What does Faith Mending mean?
Janel:
With Faith Mending we want to give you space to discard the things you no longer need, and have the freedom to re-examine, change, and repackage the old things that may not be removable, but can be transformed.
Faith Mending came about through our own faith shifts. Leaving the church, leaving a theological tradition, is hard. Sometimes it comes through a series of events and sometimes it happens all of a sudden. Either way, it is hard to navigate with lots of unexpected twists and turns. Many times it feels like someone has taken a seam ripper to parts of our inner being and left the pieces tangled and lonely on the floor.
Faith Mending is here to offer support as you begin or continue your journey. I’ve been on this journey for at least 12 years (and probably had small untanglings before then). I know this journey can be completely disorienting and disturbing. I know how gut wrenchingly lonely it can feel. My hope is that with Faith Mending you can find some tools, stories, and support along the way.
I have no expectations about where you’ll end up. If you’d asked me 5 years ago where I’d be, I couldn’t have come close to describing my life now. But I know that finding people to journey with made all the difference for me. Hearing stories I could relate to, learning new information about my old faith, and exploring the beauty of other thoughts and traditions has had a huge impact on me. Faith Mending is the place where we’re sharing our experience, offering a hand to hold along the journey, and to one day look back with you to see how far you’ve come.
This is a journey unlike any other. It will suck sometimes. It will be beautiful sometimes. And you will find new parts of yourself in the midst of it. You will get to the other side, or to the next bend in the road. You may never be “finished” but you will have a new normal. Blessings for the journey. We’re here to support you, wherever your path may lead.
Jason:
It’s helping people find the ways to weave together the past and present so that the future feels like something they want to step into.
TBH it means a lot to us and very little to you until we do something with it. I’ve had my fair share of deconstructive moments. From evangelical to liberal, liberal to progressive, progressive to process. I’m not saying we have the answers, but we have the energy, desire, and hope to create a space for those who find themselves deconstructing that feels compassionate, kind, and hopeful.
As a therapist, mending is my life. It’s helping people find ways to weave together the past and present so that the future feels like something they want to step into. To mend is to repair, to give an extra life to something that feels broken, to create something new by re-creating something old.
As an ordained minister, faith, as we like to talk about it in popular circles, is the bane of my existence. It’s a litmus test for orthodoxy or a rote set of rituals that create automatons. In many ways it’s a throwaway word because the actions that surround it have separated us, caused trauma, and been the source of abuse.
Put these together and we’re trying to heal from the faith we’ve held. The faith that’s held us back from being creative and finding meaning in the world. Mending our faith means finding the smile hidden behind the layers of theological garbage so many of us grew up with.
My next question to you, Janel, is what do you want people to experience while they’re here?
Janel:
More than anything I want you to find a measure of healing. It won’t all come at once, but there will be these significant moments that change the direction of your journey. Those moments then can help keep you steady as uncertainty grows around something else. But each time you experience a small mend, it will help hold you together for the larger alteration to come.
I’m a Say Yes to the Dress fan, and have worked as a bridal seamstress. Mending often comes in different ways. Sometimes things need to be removed to make a dress look more finished. Sometimes things change form to feel complete. Parts of your faith will be like a detachable skirt - you wear it during the church ceremony, but remove it for the party. You leave behind something as you start a new journey.
At the same time, you might have a long train behind you as you walk this path, and in the in-between space (after the pictures but before the reception), it gets bustled up to give you more movement and freedom. I’ve felt both these things in deconstruction. I’ve had to edit my story, my practice, and my expectations of faith. With Faith Mending we want to give you space to discard the things you no longer need, and have the freedom to re-examine, change, and repackage the old things that may not be removable, but can be transformed.
As I mentioned above, this can feel so lonely. But you are not alone. Not at all. I am so thankful for the growing online spaces that can provide friendship and solidarity for anyone on their faith shift journey, even if they don’t know someone personally. We just want to add to that support system. Our hope is that you can find resources and connections here that will help you feel less alone and more prepared for what lies ahead.
Along with that, I want you to know that you are part of a community. I would not have survived this journey without the loving people that have come into my life - listening, crying, dreaming, praying, and hugging me along the way. (And don’t forget #silentdisco.) Making connections makes this all so much more bearable. Making connections with people at different places on the path helps you see that you are moving, that someday you will look back and see a lot of road behind you. This isn’t a fruitless journey but one that produces a new kind of life and a new kind of living. One that will be uniquely yours.
What do you want people to experience while there here? What did I miss?
Jason:
Simply put, I’d love for this to be a space where mending can happen. I’d like to think of all of us walking around with patchwork knees and butts. Those were the places on my jeans that always wore out first. In order for me to keep wearing them, they had to be patched, repaired, mended.
A patch can serve a lot of purposes. Sometimes they were colorful and drew your attention. Other times they were just there to stop the hole from getting any larger. We’ve all gone to those places in our lives where we’ve been worn down. I’d want this space to be a place of many patches. Where we can try on different things and see if we just need to stop the hole from growing any larger or build something that draws attention.