đđ„ AN HONEST OPEN LETTER TO THE AREA I CAME HOME TO
riverâborn âą witchâtouched âą Christianâmystic âą blackâsheep truth
To the people of Quincy, Hannibal, and every little river town stitched around and between them:
Mist folks around here only know me as âLayneâs niece,â or âMikeâs daughter from his first marriage,â or âDwayneâs wife.â
And thatâs alright. We left in the late 90's and didnât come back until the river called us home again.
The area stayed the same.
And yes, Iâm still the girl who grew up in that small river town that thinks itâs the big city because we have a Target and a Walmart.
But Iâve walked a few more roads since then â some paved, some dirt, some spiritual, some political, some that wound through forests where the air felt older than scripture.
And yes, I keep crystals in my pocket now.
Not because theyâre magic wands â but because they remind me to stay grounded, stay kind, and stay awake.
Hereâs something folks donât always know about me:
I wasnât raised in church culture â just adjacent to it.
I went to VBS a few times.
I visited churches with friends.
I got handed Bibles by grandparents who loved us fiercely and feared for our souls just as fiercely.
I learned âJesus loves meâ on the playground, not in a pew.
So naturally, I grew up and became a Christian as an adult.
Because thatâs how my life works.
And hereâs the part Iâll never forget:
When my young family walked into that big Foursquare church in Oregon â a church born on the West Coast, shaped by revival energy and a kind of spiritual openness you donât always find elsewhere â we found a community we didnât even know we needed.
They were accepting â at least on the surface, and often in truth.
And when life cracked open beneath our feet, they showed up.
They held us through some of the hardest seasons we ever faced.
For that, I will forever be grateful.
And nothing that came after erases the good they did.
But even in that place, I started noticing something that didnât sit right.
The red letters â the teachings I fell in love with â said things like:
âą care for the vulnerable
âą donât use faith as a weapon
But some of the loudest voices â both in church (not so much from the pulpit, but from the voices in the seats around us) and back home â were saying something very different.
And the dissonance between the two was loud enough to shake the walls of our very modern, very unstainedâglass sanctuary.
And then â years later â I learned what my daughter had been taught in those same halls.
The whispered rules about her body, her worth, her voice.
The things she didnât feel safe telling me because she thought she was the problem.
That discovery cracked something open in me.
It made the questions louder.
Because faith should never make a child feel unworthy of love or conversation.
I learned where the Bible actually came from â the councils, the translations, the politics, the choices about what stayed in and what didnât.
That didnât make the teachings meaningless.
I didnât lose my faith.
I outgrew the box it came in.
And let me be clear: I still have faith.
The Creator of the Universe and I are on good terms.
We understand each other.
I just donât picture them as the white, male, sternâfaced authority figure who looks like heâd scold you for running in the fellowship hall and then tell you exactly how to vote.
My Creator is bigger than that.
And not limited to one cultureâs imagination.
These days, my spirituality looks a little witchy â the Southern Gothic kind, where the river hums old truths and the wind carries wisdom if youâre quiet enough to hear it.
I believe in âharm none,â which is just another way of saying âdo unto others.â
I believe what you send out comes back to you sevenâfold â which is just a poetic way of saying consequences matter.
And I believe most of us have far more in common than the loudest voices want us to remember.
I choose to stand with people whoâve been pushed aside.
I choose to care about the earth we live on.
I choose to believe that diversity is a strength, not a threat.
I choose to believe that compassion matters more than conformity.
I love where I come from.
But I wonât be made to feel ashamed because my worldview doesnât match the one most common around here.
Still the girl who grew up in the river town with the big city swagger.
Just with a little more magic in my pockets â literal crystals and metaphorical courage â and a wider view of the world.
If that makes me the black sheep, then so be it.
Every flock needs one â otherwise how would yâall know when youâre drifting off the path?
With love â and a whole lot of peace,
gummygunk
areudirty
kianamaiart
origamiaround
2087
germansingergirl
janainaart
ellievsbear
tangentwithtanner
baratheonpilled
yousharknotpass
