Grief in losing community.
When people think about deconstruction, they often think it's about losing faith or changing beliefs. But I think it's just as much about losing a sense of belonging.
For me, I was terrified of leaving my religion and losing my friends and family in the process.
The difficult thing is that questioning your beliefs rarely happens in isolation. Our beliefs are tangled up with our relationships, communities, and how we see ourselves. So questioning one can feel like risking the others. But questioning itself isn't something I think we should be afraid of. Jesus certainly wasn't.
Jesus challenged almost every accepted idea of his day. He questioned who belonged, who was excluded, who was worthy of love, and what it really meant to follow God.
In many ways, I think he embodied deconstruction.
The Narrow Way is available as a print, a sticker and a t-shirt.
My own journey has looked a little like that.
It has been liberating and empowering. But it's also been lonely. In the beginning, it felt like I was losing my entire world. Deconstructing wasn't just theological. It was relational. It was vocational. I lost my community when I left the church.
I lost my sense of identity, purpose, income, friendships, and community. The safe place I thought I'd always have suddenly disappeared. I found myself alone, isolated, and trying to rebuild my life from the ground up.
It's Okay To Grieve When You Leave the Church is available as a digital cartoon.
When the people who once knew you best suddenly feel like strangers, there's a grief that few people talk about. It was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced.
It was also one of the most freeing. I couldn't go back, and today, I'm deeply grateful that I kept moving forward.
You can buy We Will Not Go Back as a print.
But before I could move forward, I had to grieve.
I don't pretend to have all the answers. But I do know this:
Grief asks to be acknowledged, not avoided. It’s okay to grieve when you leave the church.
And from all that loss and grief, you get the beautiful privilege of finding yourself after leaving religion.
So if you've lost a community, a church, friendships, or a sense of belonging, I hope my words and my art remind you that your grief is real.
