Substack.

Follow them at James Masters

Transcript: Queer as Faith — Episode 2

Cleaned and edited for readability.

James Masters: It looks like we’re on. Welcome back to the Queer as Faith podcast. I am James Masters, I’m one of the co-hosts here, and I’m here with...

Rainbow Weldon: Reverend Rainbow. Hello, hello.

James: Reverend Rainbow. During this podcast, we talk about things like spirituality, the New Thought tradition, and our own personal lives, which is primarily what we’re going to focus on today. We’re going to get a little deeper. Last week, we talked a lot about the New Thought movement and what we sort of came to in terms of our conclusions about our spiritual life and spirituality. But today we’re going to dive a little bit deeper into our personal journeys and our personal experience. So Rainbow, do you want to get us kicked off?

Rainbow: For sure. Yeah. So I’m curious to hear a little bit more about your journey, and then I can share mine. When did you first become aware of your queer identity, your spiritual identity? How are those connected, related, and how did they shape each other and transform over the years? So just a light question to start with.

James: Yeah, that’s the entire hour that we have here. But no, I really was aware of my spirituality, or the depth of spirit, when I was very young. I have always been a person that continually asks why, why? What’s out there? And I always had a deep sense that there was something greater.

In terms of my queer identity, I came out very young. I was like 12 years old. And it actually felt like freedom. I did not grow up in an environment where they decried sexuality, and they didn’t really say anything negative about it until I came out. And then I started learning, oh, this is not okay. And at that point, it was so innate. I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do to change this. I just knew this was who I was.

And so I remember when I first learned, and back then, at least in my world, the word was just gay. You were just gay or lesbian, and that was it. We didn’t have a lot of identity language. I think that if we had, I might have used a different word. But I remember hearing about gay and recognizing, oh, this most closely aligns with what I’m experiencing. And I remember just saying out loud when I learned about that particular label, I was like, oh, I’m gay. And I just felt relieved, because I always knew I was different.

And then I went and told my family, and the immediate reaction was not what I was expecting. Like I said, I didn’t grow up in an environment that really talked about sexuality, at least not with young people. And I was only 12 years old. And that’s when I learned that it was something that was not appropriate. And that actually did affect my spirituality.

So in conversion therapy circles, we don’t just use the term conversion therapy. The survivors, we use sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts. That’s really the broader term that they use, even in psychological circles. And those change efforts started immediately. There was no formal conversion therapy program, but I ended up having to go through counseling with a minister, and then they found a Christian counselor. And those change efforts were there, even though I don’t think it was a specialized program. I think they were learning just as much at the same time. They were learning about it, getting the books about people who had gone through conversion therapy. These people weren’t really professionals in that field.

Rainbow: But it was still like you were being counseled in a way to change you somehow.

James: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and there was a lot of material out there. Exodus was still really big. Exodus International, which was one of the largest organizations for conversion therapy in the United States, was still big. And so there was a lot of material out there saying, oh, this is how it works, even though there was no efficacy behind the practices, what they were saying.

But it did not take me very long to realize, wait, this is not true. This is not working for me. And I just became an atheist. I thought, all this religious stuff must just be baloney, because I know that my identity is innate. I just knew at the time.

And it wasn’t until years later, when I was hit by a car, that I was kind of thrown into that conversion therapy world. I went through three programs over the course of five years and really confirmed for myself that there was no efficacy in it. And at that point, the reason why I went back is I had a near-death experience when I was hit by the car. And so I had a spiritual experience. And it made me realize, oh, the atheist part of me, or this just rejection of all spirituality, did not align with the experience that I had when I was hit by the car.

I had only really one way to contextualize that, and that was the religion of my parents and the religion of my youth. And so I kind of did a pendulum swing right back into that and then looked for ways to change my identity.

And I know your experience is kind of the opposite. I did not have queer people around me. I didn’t have any representation of queer leaders, whereas you had. And how do you think that impacted your journey?

Rainbow: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. And it’s so fascinating. I just want to reflect back a little bit about what I heard you sharing about your journey. You came out younger, you were 12. You were like, great, this is me. I know this is who I am. And then when you started hearing some voices through the church and counseling trying to change you, you’re like, well, no, this can’t change. So this must be the part that’s wrong, so to speak. So I’m just going to take this away and be me.

And then you had that car accident and that near-death experience, which opened you to the spiritual realm, where you’re like, well, no, this actually is just as real and powerful as who I am. And so then there was a desire to reconcile that. But what I’m hearing you say is, what you knew about the spiritual world was just from your upbringing and more of that Christian church perspective. So then you kind of dove into that, which again was like, well, to be this, you have to reject this other part of you. So you’re like, okay, well, I just had the spiritual experience. I know this is real. This must be what it is.

Tell me a little bit, before I get into my story, about the reconciliation process. When did you realize, oh, I can be queer and spiritual, and they are so interconnected in my identity? I think you shared in the first episode a little bit. That was probably when you started discovering Louise Hay and New Thought, right? Was that what created that opportunity to merge those identities?

James: Yeah, I think that definitely helped. There were so many things happening all at the same time. I was in seminary and I started learning about church history and learning really about my own religion. And I started asking questions like, well, this is not consistent with the tradition of the faith. This is not consistent with the history. We’re not practicing what early Christians practiced. And so there were a lot of questions going on.

I started questioning ideas in the religion that I was in. Jesus was really presented as this angry, coming back to make war with humanity sort of person. And I was like, well, that’s the opposite of the way he presented himself the first time. If that was who he truly was, why wouldn’t he have just done that the first time? Why come once and then leave and then come back a completely different person? So things like that stopped making sense.

I also was in the Kansas City area. I moved to Kansas City because they had the best conversion therapy program. And I was working with an organization that did a lot of street ministry. And I started noticing that there was a parallel between people that were on the streets and people that had been through conversion therapy.

Rainbow: Hmm.

James: And I started questioning the efficacy of these programs. And I started noticing that they’re just not working. And so it wasn’t just New Thought. It was a lot of different things.

I think that around the same time I was introduced to Louise Hay, and there were, I think, five leaders from within the Exodus International organization that did a public apology. We’re talking like this all happened within the course of a couple of months, where I started going, wait, I started questioning everything.

And I remember at one point I took a month off of school and I was just like, I’m going to read the Bible. I’m going to figure this out. In fact, I’ve written about this on my Substack. And as I was going through the Bible, went through the entire Bible, making notes and trying to figure it out, and realized there is no answer to what I’m experiencing. There’s no answer to all of this. And I threw the Bible across the room and I said, either I don’t understand a thing within that book or it’s just not true.

And I lifted my hands up, and at the time I was questioning all parts of my faith, but I lifted my hands up, palms up, open, and I said, okay, my hands are empty, fill them. I don’t know if I was just talking to truth itself. But I think that made a huge difference, in that it made me more receptive to being open. It was like at that point, it was fine to be wrong. I didn’t have to be right anymore. I didn’t have to figure it out. I could just accept myself without it being right or wrong. I could just be me without trying to figure out how to change that. Because I knew after five years, this is not changing, right? This identity thing is just who I am.

And so I had observed enough people and I had had enough experience to go, this is just who I am. So I think there were so many things where I reached this pinnacle of just letting go, you know, and surrendering to whatever it was.

There was a lot of overlap with a lot of different parts of my story at that point in time. But I know that that was when I was first introduced to Louise Hay. And since I was already in that idea of, I don’t have to know everything. I don’t have to believe the right things. If there is a God out there, and if it has a personality, and if it is judging things, it knows enough to know that I really tried.

Rainbow: I tried. I went all in. Yeah, I think that’s so important to share that story because I think it’s so relatable to so many people, and to hear how you have, through that moment of surrender and all the things coming together, integrated and stand proudly now as a queer mystic, right? A spiritual being and teacher, owning your queer spirit identity.

And for me, it’s like I had a completely different journey. And I think it’s fascinating that it led us both kind of to the same place, like here we are having this conversation. But for me, what fueled it was, I too, from a very young age, very spiritual, not necessarily religious, but I grew up in the New Thought teachings. So this is in the 80s, you know, meditating. My mom did Reiki and hypnosis and energy healing. Tarot, all of that. She didn’t do Tarot, but had friends, you know, so that was like the world I was in. And crystals, as well as Science of Mind, and change your thinking, change your life, positive thinking, in the suburbs of Atlanta, in a pretty conservative area where it was very Bible Belt Christian.

I was exposed to all of this, though at the time I still kind of had to hide it, like a little bit of shame around it. And that was an aspect of my nature, that coming out around my spirituality was as much of a journey, if not more, than coming out around my sexual orientation. I identify as queer at this point too.

And yet it was kind of trying to find my people, and always a deep thinker, and reading books like Mutant Message Down Under and The Celestine Prophecy and Illusions. You know, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, all of this as a teenager that really kind of shaped that, and trying to find anyone else that was my age that I could talk to about these things, that were interested in this stuff, because just the regular drama of teen life was so not compelling to me.

James: If only we knew each other then. I don’t think we would have gotten along. We were in very different worlds.

Rainbow: Right, true. Fascinating. And then as far as the sexual orientation aspect of it, the church I grew up in had a gay minister in downtown Atlanta. So I did see gay leadership in a spiritual world. So those things were already kind of mixed for me, in a way that I know a lot of people with more of a Christian upbringing, there’s a lot of separation and reconciliation that needs to happen around that.

And yet at the same time, I didn’t come out until I moved away from kind of my home area, and I moved to Chicago as a young adult. And that kind of created the space and the freedom to explore really who I am outside of all the constructs of the area I grew up in, because I was very much the good girl and wanted to do things right, and trying to figure out how to fit in and be safe in this world by fitting in.

And then Chicago, I go and connect with a whole world. Before I moved to Chicago, the first thing I did was research New Thought churches. It was like, what other 22-year-old, their top priority is, I need to find a spiritual community, that’s where I’ll move. And it was a Unity church at first when I first moved there, and then kind of connected with some other people. Older people, like spiritual mentors in the community, older than me at that time. They’re about my age now, but I was 20. And then that also kind of helped me reveal to myself, like the pieces. The pieces were always there around my attraction to women mostly, and just feeling... And so the journey was definitely different.

James: What I find so interesting, too, is you had representation in front of you, yet there was a delay. And you said that you knew, right? You knew that there was something, I don’t know if you would say something different, but there were enough hints to you. So what was that process of exploration? What was the line that you crossed when you were like, oh, I’m coming out as a lesbian or as a queer person? I don’t know what it was at the time.

Rainbow: Yeah. So it was like, when I moved to Chicago and I started reflecting on things, and even some friendships in high school that I noticed, you know, I’d get really close and then I would feel a lot of jealousy when then my friend got a boyfriend and spent a lot of time with them instead. And I was like, hey, like, you know. And then I did summer stock theater, and I had a moment one summer, laying on the roof under the stars in New Hampshire. Because the place we stayed, you could open the windows and go out on the roof of this flat-top gym where the rehearsals were. And it was just this beautiful moment, and out there with, again, a friend that I, summer stock, got really close with. She starts playing the guitar and singing, and I looked over at her and I just had this emotion come up, and I was like, this is weird. I kind of want to kiss her. And then just kind of dismissed that.

And, you know, we talked later, she was bisexual, but we didn’t talk about that until years later, you know. And so then it was a few times I would kind of notice. And I mean, I can think back now all the way back to as a little kid having some crushes on some of my dance teachers. But what it felt like was just more like just a deep connection. I just want to be around this person. And then when that dance teacher left, I grieved and I cried. And I was like, what is that about?

And so even though I saw it and I knew it, it wasn’t like I knew and I was hiding it from myself because I thought it was bad or shameful. I don’t know what it was, but I literally had a dream in Chicago, one of those first couple months that I was there, of coming out of a closet. And it was like in my little studio apartment. And like I said, there were these two women that I met through the Unity church that I kind of then later figured out, oh, they’re together, even though they were just always together. I just thought that they were spiritual buddies. And then I dreamed that they opened my window of my apartment and kind of called me, and I came out of the closet and followed them, crawled through the little window. And then we’re just like running free down the streets of Chicago.

And so I was kind of unpacking that dream with one of them, and they were like, uh-huh, yeah, so what do you think that might be, you know, just real gentle and whatnot. But then also kind of introduced me to somebody in the community, like, we think you might really like this person, come hang out. And then that person was my first girlfriend.

And again, I just remember feeling this energy of, like, I just want to be around this person. And so we started dating and came out that first summer that I moved to Chicago. And I remember we lived in the neighborhoods that we could walk to the Pride parade. So that first summer in Chicago, Pride was on my birthday, and I’m going to Pride with a girl.

James: Real quick, what year did you live in Chicago? I’m wondering if we were in, I only lived in Chicago for like eight months, but I’m wondering if there might have been a parallel.

Rainbow: This would have been 2002?

James: I was there the year before then.

Rainbow: Okay, 2001, because I remember tracking time, 9/11, so September 2001, I was in Missoula, Montana, training to work for Missoula Children’s Theater. I did that for nine months and then moved to Chicago. So I think that would have been, yeah, 2002. So we just missed each other.

James: We did. Well, and I was, again, in very different circles. But I wanted to go back to something that you said. So you alluded to the process of coming out in terms of your spirituality earlier. When you were younger, what are the parallels and what are the distinctions between coming out spiritually and coming out in terms of your identity?

Rainbow: Yeah, I think that coming out spiritually was confronting the fear of being judged, not accepted, especially with some of my more conservative extended family, that if they know what I really believe, then they’re going to think I’m going to hell. Literally, it was so similar to what people experience around their sexuality, like, oh, I’m afraid my family and friends will reject me because of this.

And yet, because I didn’t believe in a specific religious dogma, that I had to ask Jesus to be my Lord and Savior to go to heaven, yet I believed in the teachings of Jesus as the path and the way to experience heaven now, it still just felt really hard and scary to share, because it felt so intimate and personal as well, my spiritual practices and my connection with the divine. And it just felt like this huge part of me. So I think the parallels are so similar.

And coming out around my sexual orientation, once I met that person that there was that connection with and it was reciprocated, it was like, well, love leads the way. And I was just blissed out and happy to share. It was like, nothing can get me down because I’m so happy and in love. I can share this. And that almost was easier than my spirituality, which I guess maybe partially because the way I was raised, and that it kind of felt like the shameful thing that was hidden in our household compared to the rest of the world.

James: Can you clarify that? So your family, it sounds like the household that you grew up in, the broader family was more conservative. And then are you saying your family kind of hid it a little bit?

Rainbow: Yeah. So I’m an only child. So me and my parents, and my aunt also went to the Center for Spiritual Living in Atlanta and shared those beliefs. So with that, and on my mom’s side, the family was a bit more open to that. And then my dad’s side of the family, cousins, aunts and uncles, and they’re much larger, very conservative Southern Baptist, and that would definitely be the messages I would subtly receive as we would visit them. Like, don’t talk about this.

James: Don’t say this, you know.

Rainbow: And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. So that’s what it felt like. And then even with some friends and peers, I would just feel embarrassed or something, or shocked when somebody like, so what denomination are you? And that was always the question, assuming you’re Christian. And I would kind of freeze like I was in trouble. Which I think also, I then later in high school found and befriended folks. I had a few Jewish friends. I was really more interested in interfaith stuff and started to get into that world a bit more, because then I could feel like I wasn’t just surrounded by Christians, and I was holding some kind of secret.

Even when I went to college, it was a Christian college. It wasn’t so much that we had to go to chapel, you know, we just had to have one religion course. And I was able to convince them to switch it from the Christianity 101 or whatever to world religions. But I was very involved in chapel life because that spiritual nature was who I was. But I always felt like I was translating. I was hiding something. Like, what if they really knew I’m not really into all of this as literally as they are, as judgmentally as they are.

And then just kind of finding my way through that through my theater friends, which were definitely more free and queer. But at that time, in southwest Georgia, nobody that I knew was really out. Later I can look back and see, you know, but it wasn’t, even in college, yeah, it wasn’t in my awareness as much. You just didn’t talk about it.

James: Right. Well, and it sounds like, you know, the Chicago experience was a bit of self-actualization anyway. So that part of your coming out, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like that was more, there weren’t a lot of barriers because of the way that you grew up. So it was just, oh yeah, I’m very free to move into this part of my life, you know, romantic relationship and all that.

Rainbow: Yeah, it was more like, you know, guess what? I’m in love and it’s a woman. And I still never made any big proclamation around like, I’m gay, I’m a lesbian or whatever. And just over time being in a relationship with a woman, then that got more comfortable, or people would assume or say, you know, and then so you just kind of start, for me, I just kind of took on that identity in a way. And then it wasn’t until years later that I really started learning more about the LGBTQIA spectrum. And every time I learn more, I find different ways that I connect with different types of identities on the spectrum, which is why I’ve now landed on queer, because it’s such a great umbrella term, because I’ve also been very gender fluid. I don’t necessarily fit in the binary in that way. And so all of that has been something I’ve been fascinated with and always still a discovery.

James: Yeah. And I kind of have a love-hate relationship with labels, whether it’s religious, spiritual, or LGBTQIA++++, all of that. I love them. And I love that we’re being so precise in the way that we can see ourselves in certain labels. I love that. That’s why I was talking earlier. It’s like, well, you just had the option of being gay or straight. When I came out, we didn’t have the language that we have now. And I love that. But then sometimes I’m like, we can get stuck in labels.

Just a good example of that was for many years of my life, I still identified as Christian just because that was my background. And then I worked for a Hindu family for a while and really I was interested in Hinduism. This was post New Thought, right? Because New Thought, Louise Hay’s version of New Thought, didn’t matter what religion you were. This is a philosophy, not a particular religious identity. So then I became very interested in the concepts of Hinduism, and especially that in the Sanatana Dharma portion of Hinduism, you can, Jesus can be your deity. It doesn’t matter. You can be a Christian Hindu and identify with the philosophy of Sanatana Dharma and identify with the Christian religion.

And I thought it was so interesting that when I finally, you know, I didn’t go to church for a long time. And for a while I was like, I’m a Christian Hindu, and like, I’m not really a Hindu. I’m just, you know, then I was like, you know, I’m really not a Christian anymore either. And I stopped identifying with that word altogether. I’m like, I don’t have any religion. I just, you know, I feel very fluid in that. And then I joined Unity where everybody wants to be a Christian.

I became credentialed within that movement. I just think sometimes labels, they’re useful in helping us understand, but then they also can box us in a bit. And especially if we’re trying to create a sense of belonging around a specific identity, and that’s the identity. And I think that that’s one of the challenges when it comes to religion and church and all of that, you know, it can get really boxed in.

So that’s why I was so interested in the idea of you coming out spiritually. And what you said about your family makes a lot of sense because it was a cultural experience for you. You know, it was learned behavior.

Rainbow: For sure.

James: Yeah. So what are your thoughts on labels? Like, do you have a love-hate or just a love-love or?

Rainbow: No, similar. I find that it’s helpful to understand myself more, whether it be a label around gender and sexual orientation, gender identity, or even stuff like Enneagram and personality types and stuff like that, like discovering that I was ADHD and different things like that. I go through a time where I dig in and do all the research and get excited and finally feel seen in a way, like another layer of being seen by a niche community and feel that sense of belonging. And then it kind of integrates into who I am. And so that’s kind of my journey with labels overall.

And I totally get, though, that it can, in those communities too, I can see the shrinking sometimes around that identity. And I’m just not really an in-the-box kind of person in general. I think that’s why we both identify with that kind of queer, non-binary, meaning in the bigger perspective, you know, not just gender, but of life, always growing and expanding.

But I think labels are important, important part of that discovery of who we are and finding that belonging and connection, but not letting it be all that we are.

James: Yeah, I agree. And I mean, for years, I just, I remember it was like the two labels I had for spirituality is Christian and New Thought. Not even really New Thought, New Age, because I, like I said, I didn’t go to a New Thought church. Louise Hay is New Thought, but she’s often referred to as the queen of the New Age, even though there isn’t a single thing about anything that she taught that was New Age. It was all New Thought, and she pulled from all of the New Thought teachers.

And I remember for a while, I would think about, so what community can I belong to? Because I always felt like if I went to the New Age store, which I worked at a New Age store for a few years, and I always felt like I was too Christian for the New Age. Like if I taught a class or if I did something, I was always quoting Jesus because, I mean, and I understand people have a lot of emotions about that, right? But there’s so much within those teachings that I’m like, yeah, this is really good. This is something useful, whether you identify with the religion itself or not.

And, oh shoot, where was I going with that? Oh, so I always felt like too Christian for New Thought and too New Age for Christianity. And I just couldn’t really find a balance there, which I will say Unity certainly bridged that gap a bit for me.

But with me, it’s like I went to a Christian seminary and I didn’t study the Bhagavad Gita. I studied the Christian Bible. I studied the Greek and Hebrew. That’s what I know, and I think we pull from what we know in terms of being a teacher or minister. That’s kind of like the easiest segue into expressing ourselves.

Rainbow: For sure. Yeah. And, you know, and for me, sometimes I can feel that sense again of like being, not quite a fraud, but like a poser or whatever, you know, of being a minister, because then people sometimes assume that I have more of that theological Christian background, which my studies of Jesus really came more through the Aramaic, the Noohra Foundation, Rocco Errico, my parents studied with him a lot.

James: I love Rocco Errico.

Rainbow: Yeah, looking at the teachings of Jesus from the different perspectives of the culture of the time and the idioms, and understanding it more holistically, not literally at all. And how it is, you know, like little things like not Jesus died for our sins, but Jesus died because of our sins, like the humanity that, you know, that couldn’t, the systems that were afraid of the radical message of Jesus, that is what tried to quiet him.

James: No, that’s okay. That’s okay. I mean, we’re kind of like, you know, bridging two different, very distinct topics of like queer identity and spiritual. But I mean, I guess that’s the point of the podcast.

Rainbow: Yes, exactly.

James: Well, and I’m very open to, you know, all teaching. I’ve read the Bhagavad Gita. There’s a lot of good in that. You know, I’ve read the Tibetan Book of the Dead and everything. In fact, I don’t know if you’re familiar with A Course in Miracles, and I’m not one to just adopt a bunch of, oh, this is absolute truth. There’s so many nuggets in A Course in Miracles, which is supposedly written by Jesus, and I’m like, I’m just open to whatever.

And to me, a truth. So even, I mean, going back to something that Jesus said, you know, Jesus said that we’d have the Holy Spirit and the Spirit would lead us into all truth, not a particular book, not a theology, not a religion, not a dogma, not a doctrine, but that there’s an intrinsic quality that sort of resonates within us when something is true. And that’s more of what I personally follow is, oh, is there an inner ding happening? Is there something within me that is aligned with any teaching or any book or anything. And it doesn’t matter what you’re reading. You can turn it into whatever you want to, right? Look at Christianity. You know, you have progressive Christians that are really proactive about social justice and all that. And then you have like the total opposite and they’re reading the same scriptures and coming to two very different conclusions. And it’s like, we project whatever we want to in whatever tradition that we’re in anyway.

That being said, what are your core values when it comes to your spiritual path?

Rainbow: That’s a great question. Curiosity and creativity are definitely two of my strongest values. The idea of curiosity being willing to look at something from all perspectives. Willing to see the opposite of the story as true or truer. Fascinated by big life questions, different perspectives and mythologies and stories and religions. And looking at kind of what that golden thread is between them.

You know, and being raised and being trained in the Science of Mind, studying the teachings of Dr. Ernest Holmes, it really is like he kind of synthesized a lot, took stuff from all these different world religions and kind of wove this path around to create this philosophy. And so then when I got more into doing some interfaith work, and I was working out of college and working with different student groups of different religious groups, and we would go on field trips to experience things at different temples or synagogues or mosque and doing all of that. And in college, too, I took a class called Religions of Atlanta. Actually, it was like a really intensive, I forgot what they called it now, because my senior year they switched from the quarter system to this like 3-1-3, 2-1, I don’t know, it was too long ago. But like for a month intensive, I had this Religions of Atlanta class and we went to all these different places and I brought them to New Thought and explained about that too. But I could see when I go in Holmes’ teaching, like, oh, that’s where that came from. Or that’s where that came from. And the different threads of all these different religions that, you know, so kind of mapping all that together.

So curiosity. And also being curious around the idea of always being willing to change my thoughts, my ideas, learn something new about myself, question my default reaction patterns, thoughts, my judgments on what other people are doing or saying, like, well, is that true? Is that really, or is that how I’m interpreting it through my own lens? So that’s why I think curiosity is a really wide and broad word for me as a value. It also just kind of drives my, the idea of trying something new and not being afraid to fail and exploring different things.

So curiosity, and then creativity as well, as like discovering something through the process of taking two things and making something new, or being that vessel for spirit to flow through me and speak or channel different things. And that definitely informs my spirituality, my spiritual practice, as well as what you talked about earlier, that surrender piece. So knowing that letting go of the being right or the righteousness of anything.

And that’s been a process of, you know, maturing in my journey as well. Because when I was younger and growing up on this, I saw Science of Mind New Thought very literally. And it was like, change your thinking, change your life. There’s a powerful good in the universe and I can use it. And I use it now to know that this and that and the other. And look what I’m manifesting. And it’s just simple and linear and very black and white. And what are you focusing on? That’s what you experience. And then through time opened up to a lot more nuance, a lot more compassion for myself through painful situations that occurred, and through getting to know more people and understanding kind of the suffering of this planet and humanity opened my heart more. Yeah, I think I’ll pause there.

James: Yeah, that’s a good place. Well, there was one thing that you said about embracing many perspectives. Not necessarily declaring, and this is what I’m getting from you, not necessarily declaring, oh, all perspectives are true or right, capital T or whatever. Right. But what it reminded me of, are you familiar with Jean Gebser, a philosopher who, so Jean Gebser was kind of the person who originated integral theory and came up with this term that I really like. A-perspectival is the term. It’s where you’re able to hold multiple perspectives without saying, oh, this is the absolute truth.

And so I want to contrast it because right now the deconstruction movement is huge. People are deconstructing from their religious backgrounds. And I think that there’s something valuable in that. I actually deconstructed before deconstruction was popular in terms of my Christian background, right? I sort of had this deconstruction experience, but I actually aligned more with Jean Gebser’s a-perspectival way of doing things, because what Gebser says is it’s not just getting rid of something. Instead, you can take a step back and just open yourself up for a broader perspective. And in doing that, Gebser said that you can actually create or observe more and come up with a deeper level of truth. Whereas the deconstruction actually comes from a philosopher named Jacques Derrida. Derrida? I’ve heard it pronounced both ways, and I don’t know if that’s correct. But in that particular movement, even Derrida said, this does not lead anybody to truth. And so you’re almost, if you’re, and I talk about deconstruction and reconstruction and all of that, but it’s like, I prefer the a-perspectival way of doing things where you’re just able to take a step back and not say it’s wrong or right, but just, I’m opening myself up to a bigger perspective. And I think that that’s the one thing I love about the tradition of New Thought is because it provides a context for people to just explore.

You know, one of my favorite quotes by Charles Fillmore is, I reserve the right to change my mind.

Rainbow: Ooh, I love it.

James: About anything. It’s like, oh, I love that. You know, I hesitate. I have a Substack and I’ve been published in a couple books and I hesitate to write stuff down because I know, I don’t dare read anything I’ve written two years ago because I know, I already know there are things that I’ll go, what was I thinking? And I feel like that is, that’s the journey itself. Not that we, I do think it’s valuable to write things down and to put it out there. I’m a teacher, so it’s like I’m constantly teaching these principles. And then I look back 10 years ago and I’m like, what was I thinking when I said that? But that was true for me at that moment. And it was important.

Rainbow: And it would be true and relatable to someone else at that stage of their journey.

James: Sure. Well, and when you have an a-perspectival position on something where you’re able to take a step back, you’re able to just include everyone. No one has to be right or wrong. I’m a really terrible person to argue with because I will just say, oh, you might be right.

Rainbow: Yeah. Like, I don’t know,

James: maybe you’re right. It’s very likely that you’re right. It’s not the way I see things right now. And I feel like that’s a healthier way of living than trying to continually deconstruct because deconstruction doesn’t necessarily... And I think the deconstruction, there’s value in that too. In fact, I just did a Substack post about deconstruction.

Rainbow: Remind us again your Substack handle. What is it?

James: It’s inspired2be. So yeah, I just did another Substack post about deconstruction, but I think that there is value in taking a step back in curiosity, not needing to be right or wrong. None of us has the full picture anyway. And so it’s fine to be wrong. Like, I think that if I could travel back and talk to my 20-something self, before the conversion therapy, I wouldn’t ever get rid of that part of my life because it’s made me who I am and I value it. I wouldn’t want anybody else to go through it. But if I could say one thing, I think that that’s what I would say is you don’t have to get everything. You don’t have to be right. There’s no condition.

And so related to that question that I asked you about the foundational principles, I think to me, my foundational principles, I mean, I would include curiosity in there and creativity. I mean, creativity, absolutely. But I really feel like my motivating characteristics are whether or not something, whether it’s a belief or a community or a practice, if it is expanding my capacity to experience love, joy, and peace, it’s worth holding on to. Whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. If I’m a more loving person, if I’m a more joyful person, and if I’m a more peaceful person, isn’t that the promise from all spiritual paths anyway? These are the qualities that you’re going to get. And so I think that is, you know, somewhat of a litmus test. That’s my guiding principle is like, is it increasing those things? Is it decreasing those things? Because it doesn’t even really matter to me if it’s right or wrong in a black and white sense.

You know, and it even goes to, there’s a passage in Galatians, the fruit of the spirit. I’m sure you’ve heard the fruit of the spirit. Most people have these love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. And it’s like, that’s like the litmus test. Is it creating those things? Because there’s a lot of religious things that people are like, this is absolutely true, but is it creating those things?

Rainbow: Right. Then it’s antithetical to, right.

James: Yeah. And it’s like, it literally says there that that is the fruit of the spirit. That’s how you can tell if something is spirit, is it produces these qualities. Another thing I’ve always loved from that section of scripture is the self-control, because we always, you know, we focus a lot on self-control. It’s at the end. It’s at the end of the list. And I think it’s at the end of the list because it is one of, in terms of, I don’t want to say spiritual attainment, but in our evolutionary process, it’s usually one of the last things that we get. We have to calm down first. We have to center ourselves first. We have to really practice principles. And then that’s where that self-control comes. And I don’t like the word self-control. I mean, if you look at the original Greek, it’s probably more like self-empowerment, like feeling powerful, right?

Rainbow: Self-awareness, right. Or knowing your inherent worth and power, right? Yeah. Because I definitely have a reaction to the word control.

James: Yeah.

Rainbow: And, you know, in the What We Believe statements that Ernest Holmes wrote, that’s like the core teaching of Science of Mind, which I’m ordained in. One of the ones that’s like, it’s beautiful. And, you know, I memorized it 16 years ago when I was first becoming a licensed spiritual practitioner. Can’t say that I still have it memorized. But that was in my academic time when I thought I had to do it all right and know everything. Right. And like, it’s like we go through these journeys where you intellectually learn it. And now I just kind of love it. But the one that I was really confronted with and still kind of question, but particularly when I was saying yes to this to become ordained in this teaching is we believe in the control of the conditions of our lives through the power of our mind. And I’m like, yes, and so it’s like just the absoluteness of that is what, the idea of control, like so then, because the thing that often comes up in New Thought from people first learning it and with the very simple, like if you just say that people like, oh, so you’re saying the person that experienced A, B and C trauma created that for themselves. Well, if we can control the conditions in our lives, then why did we create or attract this disease or abuse or whatever? Right. And so I’m like, I don’t know that I can say that I believe that I am in control. It’s the word control of the conditions in our lives, because I believe sometimes things happen in life and that everything is an opportunity for our learning. So it’s more of how are we responding to what occurs and showing up in this moment and then letting it shape us and refine us and finding that inner strength and that wholeness and that worthiness and that self-love, whatever the conditions are.

So instead of trying to control everything from the outside to look like whatever this perfect life is supposed to look like, happy, happy, joy, joy is where it tends to go, right? People in New Thought circles can say, well, if I’m doing this New Thought thing right, then my life should look like prosperity and abundance, health and wealth, loving healthy relationships, career and creative expression to the fullness, and joy and bliss all the time. That would be one very extreme way of looking at it, right? From a very black and white. If there is a right and a good way and a right way to do this thing, which to me, when I hear we believe in the control of the conditions of our lives, that’s how I hear it. That like, oh, you’re not doing it good or right enough if you’re not controlling things. But the word control to me lives more in the ego and the personality that tries to control things to keep things boxed in and keep us safe. And it’s that part of us that is just trying to protect us. Whereas I value growth and expansion and the mystery of life and getting to know myself more as this infinite expression of spirit more than trying to control the conditions of my life. That’s exhausting.

Yet, at the same time, I see and know that where I put my thoughts, my beliefs, my energy, my attention, my focus expands. And I see more of that. And I experience more love when I focus on the love and the gratitude. And so I know that’s the intention of that statement in the teaching. I still, I would reword it.

James: Yeah.

Rainbow: What are your thoughts on that?

James: Yeah. So, I mean, that’s a big one too, especially in New Thought. You know, thoughts are things. Thoughts are things. I don’t like that statement either.

Rainbow: And then it’s so scary for like people with neurodivergent brains or obsessive compulsive or any of these things where we have trauma and have all these thoughts like, did I literally just create this horrible situation? Oh, great. The world is going to end.

James: There’s a delay and then you have to wait for it. So I think that some of that is problematic. I mean, I’ve studied a lot of the origins of New Thought. And I would say more consistently, like they did believe you can heal your body. They believed that. But when it came to, you know, some of the ways that New Thought is used right now, where we can, you know, you can have that Mercedes Benz. You just need, you know, your consciousness needs to be in alignment. I would say that most early New Thought is antithetical. Like they’re just totally the opposite of that.

Rainbow: And I think that really came around in that kind of golden age and around like, I don’t know, I could be wrong, but like in the 80s and stuff of like prosperity and positive thinking. And it all of a sudden, like in the beginning, it was like focused on health, right? And then health, it was all internal. Yeah. And then it was that. And it’s just interesting to watch how the movement shifts. And I want to go back to your thought, but like, I feel like now where we’re at is understanding how these principles for the collective growth of spiritual awakening of our collective and humanity and seeing beyond just our own personal. But yes, it was very individualized. It was shaped by the culture and the time for sure. But yes, tell me more about the history.

James: Well, and I think that what they were really focused on, because they did believe, and I actually believe that we experience our thinking, but that most of that is internal. When I held a lot of my evangelical belief system in my mind, you can’t hold that belief system in your mind without having a fear-based experience, a negative experience. If you truly believe that most of the planet is going to go through eternal conscious torment, that is a tormenting thought. And so internally you would experience torment. That’s actually why my guiding principle is related to internal qualities, love, joy, and peace, because those are, I actually think more measurable than externals, because it doesn’t matter how much you’re able to collect in terms of material. There are people that have massive amounts of wealth that I wouldn’t really trade.

I did a lot of personal one-on-one treatments and stuff with people when I was younger. And I had some clients that were talking like they probably made in a day what I made in a year or two. And we would talk about their relationships and their family. And I was like, I wouldn’t trade my life for their life for anything. And you would look at them and externally be like, oh, they have everything.

Rainbow: Have it all. Right. They have money.

James: Right. I remember I was working with this one woman and the whole thing was doing a treatment about where to land for her primary residence. And they were going to buy a house in Florida or a house in New York City. And the conclusion was, I’ll buy a house in both places and just go back and forth. And I’m like, we’re in different worlds, which is fine. But then I also remember that... Anyway, I don’t want to go too far into it, but I just want to say the internal... The external will match up, you know, in terms of prosperity. If you are aligned with, you know, there’s a source that provides for all of my needs. The external does align up, you know? And I mean, I think that’s a lesson that I’m still continually learning, but it’s also something that has consistently proven itself to me as well.

Rainbow: Yeah. What it looks like may be different than what we think it’s going to look like or what the world tells us abundance looks like. When we really get right with those qualities within ourselves and what we really desire and want and appreciate and value in our own life, it may be the shack by the river or the mansion by the ocean. Like I said, it’s not that physical thing on the outside. It’s our experience of it and finding that contentment. Yeah, for sure.

I had another thought, something you said. Oh, I just wanted to clarify when you said you were doing treatment. So you’re talking about spiritual mind treatment, affirmative prayer, because some people might not be familiar with that jargon.

James: I worked with clients one-on-one. It was pretty broad, which I don’t really do anymore.

Rainbow: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, we are kind of wrapping up on time for this episode, but is there anything else kind of along this line, you know, we can talk and talk and talk.

James: We could. I think we’ve got it covered. I’ve just really enjoyed this conversation, especially, you know, getting into the realness, because I think that sometimes, especially for me in New Thought, it’s like, oh, we have to stay positive about everything. It’s like, I think it is important to talk about just, no, that’s a human experience, right?

Rainbow: Fear and doubt, all of that, we’re going to experience it at some point. How do we move through it consciously?

James: Doubt in particular. I think doubt, I know we’re out of time, but I think doubt is actually useful because we can’t expand. If we don’t doubt at some point in time and take a step back and maybe be a-perspectival, we don’t ever expand. So anyway, it was lovely chatting with you today and tune in next week for another podcast.

Rainbow: Sounds good. Love you all.

James: Bye. Bye-bye.

Rainbow: Queer as Faith.

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Queer as Faith explores the intersection of identity and spirituality through a queer lens. Hosted by James Masters (Licensed Unity Teacher) and Rainbow Weldon (ordained Centers for Spiritual Living minister), each episode is an honest conversation about faith, authenticity, and what it means to be fully, divinely queer — with interviews from queer faith leaders and spiritual folks across traditions, all through a New Thought lens.

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