When you trust something entirely – a person, an institution, a doctrine, whatever the case – when you trust something entirely, you can end up basing your entire life around what it tells you that you should be. It can make promises that you hinge your existence and all major life decisions on... and you won't know if those promises are false until it's too late.
Plenty of our faith and trust can be misplaced for a long time before we ever realize how much time we've spent denying ourselves a true life. And faced with the suffocating expectations of small thinking in a system that leaves no room for all of you, the thing you trusted ultimately serves to crush you. To fracture and compartmentalize you.
When this is the sort of environment that we come from, the defiant act of demanding to be whole and known in our fulness is one of the most essential, healing things we can do.
The pain of this disruption and redefinition is inevitable. But "the art of life is choosing the pain that brings life and love and truth rather than the pain that brings death."
ABOUT THE AIRING OF GRIEF:
The Airing of Grief is a podcast featuring conversations and correspondence about spiritual de- and reconstruction.
There are some great podcasts in production which tackle specific church and theology-related issues at the core of any given episode. And while many such issues arise in our calls and written correspondence, The Airing of Grief itself is not an issues-driven podcast. Instead, our particular focus is the human experience. We look for conversation more than interview, and our themes are derived from the personal stories and perspectives shared by our guests.
Our ultimate aim is the re-congregating of those who might otherwise feel disenfranchised, cut off, or alone. In processing experiences of religion and spirituality, we hope to learn that we all remain connected, and that there is a strange new community of others who are rooting for us, celebrating us, and sharing the burden of our stories. Regardless of where anyone might land on the spectrum of belief and faith, we recognize a common bond forged in our seasons of pain and disillusionment. As the old saying goes, “A joy shared is doubled, and a grief shared is halved.”
And our desire is to craft a safe place for that. We hope to cultivate real estate for the resonance and empathy which is found when we have the opportunity to invest in one another’s experience. There is empowerment in speaking the truth of our stories – not only for those sharing, but those listening as well.