Right off the bat, I want to thank you guys for the support you’ve shown me since I lost my mom a month ago. Your love is tangible and very real to me. I feel it from around the world, and it comforts me more than you know. I am so, so grateful for you. I mean it.
It reminded me of last July when I sent out an email to you all asking if you could tell me what NakedPastor means to you in one sentence. I had read a book on branding and it inspired me to ask you what you thought. The response was overwhelming, with over 200 replies. I kept them all. Yesterday, as Lisa and I were hanging out with our morning coffees, I compiled all your responses into a single document. It came to 14 pages of invaluable feedback.
Again, I was overwhelmed with your support and love. But more than that, I felt deeply thankful for our relationship. Even though most of us have never met face to face, we are friends, and these friendships are real to me.
For the past few days and for a few more to come, we’ve been focusing on loneliness. Specifically, the loneliness that might be the direct result of us deconstructing our beliefs and changing our relationship to the faith, the church, and religion.
Deconstruction does change more than just our minds. It changes our relationships.
If we are committed to our personal growth, we will go through many separations and divorces in many relationships.
I’ve experienced this. And I know many of you have too.
To use biblical imagery here, there are very few people who will go all the way to our cross with us.
I do not blame them. I understand.
But it does create a level of loneliness that is existential in scope.
The trick is to learn how to transform this loneliness into solitude. (This is a common theme in a lot of my paintings!)
And then learn how to transform this solitude into spiritual independence.
And then learn how to transform this spiritual independence into healthy and interdependent relationships.
