Beautiful Blessed Boredom (and other exciting announcements!)

Two new poems, a new poetry book project and Substack subscription

First things first: an exciting announcement!

Perhaps you noticed a different sender name in your newsletter today. Perhaps you didn’t. Either way the name of this here Substack is changing from Deep Thoughts with Celeste to non-spiritual non-direction.

tagline: scratching the existential itch with a spiritual director who is skeptical of both spirituality and directions.

Same content, same url, new title.

I’ve been meaning to make this change for a while now, this week just felt right.

And since change is in the air, here’s another one: In addition to my normal free content, I’ve decided to add a paid subscription option that Substack so nicely provides writers.

(Speaking of nice: six of you already pledged to pay me as soon as I turned that on??!!? What?! That is so kind. Thank you!!)

For paid subscribers I’ve chosen the lowest monthly price Substack would allow me: $5 per month or $50 per year.

As a perk if you choose to support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber, I will offer my gratitude to you by way of a monthly post only you can see.

I’m planning on saving my most hare-brained creative writing ideas for these posts: a re-imagining of what a Jesus-figure would have looked like if born a female and designated for female spirituality, an interaction with an alien named Blubo where I describe weird human things we don’t notice are weird, and lots more fiction. It will come out the last week of the month.

To clarify: if you don’t become a paid subscriber, nothing changes for you- continue to enjoy my Sunday Substacks on all but the last Sunday of the month. If you do become a paid subscriber- thank you from the bottom of my heart and I hope you enjoy your bonus article on the last Sunday of the month.

Either way, thanks for all the support guys. You make writing fun.

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Are you tired of exciting announcements yet?

Too bad! Here’s another one:

I’m currently collaborating on a poetry book with three other post-mormon poets!

The project is just in its infancy, so we’re not sure of a lot of details, but I wanted to talk about it now because I’m STOKED! And I think you should be stoked!

So I thought I’d whet your appetite today with two poems- one from me, one from my poet friend Brandi Moon. I wrote mine after talking to someone and wishing I could take their fear away. I can’t of course, but I can write this poem.

Brandi’s is about her first trip through the temple.

Beautiful blessed boredom

"I just feel like it will never get better
like it will be hard forever no matter what
so I might as well make my family happy."

And in that moment
I so wish I could 
extract my own eyeballs from their sockets and stick them into yours.

Grant you the ability to look around your world with new eyes
for just a minute
I wish I had a de-fog machine so you could see the world that exists past the haze of indoctrination.
I wish I had a crystal ball to show you how the people around you will move on, adjust, get used to it.
I wish I were a magician and could throw revealing dust onto the invisible cost of making everyone else comfortable.
I wish I were a waitress so you could see the receipt of what you've been paying to keep everyone happy.

I wish I could cut off my ears, bottle up my cochlear fluids
and pipette them into you
so you could listen in on my spiritual direction calls
hear how different the vibe is with those who have left years ago
than with those in the thick of it
where you sit-
impossible to leave, impossible to stay,
might as well keep everyone happy.

How you could see that the calls with those for whom the church is far in their rearview feel almost........... boring
compared to those in the thick of crisis, of hiding.
A beautiful blissful boredom
where the self doubt no longer pulsates like an angry red throb
but cools into experimental blue
I wish you could hear the songs playing in that shade of blue.

I wish I could amputate my hands just for a sec
so you could sense how 
different the writing process feels now
than three years ago.
How timid I once felt cooking words with a dangerous spoon,
how scared I felt of the thoughts that wanted to go into the pot
how I closed them in my inner refrigerator
because they were too raw, too intrepid, too angry, too red
when my recipe card called for pink and pretty.

I wish you could experience how freeing it feels now to cook up whatever's on the table.
No such thing as too red, too blue, too raw, too new.
How my hands delight in experimenting in my kitchen of words
without fear of being too peppery, too bitter, too delicious.

I wish I could reach into my own chest cavity
and play swapsies with our hearts
so you could feel
how once upon a time just scrolling through TikTok
and seeing one of their old wrinkled faces preaching with their old wrinkled voices
would feel like someone poked my tender, wounded chest with a fire poker,
and now...........
it's boring
so brightfully boring 
whatever the prophet and apostles have to say.
How healing the boredom feels.

I wish I could dissect out my brain,
hand you my grey stuff
show you how 
you can barely make out the imprint of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints logo
that was once seared into every machine in the factory of my mind,
how the cogs that once chugged to the beat of obedience
have been gently deconstructed 
and repurposed.
How my brain machinery fired its corporate employer
and became an entrepreneur.

I wish I could show you
that the mormon church is just one room in my inner gallery,
a rather peculiar room - at times interesting, other times boring

but it's no longer the whole museum.

And here is the poem from Brandi Moon:

I really like the stark white image in contrast with the body’s natural colors.

Nineteen 

I’m told to only whisper here, 
but I never needed telling.
Reverence is home for me. A holy spirit blanket warm 
with lullaby songs. That rock me back 
and toward this day.

this day.

She looks like a fresh snow that's never touched the earth,
this temple sister gowned in white. 
Our slippers pad through cream-carpeted halls. 
As her imprints fade, mine take their place. 
I am her shadow. Harkening. 

Her eyes scan my body-- a crisp clean envelope. 
Worthy to be sealed.

She passes me new underwear. 
They try me on. My knees are touched. 
The fabric extends, reaches, stretches. An eraser for my skin. 
I’m a hug of white now. A flag waving purity. Holy cream uneaten. 
My monthly blood. My nervous sweat. Red and yellow and not god white. 
I’ll scrub them with a wicker brush. 
And wear my baptism till I die. 

Ok, tell us: do you write to process change? Do you have any writing requests of me? Either for upcoming Substack posts or poems? What topics would you like to discuss? I do love poem requests.