Why I Wrote A Book No One Will Like
The few that get it, will get it.
When I first started writing this book, I didn’t intend to be a pot-stirrer.
It just sort of…happened.
I was an international traveler, holed up in my house due to a global pandemic, passing the time by writing through the last few years of my life. They had been years of exponential growth and radical revelation. They’d seen me deconstruct huge parts of my faith as well as my identity. That momentum compelled me to write. Honestly, I barely had a choice.
My keyboard was bloodied with honesty and a raw, desperate hope that this writing practice would illuminate how I’d arrived in the place where I now found myself and, maybe, help me connect with people who could empathize.
Word by word, I was building a signal fire: one hot enough to keep me alive and bright enough to draw a kind eye.
And that happened.
I started releasing my writing on a scrappy blog (long after the golden era of blogging) and received some really meaningful feedback and connection:
“I thought I was one of the only people to feel this way.”
“Thank you for putting into words what I haven’t been able to.”
“I feel like you’re telling my story, please don’t stop.”
These were early pieces of feedback from readers who, like me, didn’t feel like they fit neatly into categories; whose beliefs had become more like a patchwork quilt and less like a uniform. And it was so healing to hear from them. But that wasn’t the only kind of feedback I got.
I also got pushback, criticism, and more than a few people who grimaced, wondering out loud, “Why would you put this out into the world?”
But I kept going. I stopped releasing my work as blog posts and decided instead to create a proper manuscript. The result: a book that nearly no one, it seems, will like.
While it was a blog, I got criticism mostly from the conservative, right-leaning crowd. But now that the manuscript is done, I’m getting criticism from both sides of the ideological spectrum.
So if you’re planning on reading it, this is a good time to set expectations:
This book will be too left of center for my conservative friends.
Too liberal, too critical of American evangelicalism. Too filled with doubt and too honest about a time in my life when God simply did not exist. The thought alone will probably make you uncomfortable and depressed.
It also might make you look your own doubt (that small grain of sand in your shoe) straight in the face. And once you look at it, you can no longer ignore it. It will require action from you. As someone who has been there and done that, I send all my love and light (and a metaphorical margarita) your way.
It’s the start of a daunting journey, but everyone who makes it is better for it, regardless of where they land. Just consider this your heads-up.
This book might feel too right of center for my progressive friends.
Too dependent on Scripture. Too tangled up with the name of a Man that has been misused for centuries to justify violence, colonization, exclusion, control, and indifference.
And yet, it might also lead you to look this Man in the face and ask: what is it about Him (apart from all the institutions and ideologies built in His name) that could still draw in someone like me: who has wrestled deeply with the damage done under the banner of faith, and still chose to step into full-time international ministry? That question might be the beginning of many more.
It’s the start of a daunting journey, but everyone who makes it is better for it, regardless of where they land. Just consider this your heads-up.
My book may make you uncomfortable.
It might ask you to sit with questions you’re avoiding and feel things you’d rather not. I hope you show up anyway. And I hope you lean into it if you feel yourself begin to grow.
Most of the stories captured in my memoir are of moments when I was deeply uncomfortable: physically, spiritually, emotionally.
I write about the biggest panic attack I’ve ever experienced, in a humid hotel room in Kathmandu on Hindu New Year’s Eve. I write about contracting an intense intestinal virus right before getting stuck on an overnight train from Varanasi. I write about the depths of my depression and about irrevocable loss and about attending the funeral pyres of strangers during a time when death seemed to constantly call my name.
And it’s in looking back on these moments that I can see that my most bombastic growth happened in my most uncomfortable seasons. I hate that, but that doesn’t make it less true. When we’re uncomfortable, we move, adapt, grow, evolve.
There are some readers, however…
…who will feel right at home in these pages. They are the people who do not fit entirely on either “side,” the ones uncomfortable with labels; they are spiritual, but you’re more likely to find them on mountaintops, beaches, or bars than in a church.
These readers: who want to talk about the messy work of belief and the miraculous hope that shows up when we embrace doubt without an agenda.
These readers: who have been through some shit, and are tired of tiptoeing around it; who are begging to show up in the fullness of who they are and what they’ve experienced.
It’s for these readers that I wrote this book. The middle is a lonely place, and if my story makes even one person feel less alone, less crazy, less broken, then I’ve accomplished my goal.
If this sounds like the kind of book that might meet you where you are, I hope you’ll pick up a copy. It’s a book that I needed once.
🧡 Pre-order on Barnes & Nobles
Want to start reading right now?
If you’re one of “those readers” who might feel seen and supported by this book, I’d love to have you on my launch team.
You’ll be able to read the book before it officially publishes on May 6th, and you’ll get access to a private community where people like you and me can discuss, explore, and connect.
It’s all the connection of a book club, but with a fraction of the commitment.
It starts the week of April 27th, but the community is already chatting it up in our private online space.
So sign up now and join us. 🧡
The deeper you go, the more people you are likely to upset.
Middle way people are my kind of people. Can't wait to read it!