If you’re here, that means one of two things: Either you’ve been on a faith journey long enough to start questioning everything you were ever told about God, or you clicked the wrong link and you are about to have a mild existential crisis. Either way—welcome. You’re in good company.

My name is JD, and I have spent my life tangled up in the divine. Raised as a Pentecostal, I was deep in the world of revival services, charismatic sermons, and the very real fear that watching The Rugrats might somehow open a portal to hell. (To be fair, Phil and Lil would probably have been down with that)

Later, I helped build a successful church as a worship leader, fronted a Christian metalcore band touring the country screaming about Jesus, and then-somewhere along the way-realized the god I was worshiping was, well, kind of a monster. The angry, wrathful sky-dad who needed blood sacrifices to forgive people? Yeah, that god had to go. And when he did, I was devastated. I grieved that loss. Of course, when you deconstruct something you have believed in for your entire life and built your career and friendships around, it ceases to be an intellectual exercise; you are setting fire to your whole world.

For awhile, I would’ve called myself an atheist. And that felt like home for awhile, but I could never shake this pull that while the current systems were not serving us, there was more to the story of what was going on here… so I dug deeper. And what I found wasn’t less real than the god I had left behind—it was so much more. While I had lost god as a being that was “out there” somewhere, I found something more akin to a mystery that was the ground of being itself. I began to find a divine presence that wasn’t bound by time, space, gender, or the petty need to smite people for eating shrimp. A presence that is woven into every breath, every heartbeat, every song, every star, every photon of light. A Source.

This blog is about that journey.

What You’ll Find Here

I’m passionate about language, etymology, and ancient literature. I get excited about the actual meanings of words in the original texts, not just the mistranslations that have fueled centuries of bad theology. (Looking at you, 1946, when ‘homosexual’ magically appeared in the Bible for the first time). I believe Jesus was far more mystical, radical, and inclusive than modern Christianity gives him credit for. And I believe that when you strip away the fear-based dogma, what remains is something truly transformative—something that leads not to judgment, but to love.

Here We’ll Explore

• The actual meanings behind ancient biblical and extra-biblical texts
• What Jesus was really teaching (hint: it wasn’t about creating megachurches and hoarding wealth)
• The ways spirituality, philosophy, science, and mysticism intersect
• How deconstruction doesn’t have to end in nihilism, but can open the door to something more beautiful and real than you ever imagined

And, of course, there will be sarcasm. Because if we can’t laugh at the absurdity of believing we had it all figured out at age seven, then what’s even the point?

If You’re Here, You Belong

This space is for the questioners, the misfits, the ones who have been burned by religion but still feel the pull of something bigger than themselves. It’s for those who have been told they were too much, too curious, or too heretical—but who know deep down that truth isn’t afraid of being questioned. It’s for those who have walked away from certainty but still long for meaning.

So, welcome to The Way of the Source. I don’t have all the answers. But I do have some really good questions, a deep love for the mysteries of the divine, and a pretty solid playlist for spiritual crises. Let’s figure this out together.