All of my contradictionsAn ongoing theological project musing on queerness, Celtic spirituality, Methodism, and writing new liturgies.
elohim (2022)
This project began as a short film titled elohim, the god named as Creator in Genesis.
“I am a minister's kid.
My dad is a Methodist minister.
I grew up in a manse, and was raised by the Methodist Church.
elohim is about being called, about being children, about inheritance and ritual, about feeling hurt and feeling healed.
elohim is about a queer God, who speaks to me through smoke and tea and blood.
elohim is about leaving, so that you can return, about knocking and believing that the door will be answered.
elohim is a song for the wandering, and a song for the coming home.”
Labyrinths (spring 2024)
While developing in an upstairs room, I visited Knutsford Methodist Church, as part of their Imagining the Cross weekend, to explore labyrinth making. The group collectively painted a labyrinth, leaving the art piece for all members of the community to walk and explore.
Folk were invited to chat about Celtic labyrinths as a spiritual tool and what prayer means to us while creating communally.
“…now imagine me walking back out of the labyrinth.
As I did, I found myself aware of how I was retracing a ghosting of myself, the version of me that entered.
My bones overlaid my bones and my breath overlaid my breath and my skin pressed into a haunting of my skin
and my footsteps echoed into infinity…”
The Way (autumn 2022)
I was invited to share elohim at Strathmore Road Methodist Church’s The Way Weekend, and event exploring how we walk with our gods. SRMC is the Church I grew up in.
To accompany the film I wrote something - an essay, a sermon, a performance - and titled my session All of my Contradictions.
I wrote it in the context of the Methodist Church’s recent decision to allow same sex marriage.
“There are these little patches of woods I can get to and go unnoticed in the city; they are my Garden of Eden.
My ears ringing and heart pounding in bed late at night after being too close to the speakers at a gig is my chorus of heavenly angels.
A cup of tea with my flatmate as we talk about our days is my communion table.
The summer downpours in Glasgow that soak me beyond my bones are my baptisms.
SCM (summer 2025)
I was invited to speak at the Student Christian Movement’s National Gathering.
I spoke in the context of the rise in fascism in the UK, and reflected on how contradiction liberated me from the hurt I suffered at the hands of Catholic schooling and organised religion
“My yoga teacher Laura used to always say “well done” whenever we fell over in class.
She taught us to laugh when we end up on our arses.
This is what my God is like.
So perhaps, now, today, I am falling spectacularly out of a headstand, perhaps I have got this all wrong.
And perhaps I will wake up tomorrow and see that.
And I will turn my face to my God and She will be saying “well done,” and we will laugh and I will get up and I will try again..”
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