Deconstruction | “Yes, Even Clergy” with Sarah Heath

Show Notes:

Eddie and Chris continue the conversation around deconstruction with Sarah Heath. If the name sounds familiar, she was one of our very first guests, way back in Season 1.  Sarah is a United Methodist clergywoman who is going through her own season of deconstruction and trying to figure out how, exactly, to do that as a pastor--how to navigate the difficulty of being a person and a pastor who is going through a season of doubt, how to find networks of support, how to provide that support when it’s not readily available, and how to continue to see God’s grace in the small moments of life… in an airstream trailer.

Sarah is an ordained elder in the California Pacific Annual Conference. She is also an actress, an author, a dancer, a designer, a podcaster, and a creator. She has written several books, including 2019’s The 21-Day Authenticity Challenge. She is one of the founders of the Irreverent Media Group, a podcast media collective and co-hosts the REVcovery Room podcast with Justin Gentry, which is about leaving ministry, recovering from being a professional Christian, and finding meaning after a calling.

Resources:

Learn more about Sarah and her ministry at www.revsarahheath.com.

You can find her at:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revsarahheath/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/minirevsarahheath/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/revsarahheath

REVcovery Room Podcast: https://www.irreverent.fm/show/revcovery/

Irreverent Media Group: https://www.irreverent.fm

Sarah’s previous The Weight Episode: https://www.theweightpodcast.com/episodes/0007-the-weight-sarah-heath-the-theology-of-huh?rq=Sarah%20

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:01
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:03
Today we're here with Sarah Heath.

Eddie Rester 00:05
Sarah Heath I have known for a long time. She was actually on the podcast for a couple, not four. But she was on the podcast in our first season.

Chris McAlilly 00:13
And you said she was a Canadian-Mississippian-Californian.

Eddie Rester 00:16

Exactly, with a brief stay in Durham, North Carolina. She went to Duke Divinity School. Sarah has been someone who has led her whole life. She has been a leader in the church and now is exploring what it's like to be a leader beyond the bounds of the church.

Chris McAlilly 00:30

We're in a conversation over the course of multiple episodes on deconstruction. And so this is a little bit different than the conversations we had before, because this is a person, in Sarah, who is doing some deconstruction of her faith, while also kind of unraveling a ministry career and trying to put the pieces back together of purpose and vocation in a new kind of way.

Eddie Rester 00:55

She's been a pastor, I think she said for 17 years in Costa Mesa, California, loves that community, but is trying to figure out how to, I sense, unravel her faith and vocation and the work that she's done, some, I think, pain along denominational lines. And so she's doing the work, and she's helping other people do the work. And if you're a pastor, and you're beginning to wonder, "Am I supposed to do this?" It's been part of my conversation through the years. Is this what God is still calling me to? Is it okay for me to maybe think about doing something else? This is going to be a good episode for you, and maybe even to track down her podcast REVcovery, and maybe give that a listen as well.

Chris McAlilly 01:43

I think what I will kind of come away from this conversation thinking about, is, you know, there have been the stable, and kind of solid forms of communal Christianity in denominational forms and otherwise in America that really kind of have taken shape post World War Two. And some of those are breaking down. They're changing. They're shifting. There have been denominational splits, etc. And in the midst of that are people and their pastors, and they are also trying to navigate their own spiritual journey with Christ, with God, through kind of agnosticism and faith and questions and doubt. And I think one of the things that I have not really thought much about is that the imagery of kind of a nomadic, like, caravan of people through the wilderness, I think that's the image that is gonna stay with me.

Eddie Rester 02:37 Yes. That was brilliant.

Chris McAlilly 02:38 Yeah, there are... Thank you.

Eddie Rester 02:40 It was yours. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 02:41 I appreciate that.

Eddie Rester 02:42 Try to be nicer to you.

Chris McAlilly 02:43
Yeah. I just, I'll try to be nicer to you, as well, moving forward here.

Eddie Rester 02:46 Thank you, Chris.

Chris McAlilly 02:47

But yeah, I just think that maybe you have to leave your disillusion where you are. And maybe you do need to leave a community for a whole host of reasons. But you don't need to travel alone.

Eddie Rester 03:00 Right.

Chris McAlilly 03:00

You don't have to be isolated. And there are people that you can be in conversation with along the journey. And there may be other forms of, I don't know, of people who can be with you as you travel along.

Eddie Rester 03:13
So share this with somebody that you think needs to hear it. Leave a comment for us. We're thankful that you're in the journey with us.

Eddie Rester 03:22

[INTRO] Life can be heavy. We carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast that creates space for all of that.

Chris McAlilly 03:35

We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen. It's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Eddie Rester 03:50
We are here today with my friend Sarah Heath. Sarah, thanks for joining us on The Weight

again.

Sarah Heath 03:56 Still waiting.

Eddie Rester 03:57

Still waiting. I guess we set ourselves up for that at some point. But two years ago, we had a conversation about a book that you had written about Joseph. You were serving in a church in Costa Mesa, California. And things have changed for you. So give us a little outline kind of what's going on with you right now.

Sarah Heath 04:21

Yeah, so I was super lucky to serve in this community for five years. So I've been in full time ministry for 16 years, which blows my mind. But I was in a new start/restart for five years. And if that's confusing to you, it is confusing to everyone. Basically what it was is I inherited a building and a small group of people, and I was asked by our Bishop within the United Methodist system to revitalize this space and the people within. Which at the time sounded like just the best thing you could imagine, becoming a more open space. And I loved it. I absolutely loved the work and it absolutely burnt me out.

Sarah Heath 05:03

It is such incredible work to do, to create community, but what you realize is you're creating community for everyone but yourself. And I also had the experience of just our system is going through such transformation and change. And they don't know that we've caught up with how to--that's a nice way of saying we don't know how to support clergy around this.

Eddie Rester 05:25 Right.

Sarah Heath 05:25

At the same time, I'm dealing with mostly traumatized folks. So spiritually traumatized people, because our community is very inclusive, and I still call it our community, because I'm so lucky, in the transition of pastor from me to the new guy--he's not new anymore, it's almost a year--he really allowed me to maintain my connection to the community, which is not normal in our system, which I think is actually super toxic.

Sarah Heath 05:52

But I was able to maintain, so I say "our community," but within the community was a lot of people who had deconstructed their faith. And it was kind of... So imagine, every week, you know the pressure of "I gotta to do a presentation," ie a sermon and a worship service, that everyone in the pews is deciding whether or not they believe in this thing still, most often based on what you do in that moment. So there's already that like, weird pressure that all pastors know. We joke around, we'll say, "Sunday is coming." We make all these jokes. But it's a reality we live with week-to-week that we're trying to provide and care for people with the understanding that a lot of people are looking for a certain something.

Sarah Heath 06:38

Well, imagine you layer on that a lot of people--and I knew--in my pews were looking for a reason to leave. And so when you're dealing within a system that is constantly asking you to maintain certain metrics, but if you're dealing with a community that you want to care for and make sure you're not causing them to feel like they have to come like obligation and things like this--because when people are traumatized, you don't want to add to the trauma, which really was a joke that Rachel Held Evans and I were speaking of at one time. Right before we took the stage, she's like, "My goal for us is that no one leaves the faith or anything we say, traumatizes people." That's like, our base goal for these 5000 kids in front of us.

Sarah Heath 07:22

So yeah, what I realized is that my own spirituality was struggling. I was working on fumes. I was not being supported by those in leadership, and I don't think it was malicious. So I recognized that during a really helpful time to recognize that, which was 2020.

Sarah Heath 07:43 Right.

Sarah Heath 07:43
And so I stayed because my community was just, you know, we were all trying to figure out what to do with COVID. And then, yeah, part of the difficulty is, even when I said I'm not gonna stay, there was no reaction from on high. And I think we've talked about this before, I'm in Enneagram 3. So if you want to destroy me, have someone in leadership gaslight me.

Eddie Rester 08:14
Say a little bit about Enneagram 3 for folks.

Sarah Heath 08:17

Enneagram 3, for folks who don't know, Enneagram 3s are if you know the Enneagram. I call it a cult, I joke, but it has been super helpful in my own work and the way that I connect with people I work with, but also just understanding. It's a way of understanding your personality that isn't based on what happens externally, but what your motivations are. So Enneagram 3 is called the, what is it? The performer? We're folks who, kind of, Richard Rohr would call that the shadow self part of it. Father Richard Rohr writes a lot about the Enneagram.

Sarah Heath 08:49

And the shadow thing going on for me is my belief that I am only as worthy as my ability to perform. And I didn't know this for a really long time, because the other piece of me is that a wing or like, the second thing that you are connected to, is, for me, a 2, which is the caregiving for other people. So my only value or worth is found, or ability to be loved, is found in my ability to care for other people. And if you're hearing this as a hot mess for someone who goes into ministry--because it's both my biggest asset, and the thing that will destroy me--is that I am going to take care of you the best. And so when you go into that, go into ministry needing your needs met, because you are a human when you go into ministry, and sometimes we're told we're not, but we are. And yes, we can rely on the divine and God, but it's still when we are meeting our own needs, however, that may look. Meeting your needs might be meeting my needs, if that makes sense.

Sarah Heath 09:54

So, through all of that, I recognized that the structure that I was a part of, because they did not... I wrote my most painful email, and I still remember because I'm sitting in the same area I was when I wrote this email that said, "I am not seeking reappointment in a church." And if you've done something for 16 years and worked really hard to get to that place, that's a...

Eddie Rester 10:16 Hard.

Sarah Heath 10:17 Yeah, it's a painful moment. And when I wrote that and heard nothing back from the people that quote, unquote, were my partners in ministry, my new ministry folk, and then upon that-- and I've only really started telling the truth about this, because I just really value my colleagues, and I'm not trying to belittle them. But I am trying to say like, if you've had this experience. I understand that folks are overworked. But it's also okay to recognize like, this was a point pain or pain, point of pain. Why can't I talk? So I recognized that they hadn't responded. And so finally, I kept asking, "Hey, can we meet?" We set up a call, and one of their responses was like, "Oh, I just thought you were, you know, going through something." Like, "I don't read all your emails."

Sarah Heath 11:07

And it was literally the definition of gaslighting. And, "Sarah, you know, you just get all worked up every couple of months." And I was like, right, because I'm literally begging you to help me with this process. So imagine you're going through all that, but you're loving the community, and you're feeling all of the burden on your shoulders. And eventually I just got to a point where I was like, I don't love who I am in this. I don't love that I'm working all the time. I don't love that I don't even know what my own spirituality is at this point. I don't love that I'm starting to be frustrated by the very people I set out to love.

Sarah Heath 11:40

So I left last July, and I did what anyone would do. I went and worked on an Airstream in Oregon, alone. And I spent almost three months kind of regrouping. And as part of that, people just show up in my life, and that's where I believe is the divine invitation and where God still exists for me. I was invited to take a class, because so many people were asking me if I would coach them, and I'm like, what about being in an Airstream in the middle of Oregon makes you think I'm we should be telling you about your life?

Eddie Rester 12:18
I should help you out, yeah.

Sarah Heath 12:19

And I was like, I know, this looks cute on Instagram, but like, literally, I wear Carharts every day and I'm not sure when the last time was I showered. But life was really good. It really was good. There was a lot of time of silence. There was a lot of listening to podcasts. There was a lot of letting go and grieving. I was with friends up there who don't know "Pastor Sarah," they don't know me as that. And so I had some freedom to be myself for a little while and really recognized that my central nervous system was overworked. Because someone would text me from home and my whole body would react.

Sarah Heath 12:55 And so I got an invitation to get my--like I said, so many people were asking me to coach them and you and I, Eddie at least I think, and I know a lot of folks, I am just a little skeptical when it comes to this coaching movement, if you haven't had training, so.

Eddie Rester 13:13 Absolutely.

Sarah Heath 13:15
And again, remember, I'm an Enneagram three so somebody invited me into the process of

becoming an International Coaching Federation, which sounds like Star Trek to me.

Chris McAlilly 13:24 [LAUGHTER]

Sarah Heath 13:26 Right?

Chris McAlilly 13:27
"I'm gonna coach you at life."

Eddie Rester 13:28
But we're buddies in that. I've got the same certification, so.

Sarah Heath 13:32

But did you think, like... I had to do that in order to do this. To me, it was like I needed some sort of system and process. I'm Methodist, for God's sake. I love a process. So I started working on that. I'm not fully, I'm not one of you yet. I don't have all my 100 hours in, but it was crazy. People just showed up saying "Hey, could you do what you do?" Which is asked really good questions. But the difference was I have boundaries around it.

Eddie Rester 14:01 Right.

Sarah Heath 14:01

So I'm meeting with you for an hour a week. And that's it. And the other thing is they pay you to do that. It's so great. But I kind of fell into coaching in a way, but what was happening for me and kind of why you and I connected a little bit is that I started a media group while I was doing this. Again, please hear, I'm trying to be alone in the woods, redoing a 1973 Airstream. But I've joined a media group, well, started a media group with some other podcast creators. I'm in coaching school, and I've taken on clients.

Eddie Rester 14:39
Yeah, so not a whole lot of free time, or the free time you need, maybe, so.

Sarah Heath 14:46

But the free time I needed, in some ways. I think I still am working on those boundaries. But I say all of that to say, I was in a meeting with the Irreverent Media Group, so that's a lot of podcasts that folks listen to around deconstruction and we're sort of aware that the work that we're doing is in various parts of the journey, wherever you may be, and wherever you think you may be headed is sort of our thought process. So it's the Dirty Rotten Church kids. It's Exvangelical. It's Kevin Garcia's Tiny Revolution. I have a show on there called Your Favorite Aunts, which is just really garbage. But it's so much fun, because it gets really deep, but it's just the two of us being silly.

Sarah Heath 15:24

And then, as part of this, I was chatting with the guy who does Go Home Bible, You're Drunk. And him and I were talking about, because him and I are--there's about five of us that used to be local church pastors--and in this meeting, we were just talking about the unique experience of leaving ministry. And we kind of all just started telling war stories. And what we realized is that during this process of deconstruction that's sort of happening on a grand scale--and by the way, Phyllis Tickle has told us forever ago that this was coming. This is not new or surprising. And as I know some of your guests have talked about. And it's been going on for a very long time.

Sarah Heath 16:06

But when you are part of that system, so when you are a pastor, there isn't the same support, because you can't go to a group, an exvangelical group, and say, "Hey, I was a pastor." People are so angry and stuck in their own trauma cycles that they can't provide you care, because they see you as part of the system quite often. And you might have really believed that you were doing the right thing by participating.

Sarah Heath 16:33

So we were joking around, and I do what I did. And Eddie is going to understand this, my father has the spiritual gifts of puns, and it is uncomfortable how much that is a genetic problem that I inherited. So I'm the one who just says the really inappropriate pun all the time. But it also has been helpful in naming a lot of businesses for my friends, which is funny, because two of the shows on our on our media group I named. But one of them is... So Justin and I were talking about this and several people in our groups said "Sarah, it feels like you guys should be creating spaces for people around this." Because what I was also telling them is I did not set up my business of coaching to be for people who are leaving ministry, whether secretly or publicly. But that's what a lot of it was. More than half of my clients are folks who are transitioning out. Anyway, all that to say I said, "We should start a REVcovery program." REVcover.

Eddie Rester 17:34
REVcover. Yes, which turned into do a podcast. Yeah.

Sarah Heath 17:37

Which turned into a podcast. And so that is what I am currently doing. We launched REVcovery about a month ago, but we started recording in October while I was in the midst of, "who am I and what am I doing?" Which hasn't been answered yet, by the way.

Chris McAlilly 17:53
Sarah, let me ask you a question about...

Sarah Heath 17:56 Yeah, please.

Chris McAlilly 17:56

Yeah, so I think there's the kind of the professional journey, and I've heard a lot of people going through--not just in ministry just kind of across the board--a period of evaluation about what the heck am I doing during the pandemic? And so I think that that's a pretty broad... It seems to me that it's a fairly broad phenomenon that's brought upon, that was kind of exacerbated by the pandemic. And then there's also, you know, this dimension that you've talked about a couple different times about your spirituality. And I wonder if you could come back to just maybe talking a little bit about, you know, kind of take ministry out of it, and talk a little bit about kind of how you thought about that maybe 5, 10 years ago, like, what would it mean for you to be engaged in a spiritual journey, you know, and what has changed? And then maybe you where you are now?

Sarah Heath 18:55

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, because I think this started that I wish I could have done. I couldn't take being a pastor out of my spirituality. And I think, you know, we joke around a lot, my co-host, and I joke around a lot about being professional Christians, but we were and so when your paycheck is tied to what you may or may not believe, it is with hesitancy that you even begin to ask the questions. Truthfully, I grew up in a really progressive understanding of faith, then I moved to Mississippi when I was in high school and I really wanted to fit in. And so that for me, it looked a lot like Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It looked a lot like joining every Christian club there was. They were spaces that felt safe to me, but also were confusing to me.

Sarah Heath 19:48

And so I think about, like, when you aren't culturally from a community that is Christian or whatever it might be like, I kind of took on my own faith. My parents are Christians, but they're definitely more progressive. And so I really got into, when I was in college, "Jesus is my boyfriend" kind of Christianity, where if I just can do all the right things, then this loving God will love me so much. And then I feel like it transitioned from "Jesus is my boyfriend"--well, I think it was Santa Claus first, and Jesus was my boyfriend for for a little while. And then I think in seminary, there was this switch that happened for me, which is Jesus is my boss. God is my boss, and I need to perform academically, because if I want to care for people, then I have to do this thing really well.

Sarah Heath 20:51

And so if you're hearing this sort of, I would say, progression from you really, really care about me, you know, like when you're a kid and you believe in Santa Claus. And you think--spoiler alert guys, or trauma activation alarm, if you're still into Santa--I really thought like, if I just do all the right things, there's almost like a prosperity gospel. And it makes sense within the structure of what was going on in my life. My mom is a cancer survivor. I was going through moving from one culture to another and so clinging on to that God loves me and is going to give me the best if I show up--and if you're hearing underlying privilege in there, there is some- -and then also the communities I had surrounded myself. The boys I was dating were evangelical.

Sarah Heath 21:38

So that's kind of when I say I moved into Jesus as my boyfriend, the songs I was singing was really about this, like, lovely, kind of creepy if you think about it, language around God. And then I went to seminary, and it was like, pump the brakes. God is so much different than I wanted to believe. And, you know, you're really doing some digging into the idea of the faith. And so then, God became more distant. Jesus became... I was very much reverent around it. But it was almost like, from an academic perspective, "so I'm going to work for you. But you and I aren't necessarily..." There are moments when we are.

Sarah Heath 22:18

And the interesting thing is, is around liturgy and things like that, I found a deep connection. Caring for other people and being able to make space for other people, for me became my form of spirituality. For me to be able to tell people that they were already loved by God felt really beautiful, because I think I wanted to believe it for myself.

Sarah Heath 22:37

So I think the process of kind of where am I at now, I would say that I am someone who is probably closer to agnostic than I've ever been in my life, but I have this Jesus thing that I just can't get rid of. And not in like a problematic way. I think in a more honest way, where, you know, as I read the old church fathers and mothers, I feel a connection there. But I needed a break from American Christianity for lots of reasons. And for a lot of reasons, a lot of people did, too. The hard part is, you can't really do that when he's your boss. So yeah. Does that answer your question?

Chris McAlilly 23:18

Totally, yeah. I had a really interesting lunch with a buddy of ours who he grew up Pentecostal in the American South, and he kind of made his way kind of out of that. And then he went through this long period of what I would describe as something like deconstruction, and really just kind of engaging in questions, lots of questions, surrounding, you know, the faith that he was given. And then that became a very academic pursuit of like, what are all these different Protestant threads? You know, where do they all come from? The most surprising thing about this conversation was he's converting to the Orthodox Church.

Sarah Heath 24:00
Yeah, the pipeline is very strangely that way, actually.

Chris McAlilly 24:03
Isn't that interesting? Like you mentioned liturgy...

Sarah Heath 24:07 Because it's symbolic.

Chris McAlilly 24:07 Yeah.

Sarah Heath 24:08

Image and liturgy. So, it is a connection. It is very similar in the weirdest way. I know it sounds weird, like we're like, but it's based on experiential, so it uses all the senses. So Pentecostalism to orthodoxy, there's a lot of actual action within the faith. And I think Christianity has become American Christianity. I'm going to say something probably offensive, but has become very gnostic, so very belief-focused, mind-focused. Anything to do with your body is problematic. We should yell about it.

Eddie Rester 24:43 Just get your beliefs right.

Sarah Heath 24:44

Right. Just split yourself. And what I mean by that is like, you know, Gnosticism at its, like, most base level, would be this idea that the mind is good and the body is bad. And if we're honest about American Christianity, that has been the slant. Because that way we can yell about how to contain. Everything's around body. Everything's around, like, how do we control what people do with their bodies, how we control our own bodies, which bodies are good, all these sorts of things. And as long as you have the right beliefs, you're good. And it's a very fascinating time we're in. And so, yeah.

Chris McAlilly 25:26

I just, I think that--I'll let Eddie jump in here--I just, I find it very interesting. I think part of what I observe in myself and then with other people, and what I really appreciate you sharing your story, too, Sarah, I think what I would want is for people to feel a sense of freedom, you know, in some ways to explore, to really interrogate kind of where they come from, and the beliefs that they were given by their family of origin, or perhaps the ones that they found themselves adopting because of the cultural environment they were in when they were young. I think it's really important to really examine some of that, and then also recognize that there might be kind of other conversations that are out there. And they can go in a lot of different directions that kind of help you ask, I guess, to hold up a mirror, more than anything.

Eddie Rester 26:27

And I think about, I want to say something about the Greek Orthodox-Pentecostal thing in just a second, because I think it made me think of something. But I feel like sometimes, that if we can think of our faith this way, we move through our lives, and we accumulate pieces of the faith from all the different places that we land. You know, Sarah, you talked about starting in progressive Canadian Christianity, moving to the south in college. I listened to your podcast about--of course, I knew you in college, too, but you were active in the Wesley Foundation, which is Methodist, the Baptist Student Union, other things. And sometimes we just pile on a bunch of weight, and we forget that some of that needs to be tossed away. Some of that needs to be lightened.

Chris McAlilly 27:11

I saw what you did right there.

Eddie Rester 27:12
What did I do? Oh, the weight, is that what you're?

Chris McAlilly 27:15 I saw what you did.

Eddie Rester 27:16

You did. Yeah. It's not what I meant to do. But I guess, hey. The thing I was going to think about the Pentecostals--and then I've got a question for you--the thing about the Pentecostals in the Orthodox, when I went to Russia, to the Russian Orthodox churches, beautiful churches, and I looked around and there were no pews.

Sarah Heath 27:32 Right.

Eddie Rester 27:33
So it's not just that they have the smells and the bells, but you're standing, you're physically present.

Chris McAlilly 27:38
You're not sitting and thinking.

Eddie Rester 27:39
You're not sitting and thinking.

Chris McAlilly 27:39 You're standing and moving.

Chris McAlilly 27:40
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this brings up all kinds of questions around what faith is.

Eddie Rester 27:40
In the Pentecostal church, it's the same exact thing. If you go to a Pentecostal service, you may start seated, but you're not going to stay seated for very long.

Eddie Rester 27:41 Can I, can I ask a...

Chris McAlilly 27:41
I'm not going to... I'll bracket those and use them at a different point in the conversation.

Sarah Heath 28:02
I love that we're putting pins in things.

Chris McAlilly 28:03
In another episode, we'll just pin that over there, and I'll bring it back to you.

Eddie Rester 28:06

I'm just gonna say that, Sarah, one of the things I hear over the last year, is that you've had this moment to kind of step back and do some of that work in your own life, I think, but also helping other people do some of that lightning work as well. So what have you learned about what deconstruction is, when it's healthy, when it's helpful for folks? What do people who may be looking at somebody who seems to be, you know, tossing out chunks of faith that they think are valuable, what do they need to know that can be helpful or healthy in the relationship with other folks who are doing that?

Sarah Heath 28:40

Yeah, I think the thing that, there's several things. First of all, I don't pretend to know what everyone's deconstruction looks like, and I think a lot of people pretend to know, because, you're right, we're deconstructing different things for different reasons. Recently, somebody came out saying they were having a war on deconstruction, I thought, that's funny. And then he called it a new religion. And I say it's funny because religion is formed around belief, so shared belief, and deconstructionism is actually the opposite. So it's like, shared questioning whatever it may be. So I think it's important for us to be honest about the fact that it looks different for different people, because otherwise, we're going to do the same thing where we create almost like a religion or a culture that that assumes.

Sarah Heath 29:32

And one of the beauties of all of this, is that around questioning or doing some of the healthy work, like you were saying that like is important for us to think about our religion of origin, whatever it may be, if we just then create a different box, like it's like we climb from one box into the next. It's not helpful because we just once again, we've needed someone to arrive at something and I think that's the temptation there. And so, I think what I really learned is that there is a different kind of pain that comes from people questioning their community of origin when it has a religious backing in base. Because many, particularly in the West, communities of faith have been warning people that the worst thing they could do is kind of fall into the temptation of believing that maybe they think or feel something differently.

Sarah Heath 30:33
So there was a sort of mass belief that trusting your own intuition, trusting your own emotions, trusting your own feeling is absolutely going to get you into trouble. Right?

Eddie Rester 30:46 Right.

Sarah Heath 30:47

And so once people start doing that, I think we have an actual trauma response that is happening for people, I think--and this is again, from an outside looking at all these people. And when I say every day I get two to three direct messages from people I do not know, they always begin in the same way: "I have never reached out to anyone that I do not know before on social media." And it's usually, "I'm leaving ministry," or "my faith shifted, and I can't tell my family," or it's this idea of belonging. And the fear really has to do with belonging, and what life on the other side is going to look like. And I think there is something that is true that everyone has a question or should, you know, as Richard Rohr talks about, and lots of folks talk about the sort of... There is this thing within us that should be not, I don't want to use the word "progressing," because I think that holds some, you know, weight to it for certain people.

Sarah Heath 32:00

But when you're maturing, quote, unquote, you should be going through constant questioning. You don't just assume that who you were last year is who you are this year, right? We all have gone through, hopefully, transformation. But what happens in our limbic system, in our mind is when that starts to happen, our brain that's worked so hard to maintain stasis is like, "whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," and we go into fight or flight, right? So sometimes people just avoid asking the big questions. Sometimes they go into fight, which is like, "I am deconstructing everyone who isn't is wrong," right? Or, "I am of the faith and anyone who's outside will burn in..." you know, all that sort of stuff. And you can see in people's reaction, that they feel threatened.

Sarah Heath 32:48

And so I think the thing that I've really learned over the last couple of months is like whether or not I want to be a pastor, that I am a pastor in some ways to people just to allow them a place to land and say, "I'm having this. Am I okay? And do I belong?" Which I think is the question every one of us asked, when we enter a room, "Am I okay? And do I belong?" And it's beautiful. And it's even in the coaching work that I get to do, it just feels so sacred. And it's so tender.

Sarah Heath 33:28

So, you know, with REVcovery, I mean, ever since that, we thought, like a couple of people would listen to it, because we thought it was such a niche, you know, we're talking about the great resignation. A lot of people are looking at their jobs. And it's true. And it's happening, like... Like, I found out a doctor listens to my REVcovery thing, because they've been considering leaving medicine, which feels to them like the ultimate good profession that everyone feels great about. And when you're leaving it, it holds some of that same difficulty. So I feel like I've learned just a lot about holding space for people, in a way.

Chris McAlilly 34:09

I think that, you know, a good segue into another thing that I'm that pondering here, which is just the way in which a sense of what you're going to be doing as not a pastor in a physical location and kind of in a community of faith in the way that you were doing, there is a sense in which there's a shift in your sense of calling or vocation, but there's some threads that hold true across the transition. I think that that's true for doctors. I hear it. I hear a lot of it. I think one of the things that we tend to assume is that a person's calling or person's vocation or the place where your purpose meets the world, that that's going to be solid. That that's going to be one thing.

Eddie Rester 35:02 One thing forever.

Chris McAlilly 35:03

Or like in one context, but it could be that. And I guess increasingly, I've come to believe that it can look different, differently in different seasons of life. And in some ways it sounds like what you're trying to do is, is to do some of the translation.

Sarah Heath 35:20 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 35:20

There were some things that I did and who I was in this particular community of faith and the role that I played in that community, I learned some things about what I'm going to be doing and the ways in which I'm going to provide kind of value for people in a new context, there's going to be a translation there.

Sarah Heath 35:39

I think that's the... We also have to be really honest about systems that were created to tell us that we need to be loyal. And part of loyalty looks like "don't complain, maintain." So you know, even within ordination, when you join the orders, you know, it's sort of like, "this is what you will do forever."

Eddie Rester 36:08 And this is how you'll do it.

Sarah Heath 36:10

"And this is how you'll do it. Now, we would love for you to be creative about it. But then we have absolutely no idea how to support you in that." So for me, I had to come to the realization that the system that I cared about so much is incapable of caring for me, because it's a system. It's not a person.

Eddie Rester 36:27 Right.

Sarah Heath 36:29

And I think that the other piece that I heard from you and I think is important to pause and kind of acknowledge, is that it's important for me and for a lot of the folks that I'm helping and at least journeying with is to get to a point where we start to transcend and include that which was part of our past. And not in always-making-silver-linings out of it. But it is so helpful to recognize that, you know, in this process, some of the things I thought were wasted were not wasted.

Sarah Heath 37:06

The ability and... I mean, I remember I was walking my dog two days ago, and you just ever have those like aha moments? And I was struck with, I have gotten to have some incredible relationships in a world where relationships can be hard. Where people have a tough time with connection. Getting the honor of being people's pastors through really tough things... I think about, you know, as we hear all this anti-trans stuff coming out, which is just terrible. I've gotten to be with people as they've stepped into who they believe they are and see that freedom. And I got... What? What? That's just incredible. I get goosebumps thinking about it now, and if I wanted to say I wasted those years, it's just not true. And you're right, I think it did prepare me for hopefully being able to point that out for other people. But give yourself grace, because you have been told that loyalty looks a certain way. And so when you start to shift away from that, there is going to be points of pain.

Sarah Heath 38:15

And the other thing that I want to name is that sometimes when people step away from something like ministry, those of us who are still in the system, do this thing that I call "must be nice." And it will come for you. It will be other pastors who are having the same questions, but don't want to admit it. And so they're like, "Oh, it must be nice to just do whatever you want to do." And you're like, "No," like, "you're also a human and can do what you want to do."

Eddie Rester 38:43
You can do what you want to do.

Sarah Heath 38:44

Right. But we've been sold this story that that's not true. Also, because I live in his neighborhood, someone wrote a book and made a lot of money about saying there was one purpose for your life, and you will only be happy once you get that one purpose driven life. And a lot of people bought into that. And the purpose changed. And now they don't know if they have purpose, let alone a purpose.

Eddie Rester 39:11 Yeah.

Sarah Heath 39:11

I mean, this particular author, I spent the evening the other day with a bunch of former people who worked for him. And they all are sort of like trying to figure out who they are and where they're supposed to go. Because they really thought there was only one purpose and their whole life's goal is to figure out that one purpose. But I tend to believe that we have seasons of purpose, and that life is both short and long. And that in some ways, there's a purpose for this. And there's meaning in this, and it can pivot.

Eddie Rester 39:47

You know, I was thinking as you were sharing that, you know, we were raised, I was raised--I'm about 10 years or so older than you--so I was raised in a world where people went to work for IBM and stayed working for IBM for 40 years. Or they are planted themselves two doors down from their parents and raised their kids on the street, or in the same town with grandparents, and you had three or four generations in the same place. But what I've come to realize recently is that was the aberration. That was never the norm in American life, or even human life. We've always moved. We've always migrated. We've always been nomads. We've always reinvented and rediscovered the purpose that we have, or the life that's in front of us. We've had to look around at different times. And so, you know, I wonder if some of this COVID-created world that we're in is kind of a return to some of it. It's finally the breaking down of that... Was it a century, just one century?

Chris McAlilly 40:48

I think that the imagery that comes to mind as you're talking, there have always been moments where, you know, there have been times where communities of faith have set up cathedrals, and they've set up kind of a stable location and a place that everybody would come to in that area. And then there are times where it's more like you're on a caravan through the wilderness. And it sounds like it's more nomadic. I was reading a book the other day that was talking about kind of looking at refugee communities as an image for a kind of spirituality that's emerging in the 21st century. That actually like communities of origin or communities of stability are breaking down and some of that's sociological, some of that's larger cultural trends that extend beyond what's going on at faith community.

Eddie Rester 41:41 Right.

Chris McAlilly 41:41
But that you need people on the journey to travel with. Like, you need a caravan to go with.

You need to get your Airstream.

Sarah Heath 41:51
Yes, you do guys. She's gonna happen.

Chris McAlilly 41:54

In Portland, Oregon. And you need some people so that you're not doing this stuff alone. And I think that, to me, is one of the things that I'm seeing, or hearing in your story, Sarah, is that you found some people to travel with, or some people have found you to travel with, so that you're not isolated? You know. It seems like that's important.

Sarah Heath 42:15

I think that's yeah, that's a lie that's sold, I think for sure is that if you do this, you're going to be alone. Because membership in this club requires this. And I know that, because before I left ministry, I worked for a while my first couple years at this local church, I didn't have an office, and we can talk on and on about how once I built the office, then I left so that the other pastor has an office.

Eddie Rester 42:41
I remember that church. I visited you when you were at that church.

Sarah Heath 42:43

Yeah, yeah. So I was at a co-working space. And I was in this little room that had a curtain so people could come in. And when I tell you the number of pastors, that I continue to hold the secret of, who would come in, shut the curtain, and sit down and I knew exactly what conversation we were about to have. "My faith is shifted. I am now affirming but I am a pastor of a non-affirming church. What do I do"? It was almost like clockwork, and then they would not know what to do when my face was non-reactionary, because they had a large church. And it was over and over and over again. And it was always dudes. And they would look at me and be like, "Help."

Sarah Heath 43:22

And I think their fear and the questions they were asking is, "If I make this movement," which by the way, talk about privilege. You can decide how you feel about something that's like actual people group. "If I make this, I will lose connection." And my argument would always be to them, "Mm, no, you are connected to people who don't know who you are. So that isn't love." Love requires knowing; otherwise, it's an aberration. You're loving something that isn't really there. And I think when you talk about this idea of nomad, I think the shift for me that has been is that I no longer, in the way that I used to, look for this spirituality outside of myself. I'm learning to really try to understand this abiding, or this, if it's there at all. Then I think I take it with me, and there's a safety in believing that it is something that I am learning to think where I'm at is okay, because it's part of me, it's ingrained in me and it doesn't require as much as I thought it required, and the connection to it. And I think we're meant to be connected to each other.

Sarah Heath 44:32

And this is nothing new. I mean, Methodism was based on... All I can think about is Transfiguration Sunday because I'm preaching on it this weekend for a church and I just think about the moment when Jesus like goes shiny. It's this bold moment, and I love it because Peter is just me, to a tee. Peter's like 'Guys, I'm so glad we were here. We can now build a church."

Eddie Rester 44:52 "Let's hang out here."

Sarah Heath 44:53

Let's just hang out here. And I think this is what we've done again and again and again. And I find it fastenating that Jesus just doesn't really address it and is just like, "let's just keep going." Like, I think that's the thing is that we are constantly... If you believe in that story, or however, it is a great allegory for what we keep doing, which is building this thing that we think is The Thing. But the thing is maybe shifting, and we miss out on so much of being present to what is here, because we're still looking back there. And that has been for me, learning how to be grateful, learning how to be present to what is versus what I want, or what was. I think there's just such a depth to that.

Sarah Heath 45:38

And I want to journey with other people so they do the same, so they don't miss out on what's happening right now. Because we get stuck in that fight or flight, and everything feels scary, and the fear is, "If I say this thing aloud, I will be alone. I will be alone." And for pastors, add your livelihood to that and sometimes thousands of people who, quote unquote, need you to be a certain thing. And by the way the thing they need you to be is not a human. Like the description... I one time wrote down all the expectations of what I was supposed to be as a pastor, and I was like, "This is not a human."

Eddie Rester 46:15

The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church has paaaaages, you know, I think it goes A through Z and then back in of what we're supposed to do, and they're just not enough hours in a lifetime to cover half of them.

Chris McAlilly 46:29

There's not enough hours to cover all the different pins that are still up there in the conversation. We're gonna have to have you back another time, Sarah. Thank you so much for being here. And thanks for just opening up a bit of your story for us to hear and to kind of reflect on.

Eddie Rester 46:45
If you're listening and you're looking for the podcast--particularly if you're a pastor, if you are a pastor and looking for some conversation with Sarah and her friend Justin, it's REVcovery.

Sarah Heath 46:55
REVcovery. It's all on social media, it's REVcovery Room, and we're doing that intentionally

because we are creating a community for folks who are transitioning. So.

Eddie Rester 47:08
Who are caravanning together.

Sarah Heath 47:10

Who are caravanning. So that'll be REVcovery Room. You can find us on Instagram and Twitter, and then pretty soon we're gonna have a discord up for people to somewhat anonymously be able to share where they're at.

Eddie Rester 47:22
Well, thanks, Sarah. You're my favorite Canadian-Mississippian-Californian something. So.

Sarah Heath 47:28 Whatever you are.

Eddie Rester 47:29
That owns an Airstream. So anyway. Thanks for being with us today, Sarah.

Sarah Heath 47:33
Yeah, of course. Thanks, guys.

Eddie Rester 47:35

[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

C

Chris McAlilly 47:43

If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]