Seeing all the beauty in the broken glass (+ other updates)
So many of us feel like we're different from others at Church. And actually, that's beautiful.
The title of this essay comes from the immortal words of Rumi. But in this case I’m not talking about Rumi, the mystic and poet from the 13th century. This time it’s Rumi from KPop Demon Hunters:
I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back
But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass…
The movie, KPop Demon Hunters, peaked in popularity a while back and I assume it doesn’t need introduction. My wife Anne and I went to the Halloween costume parade at our son’s elementary school a few months back, and I swear at least 20% of the girls were in KPop Demon Hunters costumes (and one of our boys dressed as one of the Saja Boys, so we were right in the thick of it).
This movie has a powerful, deeply personal theme that seems to have been accelerating in popular culture for some time (spoilers coming). Rumi has a secret, something she sees as shameful and a flaw; she’s hiding that she is half-demon. But in the end, that becomes her biggest strength. Only when she stops hiding that part of herself and embraces both the darkness and the light inside her, is she powerful enough to defeat the demon king and save the world. This is foreshadowed at the beginning of the movie, when a young Rumi recites that the hunters can “Fix the world and make it right / When darkness finally meets the light.”
…
This pattern would just be a children’s story if I didn’t see it coming to life in so many Latter-day Saints. Maybe these stories resonate because they feel like our own spiritual journeys. How many of us are bringing a sanitized version of our faith to church with us, and leaving our full selves at home?
This is the beginning of a piece I wrote for my good friends at Patheos; go read the rest of it here!
…Also, a podcast!
If you haven’t tuned in yet, my wife Anne and I have been doing a podcast called “And Yet, We Believe.” We’re a married couple having honest conversations about the beautiful messy middle of Latter-day Saint life. If you like the stuff I write on here, you’ll like the podcast too… the episodes are usually about 30 minutes, so they’re easy to get through. You probably already know Anne from her Instagram (mine is here).
We’ve done 44 episodes so far, addressing a variety of nuanced LDS topics; our timely episode on Bible translations has been really popular, as well as one titled “Dealing With People Who Can’t Handle Your Nuance.”
Here’s our most recent episode, in a variety of formats for your listening/viewing pleasure:
That’s it for now! We’ll be back to our regularly-scheduled programming in my next post.