The Holy Runaway

The Holy Runaway

Episode 40 • 31st October 2024 • Beyond The Surface • Samantha Sellers

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be, aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, matthias. Thanks for joining me.

01:42 - Matthais (Guest)

Thanks for having me Thrilled to be here.

01:44 - Sam (Host)

I am excited about this episode because I devoured your book Holy Runaways. When it came out, it was, oh, it was just beautiful. It was just beautiful, like it was a beautiful book, and I, my wife, has just listened to the audio book and every time she came home from work she's like he's so good with words. Um, it is, yeah, it is just um beautiful. So, um, thank you for putting that out into the world, and if people have not read it, I highly recommend it. Um, but, uh, for those who haven't, where does your story start?

02:34 - Matthais (Guest)

yeah, I mean, I think you know there can be so many different starting points, uh, but, but I consider a starting point to be growing up in a deeply religious, conservative world and realizing around 10, 11 that I'm gay. Of course I didn't have that language for it then I didn't know anything other than, oh, that man on the picture of that, like the cover of that romance book, seems really interesting to me. Yeah, but that started unfolding. You know, years of terror and being afraid because knowing this is not good. Yeah, afraid because because knowing this is not this is not good.

03:28 - Sam (Host)

um, uh and um, yeah, I would consider that a a starting point um, what was it like for you as a child growing up in a religious home?

03:39 - Matthais (Guest)

yeah, a mix like I. I I feel like my parents, my parents are lovely people. They really are, uh, and I am grateful they're very kind. Of course, there are ways that they have not been kind, but that's the that mix feels um, really true.

04:01

So I would say, overall, I had a really good childhood, aside from this pretty major part of knowing that I was attracted to men and and the rigidity of I mean, I was in a world of kind of fundamentalism where, you know, like evolution isn't true I was homeschooled like, was taught like pseudoscience and interspersed with real science and so, like you know, I've, as an adult, have had to try to figure out, like now, what was real, like I don't know.

04:33 - Sam (Host)

So odd, a really odd mix of goodness and and very difficult things that I've had to heal from yeah, I think one of the difficult things for people who have not experienced that life is that actually it's never all good or never all bad. It is always a bit of a mixed, nuanced conversation when talking about some of those things. It's not as clear cut as what I think, even sometimes we would like it to be. That's the truth, yes, yeah, yeah. What was it like for you starting to wrestle with your sexuality and not having the language for that and not really knowing? Were you taught? Was it very overt teachings against homosexuality or was it more insidious?

05:28 - Matthais (Guest)

yeah, I, you know, I think it started out more insidious, like I don't know how. I knew initially that what I was feeling was wrong. I just I just knew it was kind of in the air. But I think, as my parents started to suspect more and officially and eventually learned when I was 15 that I was attracted to men, that's when it started to become more explicit and that was at the height of what I would consider like one of the heights of the ex-gay movement. When, like Exodus International here in the states at least Exodus International focus on the family's loved ones out like they were all like in full swing.

06:06

This idea that you can change your sexual orientation. Um, and, while I was never sent to conversion therapy thankfully so much of the environment I was in was shaped by conversion therapy, the sense of I can change. If I'm not changing, there's something wrong with me because god promises change is possible. Uh, and, and so that that was well, I believed it, like, like, in some ways, like it was, I look back and like that was really hard, but I also fully believed that God would change it. And it wasn't until I entered college when I started therapy and I literally went into the.

06:57

I went to a evangelical Christian school. I went to the school's counseling center and I asked for conversion therapy. I said I, I struggle with same-sex attraction. Yeah, I've heard this can change. Will you help me change it? And my therapist the first day said, uh. He said these things don't change, um, which I still am flabbergasted by that. I mean, I was in such conservatism that feels like God's grace or whatever you want to call it Like to wind up with a therapist who was, who was not. He said I don't do conversion therapy like study, so this doesn't change. Like he was, like our work will be. How do you live a faithful life with this in tow? And that was the first time I ever heard you didn't choose this and this one.

07:49

This probably will never change, and both of those things felt like this massive relief because I knew they were true yeah, but I had never heard before yeah, was it complete relief and freedom in that moment?

08:05 - Sam (Host)

or or was there there was? Was there like a conflicting fear of, like I always thought that this was something that I needed to change. What if it is? What if this therapist is wrong? Like, was there any anxiety around that? I don't think there was.

08:23 - Matthais (Guest)

If I, I think it was mostly relief because I had spent so many years already trying to change and realizing like this isn't changing, like, in fact is you know, quote unquote getting worse. Like I'm very gay, and I think hearing that was like a oh, that feels true, like something about this feels very true and true to my experience. And when I think anxiety came with the like well, what are my parents gonna think? Like what's my community gonna think if I suddenly shift from saying I struggle with same-sex orientation to being, like I'm gay, which took a couple years for me to do? Like that, that was anxiety inducing but it was mostly relief in those moments, I think.

09:11 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, was this moment a? Was this therapist, an affirming therapist, or was this a a moment of? You can be gay, but you can't act on being gay. Was it that sort of world? Where sort of sitting in the in-between world?

09:28 - Matthais (Guest)

Yes, the latter he was not affirming, but he did open the door to. I mean, it was such a different message from what I had been hearing that again, it felt like freedom and so, yeah, while I have moved away from that, like you can't act on it, I've moved far away from that. In those moments, just even an idea of I can call myself gay, I can like come out like all these things are things that are true. Like it felt like, uh, uh, yeah, freedom, yeah, it was freedom with a chain, but that chain didn't really get difficult until a couple years later and, and I'm wondering whether it was even a chain that you were conscious of at that moment.

10:20 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, no, I don't think I was conscious of it. Yeah, um, now I would love for you to explain, uh, the runaway part of holy runaways for people, um, and and why you, sort of um, used that terminology yeah, when I was working on this book, I really wanted to try to describe some of my experience.

10:47 - Matthais (Guest)

But but what I felt like I was gleaning from hearing other people talking about what a lot of people call deconstruction right now, um, this, this, this movement of questioning beliefs, maybe moving away from belief systems, uh, deconstruction I don't have any problem with the word, but it didn't feel fully true to my experience. I felt like I was running away from something and that I was looking for something familiar but different. But different. Uh, I kind of describe it in the book as looking for home, like I've had a taste of home. I want it again, but where I was was not, it's no longer home. I need to find it elsewhere, and so so we're running away, um towards, we're looking for something new, something healing, something that allows us to step into more fullness.

11:49 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, and I think that that is why your book is resonating with so many people, because it's not just a memoir, right? It's not just your story, right, it's not just your story. It's little snippets and little parts of everybody else's story who has ever been a queer person in a conservative or a high control space, and so I think it is um for anybody in that space. It's almost like um your story, just in different, just in a different country for me, and different, you know, style, churches, in different gender, but the themes that are in there are yours, and I think that that's why it's resonating so much with so many people. Tell me a little bit about what it was like when that door was opened. But it was still a life that you couldn't choose. It was not a lifestyle that you could live. What was that sort of dissonance almost like?

12:58 - Matthais (Guest)

Yeah, I was. I was, I was skeptical of the door. Um, I, I think I I I mean for me the open door was hearing that there were people out there that were gay Christians and I was like that's, that can't be real, like that's not a thing. And gay Christians, not just gay Christians in the sense of I'm gay but I can't act on it, but gay people who are having sex, getting married. I was like that's an oxymoron, it's not a real thing. But I also had this sense of committing to celibacy, which I was being told I needed to do. I needed to commit to celibacy.

13:48

As I was looking through scriptures at that time, I was like, everywhere this is talked about, it seems like it's a really serious choice. Like I was, like I'm 20. Like I, before I commit to make this life commitment because that's what I thought it would be, I need to figure out what commitment, because that's what I thought it would be. I need to figure out what these other people are saying. And so it was skepticism, it was fear, but it was also curiosity and like, if these people have figured it out, like I should at least hear them out before I say, like this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, and that really what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, um, and that really, like once I started getting into that and realizing, like wait a second, it seems like a lot of what I've been taught about this is wrong.

14:32 - Sam (Host)

um, that's when things, uh, I was gonna say, went downhill, it's, and I think it's important to sort of point out that this is the point where, um, I feel like every queer person sort of shifts out of like what have I been taught to what is actually written, like what is actually happening, and sort of starting to do that very conscious, like pulling apart of passages and scriptures and things like that. And that was a really significant part for you, right it was incredibly significant.

15:28 - Matthais (Guest)

I mean, at that time I was still in such a what I would kind of call evangelical mindset of like I can't move without having a scripture like a bible verse to kind of back up what I'm doing. And so I was so deep within that that I felt like I needed to have an airtight kind of argument, and I found one. Like it is no longer as convincing as it was in the sense that it's not that I doubt it, but now, like my whole worldview, that's such a Christian word but my whole world has changed so much that I'm like I don't need a Bible verse to back up everything. But at that time it was a huge part of it for me. I spent years reading everything I could and studying scriptures and trying to figure out like trying to faithfully discern what was true.

16:24 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, trying to faithfully discern what was true. Yeah, it's um, and I think a lot of people think that that's a really, uh, liberating journey and it can be um, but it's also, I feel like it, it can also be a little terrifying, because the impact and the fallout of that um and verbalizing some of the things that you might be thinking internally is really different um, in reality um that's not always a really joyous experience for a lot of people right.

16:59 - Matthais (Guest)

yeah, I think that's very true of my experience. It was, there was something liberating happening, but it was mostly terrifying because I had so many people around me sitting like, oh, you're just trying to like, you're, you're trying to justify your sin or you're starting to read the Bible with bias, like, and, and all of that I took so seriously. I was like, oh, maybe they're right, maybe I am becoming biased, maybe I am just reading into and trying to twist scripture to my own desires. I think that's why it took me so long was having to filter through all of these questions of like, yeah, I want, I want to be able to be in a relationship. Is that messing up the entire way that I'm viewing scripture? And that that scared me and it took me a while to be able to kind of work through those messages.

17:58 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, was losing your faith ever an option? Was it ever a? Did you ever feel like there was a moment where, like it was one or the other?

18:11 - Matthais (Guest)

Not then. No, I think that is a place if I'm fully candid like that, I'm closer to now. But at that point and kind of through the journey of even the book and Holy Runaways, like that really was never an option, it really feels like it has only kind of a door has really only been opened recently in my life.

18:33 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah. Why do you think that is think about that because I will often describe my experience as feeling a little bit like I've got one foot on the other side of the Grand Canyon and like my sexuality and my faith were just essentially like ripping me apart at the seams. Um, and so why do you think? For you it was never. You never felt like you needed to choose one or the other you know, I, I think this is something I still believe.

19:07 - Matthais (Guest)

It is like I deeply believed that god is loving and and I, I think, for some reason, for for me, and I realized, like for a lot of people it doesn't work this way, but for me, like that sense of God is loving, felt like I never have to choose this, like I I or even question that. It's like I know God loves me. I just have to figure out now, like, what that actually means and and yeah, so for. So, for whatever reason that was, I was able to hold those things together, which is interesting to me, because I think now I've talked to so so many people who have very different stories, where they're just kind of like yeah fuck this Like they move away, and understandably yeah.

20:10 - Sam (Host)

And and I think that that's why you know, I really appreciate voices like yourself, and you know a few others that are prominent on social media as, being um in the queer community and um would still identify with the label Christian because, um, I think the more normalized that that doesn't need to be a choice for now, queer people of youth, like not my generation, like the younger generation, um, you know, had those people been around when, you know, like two decades ago, when I was a queer youth, um, maybe that experience would have been different, and so I think it's a really important space to highlight the diversity that queerness and faith or spirituality is not an either-or option, and I think that that can change the game for queer youth now, yes, which I think is incredible. Um, what were your relationships like while you were wrestling with all of this?

21:28 - Matthais (Guest)

they were strange. Oh yeah, I, I was so naive, um, like I thought, like once I kind of started studying like more affirming arguments and kind of found some that I was like, oh, this actually makes a lot of sense. Like like things that are just like really obvious, that, like leviticus, like the story of saddam and gomorrah is about hospitality, because the bible literally says that, not homosexuality. Like I was like, oh my gosh, like no one in my community knows this, like I'll just tell them and then we'll all go on our happy way. And that's not what happened. Like I remember emailing my parents and being like guess what I learned? And getting this really long email back from my dad. That was like you're, I can't. I actually don't really remember what it said, but it was not positive. He was not thrilled and and I, I think I slowly started realizing like, oh, if I'm gonna follow this, it means strained relationships and and eventually, like very, very strained relationships, yeah, Did you ever lose any relationships, or did they just change?

22:46

I lost a lot. Yeah, thankfully not. Well, this is where things are complex. I say thankfully, not my parents, which I am grateful for, but things are still very, very complicated with my parents. But yeah, there were many. Once I kind of fully came out, um, I lost the majority of my community um like I can. I can look back. It was about. It was 10 years ago now, and there's a marked difference in who my friends were before and who my friends are now.

23:16 - Sam (Host)

Um, there's barely any overlap yeah, I think, um you know, working with those who are deconstructing or who have religious trauma, grief is just such a significant part of um the experience, because not just grief around you know, shifting beliefs and shifting views of God or the divine, but lost relationships and fractured families and things like that Just make what is already a really difficult time amplified. Yeah, what I'm curious what your relationship with god was like through the wrestling and through the pulling apart yeah, I felt really connected to god, like I.

24:09 - Matthais (Guest)

I felt I felt like I was learning more and more about this god who, like, again, I was fully convinced of god's love, fully believed in god's love. But I felt like it was. I was fully convinced of God's love, fully believed in God's love, but I felt like it was like I was getting closer to God, which also was kind of confusing to me because, again, so many people were telling me that it was the opposite, that I was straining, but my experience was like no, like I'm more connected than I ever have been, I'm not scared anymore.

24:38 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, what was it like to finally come out.

24:44 - Matthais (Guest)

Terrifying.

24:45

Like it was I kind of I did. I took a slow route and then kind of an all at once. So I like slowly told really important people in my life and then once I felt like all the really important people in my life uh, and then once I felt like all the really important people in my life knew, then I like came out via a blog post, uh, and I I mean I remember I read about this in the book a little bit like I remember like hitting post, like shutting my computer tight, like brushing my teeth in the dark, just like shaking because I was so scared of what are people gonna say and I and I expected most people to like ostracize me immediately. Um, I expected hateful comments, I expected disappointment, um, but I remember my phone just starting to kind of light up and just comment after comment after comment of support and that was. It was heartbreaking in a really beautiful way.

25:58 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah. What was it like reading all of those comments.

26:04 - Matthais (Guest)

I was shocked. Yeah, cause I didn't. I didn't expect it. I expected I expected people to be like okay, we're out and and and. A lot of people were out, but it was also so cool to see like, oh, there are also so many people around me who are? Supportive um and who also, or who may disagree, but are still are still offering support and kindness um and that was it was.

26:38 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, it was really beautiful were there ever moments of that very um, very like visceral hatred towards you? Did you ever experience that for sure?

26:53 - Matthais (Guest)

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I I mean multiple people sending me private messages or kind of like, just like coming out of thin air in some ways, like just having a conversation, and then suddenly someone being like like sharing an opinion about something, that was like, oh, this is why you invited me out, like just like, yeah, it was, it doesn't happen much anymore. But yeah, back when I was first coming out, it was there was a good amount of it, yeah, and so how did you deal with that?

27:31 - Sam (Host)

because I'm thinking, you know, there are people who still are getting that and you know people who aren't just coming out, or I mean, I still hear it from some people like decades later. So what would you? You know, how did you deal with that in the moment?

27:53 - Matthais (Guest)

I don't think I really knew how to deal with it.

27:55

I think how I dealt with it was. I just kind of stopped engaging with those people. Like those people very clearly became like not safe and I was like, okay, like this is. I mean, I think I learned pretty quickly like arguing or even having any kind of conversation is just not when someone's in that space. It's not productive, it's not nothing good's gonna come out of it. And now, like now, I feel much more comfortable with a block button. I just kind of like it doesn't and it doesn't impact me nearly as deeply as it used to. I think some because a lot of people now are strangers, um, and also like I think I have a lot more ego strength than I did, um, but I don't know if there is a way to deal with it. Like it's, it's horrible, yeah, it's terrible. Grief, anger, shock, like dread, I mean all those things. I can still feel it now of just like the, the horror of having someone you know or don't know like rail against you, like that yeah, it's terrible, yeah, and it.

29:13 - Sam (Host)

I find that, uh, and you I sort of picked up on it because you said it as well but your concept of what the term safe is is just completely redefined and overhauled. I think for a long time you think of safety as you know, physical safety, and all of a sudden, yeah, people are deemed as not safe. People or places are not safe places, and not necessarily physically, but on an emotional and a psychological level. And so, yeah, I find that it redefines what is safe for you. Yeah, tell me a little bit about, because I vividly remember the part of the book where you are sitting in the church and you realize that this is not safe for you anymore. And I read that sobbing my eyes out because, like, it was just so, yeah, it was, it was heartbreaking, yeah, it was, it was heartbreaking, but it was also just so relatable. And so, um, tell me a little bit about how your relationship with church has changed and evolved. Yeah, yeah.

30:31 - Matthais (Guest)

So after I came out, I, shortly after that, I ended up moving to se Seattle to start a graduate program and, um, I was really excited to move to a city. That was because I was in the the south of the south of the US at that point, which was like, not like all the stereotypes are true, yeah, and so I was excited to be in Seattle, which is far more progressive, far more liberal. And I was excited to be in Seattle, which is far more progressive, far more liberal. And I was like there are churches, I know, and I had a church in Arkansas that was lovely and I could talk for hours about how amazing that church in Arkansas was, but I was like to be in a city where, like I have options, there isn't just one. And so there was, and there was a church at that time that was. It was like an evangelical mega church that became affirming and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing, like this is the tradition that I kind of grew up within, not mega church, but evangelicalism. Like I'm going to go to this church, everything will be great, so I go. And while I know cognitively that they have, they allow queer people in positions of leadership, like they've done everything to make it a safe space.

31:46

As I was sitting there, worship started. I just kept getting more and more and more anxious. Uh and and like, looking around, like everyone around me, I felt like I was viewing them with such skepticism, just like waiting for one of them to like I don't know what I was expecting, but but like do something terrible and like it. I. I endured it for like I stayed the whole time but I never went back. Like I was like I need to get out of here, like this is not. I couldn't understand it.

32:20

I was like I know this is supposed to be safe, but it didn't feel safe, like what's going on, and I kind of realized later, as I was in therapy and learning more about trauma, that it was I was having a trauma response, like church was no longer safe. Um, and I still like I think I can walk into a church. Like I think there are many lovely churches that I am so grateful for. Um, but it's it's not an active part of my faith life right now going to church, because those those reactions are still deeply embedded. Um, after years and years of even going to very safe churches, I've kind of finally been like oh, I don't, I don't know I can do this yeah, yeah, it's a really um.

33:14 - Sam (Host)

The only word I can think of is like. If it feels like disjointed um, then like um, I I find that, yeah, I often can go into churches that don't feel or look similar to my former home church and things like that, because there's a point of difference and it's not as physically and sensory reminding. But, yeah, and I think it's important, the part that you said where you were like you didn't really have the language to describe it at the time, because I think that's probably something a lot of people can relate to, in that they're feeling all of this, they've no freaking idea what any of it is and they don't know what to do with it. Um, because you know it's very often there is the disconnect from your body and and so, um, yeah, I think it's important, uh, for people to hear that at the time, you had no idea what that was.

34:27 - Matthais (Guest)

No, yeah, yeah, it just felt terrible yeah, yeah, um, and so what?

34:54 - Sam (Host)

uh, how was it that you navig? Was that notion that, like to be a good, faithful Christian, you had to go to church, you had to be in community with people? So how did you reconcile what you were feeling with that I'm supposed to go to church?

35:14 - Matthais (Guest)

yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, that was strong, I could like. Yeah, I mean, I was told this isn't literal, but I feel like I was told from the time I was baby like do not forsake the assembly. Like that is like one of the key things. You're supposed to go to church at least every Sunday, but preferably like three or four times a week, like that was for whatever events like, and you know I had around, right around that point I had gone to, I had gone to. It was like a two-day event, do you know?

35:54 - Sam (Host)

who Rob Bell is. Yeah, I used to watch the Numa videos back in the day.

35:58 - Matthais (Guest)

m, probably back in the early: 2000

36:18

I don't know, it was probably: 2015

36:28

Rob did this like two-day event in Laguna Beach, california, where he brought in all of these people and his wife, kristen spent an hour kind of talking about what it was like for her to have the world kind of turn on her husband, like witnessing that as like a pastor's wife, and what it did to her faith. And I remember her talking about like sometimes you have to put the Bible down, like sometimes you have to take a break, and talking about like how taking a break from her faith was an incredibly healing and really important thing for her. And I heard that I think it was roughly around that same time of trying that church and her words like it felt like it gave me permission to be like I can put this down and it doesn't mean that I'm putting it down for forever Like I can take a break from this and trust that like God's gonna be okay with that, um, and trust that like I'll, I'll be okay too, um, and that was really hearing that from her.

37:39 - Sam (Host)

that permission was like really helpful yeah, what was it like for you to start sort of rebuilding a new sense and involve a new sort of expansive, evolved sense of faith and spirituality?

37:54 - Matthais (Guest)

yeah, for me it was fun, like I nerd out on theology, like, yeah, and that was what I came to Seattle was to work on a, uh, master's degree in theology and culture, and so I, you know, I was at the same time I'm going through all this church stuff. I'm also being exposed to all this theological thought. So there's like some paradox there where I'm like I'm done with this, but over here I'm studying it and but it was like things I had never heard before and ideas about God I had never heard before, and like questioning all of these things that are considered to be very harmful, beliefs such as, like penal substitutionary atonement, this idea that jesus died or murdered for our sins, like like these, some of these things that are, I would say, are so toxic within a lot of evangelical spaces but a lot of faith spaces. It was really fun to see that there was a whole nother world of theology, of thought, of Christianity out there that I had no conceptualization of.

39:06 - Sam (Host)

And and I'm, I guess I'm asking this question because I remember it was one of my own fears, which was how did you not let yourself get fundamental about queer theology the way that you were about evangelical sort of, you know, conservative theology?

39:23 - Matthais (Guest)

uh-huh, yeah, well, you know, I think some of that was because of how early I ran across the work of Rene Girard, who's I talk about him a ton in Early Runaways. But his, his kind of philosophy is one of like, a really core part of it is we as humans, we often have a tendency to define ourselves against other people in myriad of ways and in his, some of his arguments of like love and god, etc. Is actually a movement against that. It's so paradox there, um, but like, how do we create meaning without defining ourselves against people and against, um, some things? Was? It gave me some protection in some ways from that fundamentalism.

40:17

Um, I don't want to sit here and say that I, that I didn't fall into some of it, um, I haven't fallen into some of it. I think I have. But I think his work has also really given me a framework of that different framework. It's all back up a little bit, I think, because I was in a fundamentalist framework. I didn't know anything else, right, I didn't know there was other ways of being and being exposed to Gerard and some of these other. These other folks gave me a framework for like, here's actually how something can work that is outside of that. Here's what, how it can function and what it can look like, and I think having that invitation to a different way of being was really powerful yeah, I feel like it is a, I mean, regardless of where you land on the other side.

41:11 - Sam (Host)

Um, it is a wild ride to realize that you don't need to be against the rest of the world.

41:18

Um and it is you know that us mental, us versus their mentality of like we are right and they are wrong. Um, it is a, it is wild to realize that that's not the way that things have to be. Um, yeah, and, and I think, regardless of whether you land with faith, without faith in a different faith, um, you know it's uh, that in, in its essence, is a really powerful thing to to realize and changes the game. I think it changes the game. Yeah, right, um, how did your relationship with God change?

42:00 - Matthais (Guest)

this is. This feels like another paradox for me, in some ways very significantly, um, in other ways not at all. So I think so. I think some of that like believing that god is love, like that is still with me, um, I this is where the significant part is.

42:19

I don't know that I believe in god anymore and and I I mean, I play with that in holy runaways of this, like I do, but I don't like the times I do believe. Here's what I believe about God and this is very expansive and, I think, liberative kind of but still I would call very orthodox kind of view of God, but I, I think I have so much more freedom to be able to have those days of where I'm like oh yeah, I do deeply believe in this, I believe in this work that Jesus has done in the world, and other days I'm like I don't think I do like and like being able to be okay with both um and hold that um.

43:05 - Sam (Host)

I think we're all gonna be okay it's the nuance, yeah, yeah, what, um what in this world brings you joy and peace?

43:19 - Matthais (Guest)

I think you know, I think there are many answers to that question. What's coming to mind right now is, I think, a lot of the relationships in my life, being with people, um, being with my dog going out on walks, like it feels small in some ways, but like not small at all yeah, and, and I think you know, the way that we view relationships on the other side, so to speak, is so different.

43:52 - Sam (Host)

You know, I feel like there is a different type of connection that is forged and that is a really beautiful thing to see happen within yourself, but also within the relationship itself within yourself, but also within the relationship itself.

44:18 - Matthais (Guest)

Um, yeah, to have relationships where it's actually built on people knowing me, us, like that's, that's game-changing, like they're a I would call that they're actually real relationships. I think the alternative not that they aren't real, but there's a pseudo relationship quality to it, and I think the invitation for me has been and I'm sure I think it's a life's invitation is like how do I continue to let myself be known and to know others? Like that is not an easy task, but it's beautiful and fulfilling and hard and messy, very different from the kind of I'm going to present this tiny little box version of me to the world that if I stray outside of I won't be loved.

45:04 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, and like, almost like cookie cutter relationships because they're getting the exact same box every single time right, whereas there is um diversity in relationships when, uh, you can build relationships with people that are not even centered around what you believe in the world Maybe you both just like basketball, or you both play soccer or whatever it is and there doesn't need to be this. We believe the exact same thing about the world. It opens up a really diverse range of relationships that you get the opportunity to build um, and that's really lovely. Yeah, um. I have been finishing all of these episodes with asking you what would you say to somebody who is fresh in their deconstruction?

46:05 - Matthais (Guest)

let yourself have time, like there's no rush. I think it's so disorienting, like and I know it's at least for me it's really when I was doing it it really hard to treat. It was hard for me to treat myself with kindness, um, but, but I often hope and and try to help guide people into like, where can you find kindness in this process? Kindness from yourself, for yourself, but also kindness from other people, um, because that that can help it be a much softer landing.

46:47 - Sam (Host)

Um, yeah, you know, take your time and find, find kindness I love that and and I I am relating on a therapist level that I will often say to my clients slow is fast. That, like fast doesn't always lead to it actually being fast, slowest particularly, you know, trauma healing, um, but um, yeah, I, I would agree. I found that self-kindness and self-compassion has been um, a, a vital aspect of, um, of deconstructing and and healing, uh, any sort of spiritual or religious trauma. So thank you for joining me, oh, yeah.

47:31 - Matthais (Guest)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

47:33 - Sam (Host)

And thank you for your beautiful book. Now I know that you have another book, but I have not read it. But do you want to just have a quick plug of that, as well as ways?

47:45 - Matthais (Guest)

Yeah, yeah. So my first book Beyond creating a healthy sex life on your own terms, uh is for folks who grew up kind of within uh, evangelical purity culture or like worlds where there's been like a really restrictive view of of what sex can be or what sex is healthy or not sinful whatever language you want to put on that. Um, it's a little bit, it's, it's less. There's like no memoir in it, except for maybe the first chapter and far more this kind of like. How do we work with sexual shame that's been given to us and then find a a healthier, more life-giving sexuality, um, that's not based on prohibitions or prescriptions, but more like that that is in alignment with our own values? How do we find those values?

48:37

how do we live into them?

48:39 - Sam (Host)

yeah, I love that. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.

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