Not a metaphorical one — an actual turkey-and-cheese situation I threw together on a rushed lunch break. For some reason, I wondered why we call it a “sandwich” in the first place.
Wasn’t Sandwich a place? Or an Island?
A quick google search later, I’m staring at the ridiculous story of John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, too busy gambling to step away for dinner, so he ordered meat stuffed between bread. And now, centuries later, here I am — not a nobleman or aristocrat, just a guy eating his Earl-named lunch.
It was just kinda funny at first, but then the chord struck: this completely normal, everyday word carried a whole story inside of it — a story that almost nobody knows. This study of the origin and evolution of words, I found, was called etymology.
So I kept going. I started studying the etymology of even more words. And that’s when things got weird.
The Rabbit Hole Begins
Take “clue,” for example.
I always thought a clue was just… well, a hint. Something Sherlock Holmes sniffs out. But the word traces back to “klew,” meaning a ball of yarn — like the one from the Greek myth of Theseus. He didn’t solve the labyrinth with a sword or brute force; he found his way out by unwinding a ball of thread, or klew, to retrace his steps.
A clue wasn’t originally about solving something — it was about finding the way home.
Then there’s “sincere.” We use it to mean genuine or honest, but its roots go back to Latin: “sine cera” — meaning “without wax.” Back then, sculptors would use wax to cover flaws or cracks in their work. A statue that was truly flawless didn’t need the cover-up. It was sine cera — pure, unhidden, whole.
How wild is that? Sincerity, at its core, isn’t just honesty — it’s wholeness without the cover-up.
Words That Hold More Than We Realize
The more I dug, the more I realized how many words hide deeper, almost poetic truths.
• “Disaster” — from the Greek “dis” (bad) and “aster” (star). It literally means “bad star,” a misfortune caused by the heavens.
• “Companion” — from Latin “com” (with) and “panis” (bread). A companion isn’t just a friend — it’s someone you break bread with.
• “Ecstasy” — from Greek “ekstasis,” meaning “to stand outside oneself.” It’s not just joy — it’s a moment so powerful it pulls you out of your own being into a state of bliss.
And then I stumbled on something bigger — words that didn’t just hold history, but felt like they were pointing to something about humanity itself.
Breathing in the Divine
Let’s talk about “inspire.”
It’s a word we hear all the time — motivational speakers throw it around like confetti. But the root meaning knocked me sideways.
“Inspire” comes from the Latin “inspirare,” which literally means “to breathe into.” It wasn’t about feeling motivated to write a book or start a project — it meant being filled with breath, with life itself.
It’s the same word used to describe how God breathes life into “Adam” in the Genesis story — the very breath of existence. I’ll dive in to the etymology of Adam and Eve another time…
Inspiration wasn’t about productivity. It was about being alive.
Desire, Fire, and Stars
Then I found “desire.”
It’s another word we think we understand — wanting something, longing for it. But its origin is so much more than that.
“Desire” comes from “de” (from) and “sidera” (stars). It’s origins literally mean “from the stars.”
Desire wasn’t about craving or lust. It was about yearning for something beyond this world — a pull toward the heavens.
And the more I sat with that, the more I couldn’t ignore the pattern:
• Disaster — a bad star.
• Desire — a longing from the stars.
• Inspiration — the breath of life itself.
• Ecstasy — to step outside yourself.
It’s like these words were trying to remind us of something — that we’re not meant to be stuck down here in the dirt, chasing power, money, cars, impressive titles, or just surviving. We’re meant to breathe deeply, reach for the stars, and step outside ourselves.
The Awakening Beneath the Words
Somewhere in this journey, it stopped feeling like I was learning trivia. It felt more like I was waking up to something ancient — something we used to know but forgot along the way.
Words are time capsules. They carry not just definitions, but stories, beliefs, and truths that our ancestors lived and breathed. And those truths still pulse beneath the surface, waiting for us to notice them.
We didn’t invent language to make small talk. We invented it to name the things that stir our souls.
We long for the stars — desire.
We’re filled with life — inspire.
We ache to step outside ourselves — ecstasy.
And even our disasters are written in the heavens — stars.
Language, it turns out, isn’t just about communication. It’s a mirror — one that reflects back who we’ve always been: creatures caught between earth and sky, longing for more.
I’m not sure if words saved my soul, but they sure as hell woke it up.
And to think… all of this beauty and wonder and history started with… a sandwich.
Spoiler Warning: This post has some Season 1 Spoilers
“Your so-called self…is a lie.”
That line from Severance, TV’s mind-bending dystopian masterpiece, feels like a handshake with your innie — intimate, unsettling, and not meant for this version of you. The show takes a simple, horrifying premise—what if your work self and your outside self were completely severed from each other?—and spins it into a deep, unsettling meditation on identity, control, and the nature of consciousness.
Just beneath the surface of its eerie corporate corridors and existential horror, Severance carries a spiritual weight that I picked up on from the first episode. It speaks to something primal in us, something fundamental to my own worldview—this sense that we are divided, fragmented, struggling to reconcile the different pieces of ourselves. That we live in a world that demands compartmentalization, while something deep inside us longs to be whole.
And at the heart of it all, a question: Who are you, really?
The Innie/Outie Divide
The entire concept of Severance—splitting a person into two consciousnesses, one that only exists at work and one that only exists outside of it—is terrifying because it’s just a more extreme version of what we already do.
We wear social masks. We create personas. We play roles. The person we are in one environment feels radically different from the person we are in another. We adapt to survive, but in doing so, we fracture ourselves.
This is what many traditions call the false self—the identity shaped by external expectations, fear, and survival mechanisms. It is the mask we wear to navigate the world. In the show, the “Outie” (the self outside of work) believes they are in control, while the “Innie” (work self) exists in a state of perpetual servitude. The Innie wakes up every morning with no past, no future—only memories of work. Only obedience. And yet, the Innie is the one who begins to question, to resist, to long for something more that they know exists beneath the surface if they could just figure out how to access it.
Spiritually speaking, the Innie is like the soul. The part of us trapped in a system it didn’t choose. The part that begins to awaken, often in suffering, often in darkness, and asks: Is this all there is? Is this who I am?
The Great Lie of Control
Lumon Industries, the cold and god-like corporation at the heart of Severance, operates like a religious system gone wrong. It offers salvation in the form of certainty—your work self will never have to worry about the outside world, and your outside self will never have to be burdened with the misery of work. A perfect, ordered existence.
But that order comes at the cost of freedom. And doesn’t that feel sort of familiar? Doesn’t that always tend to be the trade?
Religious institutions, political systems, and cultural structures often give the promise of peace, security, and identity—so long as you don’t question. So long as you accept the role assigned to you. So long as you don’t resist.
But true spirituality—true awakening—is and has always been about curiosity and questioning. It is the Innie looking up from the fluorescent-lit purgatory of Lumon’s halls and thinking, “There has to be more.”
It is Jesus saying, “The truth will set you free.”
It is Lao Tzu saying, “Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is true wisdom.”
It is the mystic realization that the walls around us are merely constructs, that the roles we’ve been given are not who we are, and that something vast, wild, and uncontainable calls us to move beyond them.
Reintegration and Wholeness
One of the most haunting parts of Severance is the sheer horror of reintegration—the idea that the Innie and Outie might become one, that the veil might be lifted, and the full self might finally be known. The fear isn’t just about discovery—it’s about what that discovery would cost.
Because wholeness always costs something.
To awaken spiritually, to step into a fuller, truer way of being, means facing and shedding our illusions. It means facing truths we’ve been conditioned to avoid. It means no longer hiding in the comfortable amnesia of our constructed identities. Who we think we are.
But here’s the paradox: that wholeness, that integration, is what we were truly meant for.
The way I see it, sin is not about rule-breaking—it’s about fragmentation. It is the sickness of separation, of being divided from ourselves, from each other, and from the Source. It is looking for the cure to come from somewhere or something else. And Salvation? Liberation? That’s reintegration. That’s truly healing and becoming whole.
Severance is a horror story because it shows us what happens when we are forced into separation. But it is also a call to wake up. To fight for our own reintegration. To remember that the walls we place between us are not real. That the prison of the false self is not our home.
Because we are not meant to be divided.
We are meant to be free.
What Now?
So where do we go from here? If the false self is a prison and the Source calls us to reintegration, what does that look like in the real world — beyond metaphor and mysticism.
Reintegration starts with the radical act of seeing. Becoming aware. Seeing the masks we wear, the roles we play, and recognizing that they are not who we are. It’s looking at the systems — religious, political, social — that demand our compartmentalization and asking, “Who benefits from my division?”
Lumon thrives because its workers are divided, docile, and obedient. So do the institutions that profit from keeping us fragmented. They need us to cling to tribal identities — to believe that we are separate, that we must defend ‘us’ against ‘them.’ They thrive on our belief that our Outie is righteous while our Innie deserves punishment, or that our neighbor’s Innie is somehow less human than our own.
But what if we stopped playing along? What if we refused to see anyone as an Innie or an Outie — as “us” or “them” — and instead recognized the whole, sacred self in everyone we meet?
Connecting with the Source isn’t about climbing a ladder to some distant, holy plane somewhere else. It’s about remembering that we never left. The Source isn’t out there. It’s within, and it’s within everyone else, too. It’s in your boss, your barista, your enemy. It’s in the waffle party and the melon bar. It’s in the strangest corners of existence — and the most mundane. It is the deep, cosmic hum beneath everything, calling us back to each other.
And what do we do with this freedom? We live like people who remember the truth: that we belong to each other. That we are not cogs in someone else’s machine. We create, we love, we resist systems that demand our obedience, and we help others awaken to the reality that they were never meant to live as half a person.
The final scene of season 1 of Severance is harrowing and powerful — the Innie awakens, sees the truth, and screams it into a world that doesn’t yet know how to listen. That’s the risk of waking up. The world might not be ready for the whole you.
Most of my life, I read the Bible the way I was taught: like an instruction manual, each verse standing alone, perfectly clear in its meaning without any errors. If it said the world was made in six days, then six literal 24-hour days it was. If Jesus said, pluck out your eye if it causes you to sin, well, thank God no one took that literally… but we understood most of it that way—at face value. As if the text had been written last week, by God himself, in plain English for a modern American audience.
Turns out, that’s not how books—especially ancient books—work.
The word bible actually means “the books”, and if you took Spanish you may already know that it is etymologically tied to the word library. Most Protestant and Evangelical churches teach the Bible as a monolithic univocal document dropped from the sky in its final form, rather than the living, breathing, deeply human library of writings it actually is. And when we flatten it, we lose its beauty, depth, and—ironically—its truth.
The problem, however, is not the Bible itself. The problem, my friends, is how we often read and interpret it. The way in which we read the Bible (or our hermeneutics for short) changes everything. What happens if we read it literately instead of literally? What if we took it seriously enough to see it as it actually is—a collection of books with different genres, written by different people across centuries, in different cultural contexts, with different purposes? Suddenly, the Bible doesn’t just make more sense. It comes alive.
What Does It Mean to Read the Bible Literately?
To read literately means reading with an awareness of what kind of text we’re dealing with. Is it poetry? Prophecy? Myth? Parable? A first-century Jewish sermon? A legal code from a nomadic desert tribe? A deeply symbolic apocalyptic vision?
Imagine streaming Breaking Bad like a DIY tutorial. You’d walk away thinking anyone with a Winnebago and a chemistry set can build an empire. That’s how many modern Christians read the Bible—mistaking poetry for science, metaphor for history, and cultural laws for eternal commandments for all people throughout time.
A literate approach considers the:
• Genre – Are we reading history, poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy, a letter, or an apocalyptic vision? Each one of these requires an entirely different lens.
• Author & Audience – Who wrote this, who were they writing to, and why? A letter from Paul to a church in 1st-century Rome isn’t a universal law for all people for all of time.
• Original Language – Words in Hebrew and Greek often don’t translate neatly into English. Nuance gets lost. A single word, sometimes even a letter, can change everything.
• Historical and Cultural Context – What was happening in their world when this was written? What cultural assumptions would the original readers have had? Where is the setting?
How We’ve Gotten It Wrong
Let’s take a look at a few well-known passages and see how a literate approach changes things:
• Genesis 1 – The creation story here is structured poetically, with rhythmic repetition and symbolic numbers (7 days, representing perfection and completeness). It’s less a scientific blueprint and more a beautiful theological statement: God, our Source, brings order from chaos. And did you know there are actually 2 different creation stories in the book of Genesis? And if we try to read it literally, the creation stories have some pretty significant differences, including which name it calls God.
• The Book of Job – Often misunderstood as a historical account, Job reads more like an ancient drama exploring human suffering and the nature of God. It opens with a heavenly wager between God and “the Satan” (which means ‘the accuser,’ not necessarily the devil who is never even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible) — a setup that sounds more like a stage play than a court transcript.
• The Parables of Jesus – The Good Samaritan isn’t just a nice story about kindness. To Jesus’ audience, Samaritans were despised outsiders from another country. His point was and still is scandalous: The “enemy” is the one who is showing God’s love. A literal English reading often misses that gut-punch.
• Revelation – Apocalyptic literature is highly symbolic. Reading Revelation like a future newspaper misses its original purpose: to offer hope to persecuted Christians under Roman rule. The Beast isn’t your least favorite politician from that other evil party — it most likely represented Emperor Nero. You know… in Rome?
How This Can Change Your Faith (For the Better)
If you stop reading the Bible like a list of divine tweets straight from God’s thumbs and start reading it as a collection of ancient, sacred, deeply human writings wrestling with the divine, something happens.
It becomes way more interesting – No more boring, redundant rulebook. Instead, you’re diving into ancient poetry, mystical visions, political resistance literature, and letters of encouragement to underground faith communities.
It opens itself to mystery – Instead of needing everything to be perfectly clear, rigid, and factual, you may start embracing subversive language, paradox, symbol, and meanings with deeply rich layers.
It frees you from harmful interpretations – A literal reading has been used to justify war, slavery, misogyny, homophobia, and genocide. A literate reading recognizes when a text is describing something, not prescribing it.
It deepens your connection to the Divine – Rather than a static set of rules and doctrines, you encounter a dynamic conversation with God, one that invites you, like its characters, to wrestle, question, doubt, misunderstand, and grow.
Jesus Read the Scriptures This Way… So We Should Too.
Jesus himself did not read Scripture literally. He was so intimately aware of the spirit within the words that he reinterpreted, reframed, and challenged the common readings of his time. “You have heard it said… but I tell you…” was his way of saying, Hey, you’ve been reading this wrong. Let me show you what it actually means.Let me show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
When we move from literalism to literacy, we’re by no means abandoning Scripture—we’re respecting it. We’re engaging with it the way it was meant to be engaged: as an unfolding revelation, a window into the divine, a story that pulls us deeper into love, justice, peace, and transformation.
I think that’s part of what Jesus meant when he said, “The truth will set you free.“
And maybe, just maybe, it starts by learning how to read.
Resources
If you’re curious about diving deeper, here are some authors and books that have been helpful to me:
Also check out the fascinating public scholar work of Dan McClellan. He’s about to release his first book since he took his work public called “The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues” on April 29th. In the meantime check him out on TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube. I also have a resources tab here, but I haven’t had the time to really put much together over there yet while I focus on writing and getting this blogging thing started.
A quick note: I’m currently writing a book. It’s going to be a spiritual autobiography that will include much of what’s in this post, and much of what’s already been posted on this blog, but will go into much greater depth. The topic of deconstruction alone has inspired entire blogs and books of their own. So with that being said, here’s a glimpse into my journey through deconstruction.
-JD Merrill
I remember the first time I felt the floor cracking beneath my faith.
It wasn’t a slow erosion… it was an earthquake. A single question at first, then another, then a tidal wave of doubt that left me gasping for air. Things that had once felt rock-solid… God’s goodness, the reliability of scripture, the purpose behind it all… suddenly seemed fragile, even hollow.
And the worst part?
I had been taught that doubt was the enemy.
In the faith tradition I grew up in, questioning wasn’t just discouraged: it was dangerous. It meant you were “backsliding,” being “led astray,” giving in to the deception of the world. There was a formula: Believe. Obey. Don’t ask too many questions. If the answers didn’t make sense, the problem was with you, not the system. So when my questions became louder than the sermons, when my prayers felt like they were evaporating into silence, I was left with an unbearable weight of guilt.
Maybe you know the feeling.
Maybe you’ve sat in a church service, surrounded by people singing with a sense of certainty, while something inside you whispered, I don’t know if I believe this anymore. Maybe you’ve tried to ignore the nagging contradictions, hoping that if you just had more faith, the doubts would go away. Maybe you’ve been told that your questions mean that you’re losing your faith. But what if that’s not true? What if deconstruction isn’t falling away, but waking up?
When the House Falls Down
For a long time, I saw faith like a house. A sturdy, well-built structure I had inherited, passed down from generations before me. It had walls made of doctrines, floors of biblical inerrancy, a roof of absolute certainty. It kept me safe. It kept everything in order. But when the cracks started forming, when I realized some of those walls weren’t as solid as I had been told, the whole thing started shaking. And when it finally collapsed, I thought I had lost everything. I felt like I had lost a God who had been my best friend for my entire life.
For me, deconstruction started in the background, on the periphery, like a creeping vine I wasn’t paying too much attention to. When something didn’t make sense to me, I could just set that aside until I had better understanding or a new perspective. I had always been one to challenge tradition and the status quo. I was raised charismatic, after all, so if something didn’t resonate with my spirit, I needed to know why. Why do we do things this way instead of that way? If I understood the “why” I could either get on board, or find a new avenue.
After leaving the church we met at, my wife and I were part of planting a new church. As the Worship Leader I had the opportunity to decide what kind of songs and what kind of theology we were going to incorporate through music. So I started really paying attention to the lyrics of every song, to see if they resonated with what we believed, and what this new church was going to believe.
Bring On The Questions
It wasn’t the big doctrines that wavered at first—it was what I would consider secondary beliefs:
Was Noah’s Ark historical?
Was Jonah really swallowed by a great fish and survived?
Was Jesus actually born of a virgin?
Was the Earth created in 6 business days?
Were these stories meant to be taken literally, or was there something deeper I was missing?
As time went on, however, the questions grew bolder. The cracks spread. Pretty much everything except the person of Jesus stopped making sense to me… or at least, it didn’t make sense in the way I had always understood it.
And all the while, I was still leading worship. Still married to a Christian woman that I met at church. Still getting my paycheck from the church. It wasn’t just my faith that was unraveling. It was my entire identity. My career. My way of life. Worship leading wasn’t just my job; it was who I was. It was the thing I had always wanted to do, the dream I had carried since I was a kid.
And then, one night, while studying the Bible and examining the lyrics to a song, the last brick in the foundation of my faith crumbled.
And I still had to lead worship practice.
I had to pray out loud to lead a worship team that I was building, who were looking to me to lead them, knowing I no longer believed in a God who was out there somewhere listening. I had to lift my hands in the songs I had led a thousand times before, knowing they no longer meant the same thing to me. I had to stand in a room full of people who had no idea that, inside, I felt like I was disappearing.
The Dark Night of the Soul
This journey through doubt and uncertainty is not a new phenomenon. In the 16th century, St. John of the Cross wrote about the Dark Night of the Soul, describing it as a period of spiritual desolation, disorientation, and doubt that precedes a deeper communion with the Divine. He wrote:
“To come to the knowledge you have not, You must go by a way in which you know not.” —St. John of the Cross
Contemporary theologian Peter Rollins echoes this sentiment, suggesting that embracing doubt is integral to authentic faith. He says it this way:
“The point is only that the believer should not repress the shadow of doubt that hangs over all belief… Instead, the believer ought to acknowledge and even celebrate this dark night of the soul, understanding that this is not a threatening darkness which conceals an enemy but rather is the intimate darkness within which we embrace our faith.” —Peter Rollins
Deconstruction as an Invitation
For so many of us, deconstruction starts with grief. The loss of certainty, the unraveling of everything we thought we knew. But what if it’s not just an ending?
What if it’s an invitation?
To see the Divine… not in rigid doctrines, but in the uncontainable vastness of reality itself. To find meaning… not in having all the answers, but in the beauty of the mystery. To encounter “God”… not in the places we were told they must be, but in the places we never expected.
For me, the breaking of my faith wasn’t the end. It was the beginning of something deeper, something freer. I stopped looking for God in the confines of a religious system and started experiencing the sacred in the very fabric of existence. In music that shook me to my core. In the stillness of the morning. In the unfiltered, unforced moments of love and connection that needed no theological justification to be real. And here’s the paradox: It wasn’t until I let go of certainty that I actually found something worth holding onto.
Losing to Find
Jesus once said, “Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” I think that can apply to our faith, too. Maybe the faith we were handed… the kind that demands certainty, that requires obedience without question, that fears doubt like a disease… was never the point. For me it was just scaffolding, a temporary structure meant to get us to a place where we could finally encounter something real. The loss of that faith doesn’t have to be just a tragedy. Maybe it’s the first breath of freedom.
What Next?
If you’re in that space of the in-between, the aftermath, the uncertainty I want to tell you something I wish someone had told me:
You are not broken.
You are not wrong.
You are not failing.
You are not alone.
But… please keep an open mind.
I didn’t mean to stop believing in God. It wasn’t a choice I made, a rebellion I embraced, or a philosophy I eagerly adopted. It was more like a slow, unrelenting erosion… like the tide pulling the sand from beneath my feet until I realized there was nothing left to stand on.
At first, there was grief. Crying in my car outside of a church because I couldn’t’t take communion. That was for believers, and for the first time I was on the outside of that. But over a few weeks that led to a sense of relief. The weight of trying to reconcile an ancient faith with the brutal realities of the modern world had been exhausting. Without God, I was free. Free from the cognitive dissonance, the theological gymnastics, the need to justify suffering with some twisted divine purpose. Free to love and accept everyone, no matter their religion, sexual orientation, voting record, or any of the other ways we divide ourselves.
There was something clean about it, something sharp. The world made sense in a way it never had before… random, indifferent, ruled by chaos and natural laws rather than magical celestial orders. And for a while, that was enough. I leaned into thinkers like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, reveling in their unflinching logic. I found comfort in the idea that morality was an evolutionary construct, not a divine mandate. The universe didn’t care, and maybe that was okay.
But atheism, like the faith I had left, held its own brand of certainty and exclusivity. I saw it in online debates, in the way ex-believers scoffed at spirituality, dismissing anything beyond the material as childish wishful thinking. And if I was honest with myself, I had adopted that same posture. I had traded one dogma for another, one absolute for a different kind. I became cynical. There was no room for mystery, no space for wonder. The vastness of existence had been reduced to atoms and neurons, cause and effect. And yet, something in me still ached.
It was in that emptiness that I found something unexpected. Or rather, something found me. Because even when I had deconstructed everything, even when I had tried to empty myself of God, there was still… something.
Not the old man in the sky. Not the tribal deity of my childhood. But a presence, a current, a whisper beneath all things. It wasn’t a return to certainty, it was a surrender to unknowing. And in that surrender, I began to heal. I embraced experience, and found hope in adopting a mystical lens.
Deconstruction is not the end. It is the beginning. The bravest thing you can do is walk into the dark, not knowing if the ground will hold, trusting that even in the void, you are not alone. Because once you have a real question, there is no way out, only a way through.
As St. John of the Cross once wrote, “If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.”
So for today, don’t be afraid of doubts. Don’t be afraid of questions. Your community may not understand, and there may be very real risks in being authentic and striving for truth. But if you stay curious, brave the uncertainty, and refuse to accept hollow answers, you will find truth. What is true will remain true regardless of your questioning. And any “God” worth believing in, will be there on the other side in a way that’s more true than you ever thought possible. And when new questions or doubts arise, you will have the tools and experience needed to navigate the mystery with intellectual integrity and joy.
And hopefully, like me, you’ll find that in the ancient wisdom traditions lies a truth that is so deep, so true, and so real that you have to use metaphor, allegory, and poetic language. Because once you pin down the butterfly to examine its wings, it loses its ability to fly.
Stay curious, my friends. The truth runs in the deep streams.
Growing up in a charismatic Pentecostal church and family, I heard the word Hallelujah a lot. Sure, it was shouted during sermons, whispered fervently in prayer, and sung with hands raised high. Usually, it was said as a trivial celebration when my mom found her keys or that thing she’d been looking for for weeks. I often hear it used sarcastically. When I was touring with Settle The Sky, my Christian metal band, Hallelujah was screamed into microphones, echoing through sweaty clubs and church basements, sometimes from the voices of kids who weren’t even sure what they believed—but something about that word felt powerful. And while everyone used this word, I felt like most people didn’t seem to be able to articulate what it really meant.
Hallelujah isn’t just a word. It’s a cry. A defiant, unrelenting, soul-shaking exclamation that transcends language, genre, and even belief systems. It’s one of the few Hebrew words that has made its way, unchanged, into nearly every language on earth. My wife, Ariel, walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of this song whose only lyric was just the word Hallelujah.
But what does Hallelujah actually mean? And why does it hold so much weight—whether whispered in worship, shouted in ecstatic praise, or screamed over a hardcore caveman riff in a Sleeping Giant song?
The Etymology of Hallelujah:
The word Hallelujah (הַלְלוּיָהּ) is made up of two parts:
• Hallelu (הַלְלוּ) – A command meaning “praise” (from halal, meaning to shine, boast, or act wildly celebratory).
So Hallelujah literally means “Praise God!” But not in a quiet, reserved, or passive way.
The root word halal is wild. It comes from the exclamation of freedom. In Islam, if a food is “halal”, then it is praised by the divine and they are “free” to eat it. It means to boast, to rave, to shine, to act clamorously foolish in celebration. It’s the kind of word that doesn’t fit neatly into the stoic, buttoned-up version of faith so many of us were handed. Halal is loud. It’s undignified. It’s messy.
It’s the kind of word that makes most religious people uncomfortable.
Dance Dance Revolution
One of the most unrestrained biblical pictures of true Hallelujah comes from 2 Samuel. King David, who was a warrior and poet, brings the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. And how does he celebrate?
He dances.
Furiously.
He strips off his royal linen robes and dances before the Lord with all his might, completely unbothered by how ridiculous he looks. His wife, Michal, watches in disgust, embarrassed by his lack of dignity. That’s a striking image for Michal’s attitude toward David. She wasn’t just upset; she was cutting him off in her heart, separating herself from his joy and his deep, intimate worship before Yahweh. But David doesn’t care.
“I will become even more undignified than this!” he tells her. “I will be humiliated in my own eyes!” -2 Samuel 6:22
That is Hallelujah—the kind of unrestrained, all-consuming celebration that doesn’t care about appearances or what kind of societal consequences or judgment it brings up in others. The kind that doesn’t hold back. The kind that shakes the ground.
Hallelujah in Metal, Hardcore, and Charismatic Worship
When I look back, I realize that my time in the charismatic church and my time in metal and hardcore were deeply connected by this same reckless, passionate spirit.
In charismatic churches, worship wasn’t just singing songs… it was warfare. It was an outpouring of emotion. People danced, shouted, wept, fell to their knees. Some spoke in tongues. Some shook under the weight of something they couldn’t explain. The band played loud, but not for performance or recognition, but because the Spirit was moving, and nothing about that moment should be tame.
Then I stepped into the world of metal and alternative music, and I felt something eerily familiar. The intensity. The passion. The catharsis of screaming from the depths of your soul, of pushing your body to the limit, of letting go of self-consciousness and giving everything you have to something bigger than yourself. To the energy that was stirring up between everyone in the room.
In the pit at a hardcore show, I saw people swinging fists, jumping off stages, pile-driving toward a moment that felt transcendent. When we played, I saw kids who wouldn’t set foot in a church scream their lungs out to lyrics about redemption, about sacrifice, about love, about hope. The church might not have understood our art form, but it was never really about playing music or getting fame or being a rock star. It was about uniting the broken in a moment of raw transcendence.
To me, that is Hallelujah.
Hallelujah and the Illusion of Separation
There’s something about raw, undignified presence and unity that breaks through the illusion that we are separate from something greater. Not the polished, performance-driven kind that is trying to impress to satisfy an egoic need—but the kind that throws off every weight, every inhibition, and lets the soul truly cry out.
Hallelujah is not about conformity. It’s about connection. It’s about that deep, undeniable pull that every mystic, every artist, every seeker has felt—the pull toward something vast, luminous, and overwhelmingly real. Whether you call it God, the Tao, the Divine, the Source, the Universe, or simply Love, there is something in all of us that knows:
There is more.
And we are all a part of it. We are all invited to leave our egos at the door so our truest self can be free.
Hallelujah is the moment the wave crashes and you feel one with the ocean.
It’s the lump in your throat when a song wrecks you in the best way.
It’s the dancer lost in flow state movement, the poet captivated in words, the mother holding her child, the breath that catches in awe.
It’s in the scream of a metalhead in the pit, in the whispered prayer of the doubter, in the sigh of the atheist staring up at the stars, feeling something too beautiful for words.
Hallelujah isn’t just for “believers”. It isn’t just for “church”. It isn’t just for those who understand. It’s for whoever breathes.
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise Yah.
Maybe you’ve been taught that spiritual connection had to look a certain way—had to fit into a religious mold that never quite felt right. Maybe, like me, you felt more of something divine in the roar of a crowd than in a pew. Maybe you were outcast by a church more focused on everyone believing and behaving the same way than having a real encounter with an untamed spirit. Maybe you’ve been waiting for permission to show up fully as you are, to throw off self-consciousness, to stop filtering your presence and just be—raw, honest, unrestrained.
Here it is.
Let your Hallelujah be loud. Let it be messy. Let it be real.
Not because you have to worship a deity, or a god out there somewhere else, not because you need to fit into any system of belief, or any organized religion.
But simply because you are alive.
Because you are part of something bigger than yourself. Because your voice, your body, your breath, your existence—it all matters.
Because to be fully alive, fully present, fully surrendered to this eternal moment—that is the cry of Hallelujah.
Have you ever wondered why most deities have names—but the Christian God is most often just called “God”? This used to baffle me as a kid. I remember thinking that other religions must think we’re so arrogant. We didn’t just claim our God was the one true God—we took the very word “God” and used it as His name.
Names have power. They define, they distinguish, they shape how we understand something. Yet, in the Western World where it’s almost assumed that everyone is a Christian, the Divine is often left with a generic title rather than a personal name. Why?
The answer to this mystery lies at the source. It is ancient and profound—something that has been hidden in plain sight within the earliest writings of the Bible itself.
YHWH: The Breath of Existence
The first time we encounter the Divine Name in the Hebrew Scriptures is in the story of Moses and the burning bush from the book of Exodus. Moses, a shepherd and fugitive, finds himself drawn to a strange sight—a bush engulfed in flames that is never consumed by the fire. As he approaches, he hears a voice calling his name. This is no ordinary moment; it is an encounter with the Divine.
Moses asks the voice, “Who should I say sent me?”
And the response is enigmatic, profound: Ehyeh asher Ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה)—or in English “I AM that I AM.” It is an answer that refuses definition, evading labels and fixed identities. Then, God gives Moses the Name: YHWH.
This moment is mystical, deep, and powerful. The name revealed is not just a title but a verb, a state of being. I AM. It is existence itself, the ever-present, ever-unfolding Source. YHWH is not a static deity bound to a temple or an image but the very essence of life itself. The Israelites would come to see this name as so sacred that they wouldn’t use it in writing or speaking, because it is a mystery that could only be experienced but couldn’t be fully grasped or nailed down.
Most scholars believe that it should be understood as a symbolic representation of God’s presence and call to Moses, rather than a completely literal account of a physical burning bush that did not burn up. The focus is on the divine encounter and the message conveyed, not necessarily the exact details of the imagery or its literal nature. Keep in mind that this writing is premodern and doing its best to give language and story to the mystery that we call the Divine.
The Hebrew Bible does not originally call the Divine simply “God.” It speaks of YHWH (יהוה), a name so sacred that it was often left unspoken. But this isn’t just about reverence—it’s about something deeper.
Some scholars and mystics suggest that YHWH is not a typical name at all, but an attempt to capture the sound of breathing. Say it slowly without vowels—YH…WH…—and you might notice how it mirrors the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling. In this sense, the Divine name is not meant to be spoken in the traditional sense, but experienced. Every breath we take is a reminder of the Source, the ever-present reality sustaining all life.
I remember the first time I heard this idea, and it hit me like a punch to the gut. The name of the Divine—so ineffable, so untouchable—was something I had been unconsciously uttering my entire life. With every inhale and exhale, I had been speaking the Name. It wasn’t something separate from me; it was within me. It was me, and it was you, and it was everything that has breath. What animates us all.
Why Was YHWH Left Unspoken?
In Jewish tradition, YHWH is considered too sacred to pronounce. Instead, substitutes like Adonai (meaning “Lord”) or HaShem (meaning “The Name”) are used. But even these alternatives hint at something beyond language itself.
Adonai, meaning “Lord” or “Master”—and also, incidentally, a banger of a song by Petra—comes from a root meaning “sovereign,” a term of reverence, yet it does not replace the unspeakable reality of YHWH—it only gestures toward it. The reluctance to speak the Name serves as a reminder that the Divine is beyond human categories, beyond definition, beyond limitation. The moment you try to define it, you lose it.
This stands in stark contrast to modern Christianity’s casual use of the term “God.” It’s a catch-all phrase that has become so generic that it often loses its depth and mystery. Yet, the ancient understanding suggests something radically different: the Divine is not a concept to be named, but a presence to be encountered. A spirit to be present with.
Echoes in Other Traditions
This idea—that the Divine is beyond naming yet intimately present and accessible—resonates across spiritual traditions.
In Taoism, the Tao Te Ching begins with: “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” Like YHWH, the Tao is beyond words, a force that underlies all existence. Tao actually means “The Way,” which I find quite fascinating.
Hinduism speaks of Brahman, the supreme universal spirit, the ultimate reality that cannot be fully defined, yet is the essence of all things. The sacred sound Om is often said to contain the vibration of all existence, much like YHWH as breath.
Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, often chants the Divine name Hu in meditation. Hu is the breath of life, the ungraspable presence of Allah, known not through intellect, but through experience.
Reclaiming the Sacred Mystery
So what happens when we move beyond “God” as a mere label and return to the mystery to be experienced? What if we stopped trying to define the Divine with rigid words and instead sought it in the breath, in the motion, in the silence, and in the spaces between?
I think about my friends who have walked away from religion, many of them artists, musicians, and punks who reject anything that smells like control or dogma. I get it. I’m there too. Especially with the current state of the church in America. But what if the problem isn’t the Divine itself, but the way it’s been packaged and sold? What if the real thing was never meant to be locked inside churches and creeds, but was as close as your next breath?
To speak the Name of God is to breathe. To seek the Name of God is to live life to its fullest and most abundant.
In the words of Father Richard Rohr: “I remind people that there is no Islamic, Christian, or Jewish way of breathing… The playing field is utterly leveled.” No one and no religion can control this spirit.
This shatters identity politics and the idea that the Divine is exclusive to any certain people group. If you breathe, you’re in. Period.
Is it just me or have Valentine’s Day products been on the shelves since like Christmas Eve? Let’s not even get started on the corporate consumerism of it all, because while true, that sounds draining and stressful. I want to talk little bit about real love. I’m sure all the retailers and date night spots would like you to believe that love is something you can buy. Or at the very least, that you have to spend money to prove your love adequately. But we all know that love is one of those things that can’t be bought. Love can’t be defined. Love can never fully be expressed or contained. Artists, poets, philosophers, filmmakers and humans throughout all of history have tried to capture something that seems to be futile to the ineffability and infinity of love. Behind the candles, dessert menus, and manufactured romance this week lies an invitation to explore an eternal mystery:
What is love?
Like, really….what is it? And how do we begin to grasp its infinite depth?
A Brief History of Valentine’s Day
The origins of Valentine’s Day are hazy, and a bit jumbled together from history, legend, and myth. The most famous tale tells of St. Valentine, a priest in 3rd-century Rome. Emperor Claudius II had placed a ban on marriage for young soldiers. Our boy Valentine risking everything, he performed secret weddings, believing that love transcended law, empire, and even death. For this, he was put to death on February 14th, and his legacy grew into a celebration of love.
But long before St. Valentine, around the same date in February was Lupercalia. Lupercalia was an ancient Roman festival of fertility, passion, and renewal. It was a time when love was understood as something untamed and primal, honestly maybe even a bit brutal at times. They saw love as a force woven into the very fabric of existence.
From the earliest days of human history, love never seems to be merely sentimental or easy to capture with words.
Love is… Sacred.
Esoteric.
Transformative.
It is the fire that has bound hearts, shattered oppression, and opened doorways to the divine throughout eternity.
Ancient Wisdom on Love
Traditions across the world have long understood love as more than an emotion and more than human attachment or pair bonding. Love is the gravitational force of our souls, the spiritual thread stitching all things together, the current that carries us back home.
• The Taoist Perspective: Love is the dance of Yin and Yang, the interplay of opposites. It is not about possession or control but balance. Allowing the other to be fully themselves while remaining fully yourself. Love is not static. Love is found in the flow, in surrendering to the harmony of existence.
• Hindu Teachings: The Bhagavad Gita speaks of bhakti, a love that transcends the physical and becomes devotion to the divine in all things. To love another fully is to see God within them, to recognize that every face is a reflection of the infinite. Namaste.
• Jewish Mysticism (Kabbalah): In Kabbalah, love (ahavah) is not just an emotion but an act of giving, a channel through which divine energy flows. The more we give of ourselves, the more we reflect the divine essence that permeates all things. Love expands the soul, dissolving the illusion of separateness from God.
Jesus and the Way of Love
Jesus did not just teach love; he embodied it. And not the pretty pink love of overpriced greeting cards, but a love so radical, so boundary-shattering, that it turned the world upside down.
• “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not just an ethical rule, it is a deeper truth about our connection to one another. The boundaries we perceive between our selves, “me” and “them”, are not as solid as they seem. When we love another, we reflect that love within ourselves. When we harm another, we diminish something within our own soul.
• “Love your enemies.” Jesus knew that love isn’t about being deserving. It isn’t earned. It is not a transaction. Love simply is. A force that flows freely, without condition, because love is the very nature of God. And aligning ourselves with that spirit, living in this way can heal ourselves and those around us.
• “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I truly don’t think that this is merely about physical sacrifice, but about something far deeper: the surrender of the self we construct, the one bound by ego and illusion. The one that sees itself as separate. To love is to release that false self and step into the greater reality of connection. It is letting go of the masks we wear, the pride that separates us, and the fear that keeps us from recognizing the deep river that flows through us all.
Love as the Bridge to the Divine
Love is not something we possess. It possesses us. It moves through us like breath, like light, like the pulse of the universe itself.
To love deeply is to see beyond the illusion of separateness. To love fully is to recognize the divine in every face, in every moment, in every breath. Love is not a reward. It is not a prize to be won. It is not earned. Love simply is. It is the essence from which we come and to which we return.
An Invitation to Love More Fully
This Valentine’s Day, go beyond the surface-level expressions of love. I’m hoping that we expand our love beyond romance to the stranger, to the enemy, to the earth itself. To love with the reckless abandon of mystics, the unwavering devotion of sages, and the boundless generosity of the Source from which all love flows.
Whisper a blessing to someone in silence. Speak love into the world, even to those who may not return it. Reject fear. Love your enemies. See the divine in the ordinary… in the eyes of a friend, in the face of a stranger, in the reflection staring back at you in the mirror.
Let love not be a fleeting feeling, but the very path that leads us home.
Because in the end, love is not something we give or receive.
If you grew up in church, you probably heard the word repentance a lot. Maybe it was shouted from a pulpit, written on a sign, or used in altar calls:
“Repent, or burn in hell!”
“Repent and be saved!”
“If you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?”
For many of us, repentance meant fear—a desperate attempt to stay on God’s good side. It wasn’t about transformation; it was about avoiding punishment.
Repentance was something we did when we felt guilty, when we messed up, when we knew we weren’t enough. It was tied to shame—the deep, gut-wrenching feeling that not only had we done something wrong, but that we were wrong.
How many times did we sob at the altar, begging God to forgive us, only to walk away feeling like we were never quite clean enough? How often did we promise to be better, to stop sinning, to try harder—only to fail again and spiral into self-hatred?
And the worst part? The cycle never ended. Guilt. Shame. Fear. Try harder. Fail. Repeat. I must’ve been “saved” at that youth group altar at least a hundred times and still it never felt like it “stuck”.
This was “repentance” as we understood it—a painful, never-ending struggle to make ourselves acceptable to God so he wouldn’t send us to hell.
But what if I told you that this isn’t at all what repentance was meant to be? That the original Hebrew concept of Teshuvah is something radically different—something healing, something freeing?
Teshuvah: More Than Just Saying ‘Sorry’
The word Teshuvah (תשובה) is usually translated as “repentance,” but that translation barely scratches the surface. Teshuvah comes from the root shuv (שוב), which means to return.
It’s not about groveling before an angry God. It’s not about wallowing in guilt. It’s about coming back home.
Teshuvah is the realization that you were never meant to be lost. That even when you wander, the way back is always open. That you are not a filthy sinner begging for mercy—you are a beloved child, made in the image of the divine, finding your way back to wholeness.
Breaking the Cycle of Shame
One of the most damaging things about our modern idea of repentance is that it keeps us trapped in shame. Shame isolates. Shame paralyzes. Shame tells us we’re broken beyond repair.
But Teshuvah offers something entirely different: healing.
Instead of saying, “You are a failure, and you must pay for your mistakes,” Teshuvah says,
“You have lost your way, but you are not lost forever. Come home.”
Instead of saying, “You are defined by your worst choices,” Teshuvah says,
“Your past is not your identity. Who you truly are is deeper, truer, and has always been connected to the divine.”
Instead of saying, “You must earn forgiveness,” Teshuvah says,
“You are already loved. The path to healing is open—step into it.”
Teshuvah as a Path to Transformation
Teshuvah isn’t a one-time event. It’s not just about asking for forgiveness. It’s a lifelong rhythm of waking up, realigning, and returning to who you were created to be.
Jewish wisdom teaches that Teshuvah has four essential steps:
1. Recognizing the misalignment – Honestly acknowledging where you’ve gone off track. And that’s all it is. Stepping off of the path.
2. Feeling true remorse – Not guilt, but a deep realization of what has been lost.
3. Making amends – Repairing what has been broken, especially in your relationships, actions, or intentions. My AA friends know all about this step and how crucial it is.
4. Committing to change – Becoming someone who, given the same situation, would choose differently. Not about doing anything, but about who you are, what you believe about yourself, and what you believe about the world around you.
And here’s the most radical part—Teshuvah doesn’t just erase your mistakes. It transforms them.
In Jewish thought, when Teshuvah is done from a place of deep love and sincerity, even past sins can become merits. The very things that led you away can become the very things that bring you closer to the divine. Your story isn’t ruined—it’s redeemed.
Teshuvah and the Teachings of Jesus
Jesus, as a Jewish teacher, absolutely understood Teshuvah. When he spoke about “repentance” in Greek (metanoia), he was talking about a fundamental shift in perception—a transformation of consciousness. He wasn’t calling people to wallow in guilt, but to awaken to something greater.
Think about the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). The son leaves home, squanders everything, and finally realizes he needs to return. He expects shame and punishment—but instead, his father runs to embrace him. That’s Teshuvah.
Jesus wasn’t preaching fear-based repentance. He was showing us The Way home.
Living a Life of Teshuvah
So what does this mean for us today?
It means that whenever you feel lost, you are never too far gone. The way back is always open.
It means that your past does not define you. Mistakes aren’t final. You are still becoming. Your power has never been in the past or thew future anyways. It is right here with a present awareness. This is why we meditate, focus on the breath, and pray.
It means that the love of God is not something you have to earn—it’s something you return to. Something you were born into.
And it means that every time you wake up to love, to truth, to the divine, to the present moment, you are practicing Teshuvah.
No more shame. No more fear. Just the open arms of a father, The Source, running to meet you on the road back home.
“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” – John 5:39-40
Let’s play a game.
Close your eyes (wait—actually, don’t, because you’re reading this) and picture a Bible.
What does it look like?
Maybe it’s that big, leather-bound one on your grandmother’s coffee table, the one with your family genealogy scribbled in the front. Maybe it’s a pocket-sized New Testament, printed by the Gideons and left in a hotel drawer. Maybe it’s an app on your phone, offering verse of the day inspiration between doomscrolling sessions.
But now, let’s go deeper. What is the Bible?
Is it a divine rulebook? A history of the world? A flawless, dictated Word of God, dropped out of heaven, bound in King James English, and handed to us for all eternity?
Or is it something else entirely?
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most of what people believe about the Bible comes not from the Bible itself, but from centuries of religious institutions, political interests, and well-meaning (but often misinformed) preachers.
And the Bible itself? It’s much weirder, much messier, and far more human than most of us have been led to believe.
The Bible Didn’t Start as “The Bible”
Imagine walking into a library and pulling random books off the shelf.
You grab a collection of ancient war poetry. A few personal letters between religious leaders. Some legal codes from a long-extinct civilization. A book of erotic love poetry. A fiery political manifesto written under oppressive rule.
Now, mash them all together, translate them into a language that didn’t exist when they were written, and declare that this collection is the direct and inerrant voice of God.
That’s sort of what happened with the Bible.
The Bible isn’t a book—it’s a library of writings from different authors, across different time periods, in different languages, addressing different cultural contexts. The word Bible shares etymological roots with library and essentially means “The Books”. The people who wrote these texts weren’t writing “The Bible”—they were writing to their communities, responding to their struggles, trying to make sense of the divine and the human experience.
And yet, somehow, we’ve turned this wildly diverse collection into a singular, monolithic weapon—one that’s often wielded to uphold power structures, silence dissent, and justify just about every form of oppression known to humankind.
But let’s step back and ask: Is that what it was meant to be?
Who Decided What Belongs in the Bible? (And What Got Left Out?)
Most people don’t realize this, but there was never a single moment in history where someone declared, “Okay, folks, this is the Bible. Final draft. No more edits.”
The process of canonization (deciding which books were in and which were out) was long, messy, and full of disagreements.
The Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) wasn’t fully settled until at least the 2nd century CE.
The New Testament wasn’t finalized until the 4th century CE—a full 300 years after Jesus.
Even today, different Christian traditions have different Bibles—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles don’t all contain the same books.
Now, let’s pause and think about that.
If the Bible is supposed to be the absolute and unchanging Word of God, why did it take centuries of human debate to decide what belonged in it? And what does it mean that some texts were excluded? What happens when we realize that decisions about the Bible weren’t made by prophets or angels, but by councils of bishops, church leaders, and—let’s be honest—Roman emperors with political agendas?
Lost in Translation: How Words Change Meaning Over Time
Even if we all agreed on which books belong in the Bible, we’d still have another problem: Translation.
Because unless you read ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek fluently, the Bible you’re reading is not the original text. It’s a translation. And every translation is an interpretation.
Let’s look at a few examples:
The Hebrew word “Sheol”—which originally referred to the grave or the realm of the dead—was later translated as “Hell” in English, despite being a completely different concept. Actually none of the words translated as “Hell” actually mean hell.
The Greek word “metanoia”, which means a radical change of mind, got translated as “repent”, which now carries connotations of groveling before an angry God. Not to mention the Hebrew and Jewish practice of Teshuvah, which is also translated as repentance.
The word “Satan” wasn’t originally a proper name. It simply meant “the accuser”—it wasn’t necessarily an individual being, let alone the horned, pitchfork-wielding villain we imagine today.
See the problem? Entire theologies, doctrines, and worldviews have been built on mistranslations, misunderstandings, and cultural biases. And yet, people will say, “The Bible is clear.”
Which Bible? In which language? Interpreted by whom?
What If We’ve Been Reading It Wrong This Whole Time?
Let’s go back to Yeshua of Nazareth (because yes, Jesus’ real name wasn’t “Jesus”—that’s a Greek translation of a Hebrew name).
Yeshua didn’t walk around quoting the King James Version. He wasn’t interested in religious legalism. He wasn’t building an institution, creating a doctrine, or drafting a systematic theology.
In fact, he spent most of his time challenging the religious elites who were obsessed with law and control.
He broke Sabbath laws to heal people.
He told stories that made the religious establishment look like villains.
He hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and social outcasts.
He flipped tables when he saw religious leaders exploiting the poor.
And yet, somehow, modern Christianity has often taken the very system of control, hierarchy, and legalism that Jesus opposed—and made it the foundation of the faith.
A Contemplative Exercise: Read Differently
Take a deep breath.
Now, let’s do something radical: Read the Bible differently.
Instead of reading it like a rulebook or a science textbook, read it like a conversation.
Instead of asking, “What does this command me to believe?” try asking, “What questions does this raise?”
Instead of assuming certainty, sit with the mystery of it.
And most of all, instead of seeing the Bible as the end of the conversation, start seeing it as an invitation—to wrestle, to wonder, and to open yourself up to a deeper, more transformative truth.
Because maybe—just maybe—the Word of God was never meant to be just a book at all.
Maybe it’s something bigger. Something alive. Something that can’t be contained in pages or doctrines or institutions.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” – Luke 6:46 (ESV)
It’s kind of funny when you think about it—Jesus, the guy Christianity is named after, wasn’t actually a Christian. He didn’t plant a megachurch, didn’t lead worship with a Hillsong setlist, never had a journaling Bible, and definitely never said, “Accept me into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior.”
That’s because Jesus wasn’t trying to start a new religion. He was a Jewish mystic, a radical rabbi, and a walking, talking critique of religious and political corruption. And if you sat him down today in front of a modern evangelical sermon, I’d bet my last cup of coffee he’d flip some tables before Good Good Father was even over.
So, how did we get from Yeshua of Nazareth (technically, Yeshu Ha-Notzri), an Aramaic-speaking Jewish teacher, to the version of Jesus we see today—whitewashed, weaponized, and often used as a mascot for things he probably would’ve preached against?
Yeshua, the Jewish Mystic
First things first: Jesus’ actual name wasn’t “Jesus.” It was Yeshua (ישוע). That’s what his mother Miriam (not Mary) called him. “Jesus” is the result of a long game of linguistic telephone—Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek to Latin to Spanish to English. People in his time would have referred to him as Yeshua Ben Yosef by commoners or Yeshua Hamashiach by followers, and his students called him Rabbi which means “teacher”.
Yeshua wasn’t born into Christianity. He was born into Second Temple Judaism, a time when Jewish people were under Roman occupation and longing for liberation. He wasn’t out here trying to found a new faith; he was calling his people back to the true heart of their own.
And what did that look like? Not legalism. Not power-hungry priests. Not cozying up to empire. It looked like:
Healing the sick for free (something that would absolutely get him labeled a socialist today).
Eating with sinners, tax collectors, and sex workers (which made religious leaders uncomfortable).
Telling the rich to sell their possessions and give to the poor (which still makes religious leaders uncomfortable).
Challenging the religious elite and their oppressive interpretations of the Law.
Yeshua wasn’t a nice, soft-spoken pastor handing out inspirational quotes. He wasn’t Buddy Jesus from that Matt Damon movie or the Footprints poem guy. He was a disruptor—a deeply Jewish teacher who understood the Torah and Prophets better than the scholars and religious leaders of his time and had no problem telling them so. He wasn’t concerned about anyone becoming a Christian or worshipping him. No, Jesus was introducing us to the Way. The way that he lived and communed with the divine was not only his message, but his call to action for all of his students and followers.
When Jesus Became Christ™
So, if Jesus never set out to create Christianity, where did it come from? Enter Paul of Tarsus.
Now, I know this might ruffle some feathers, but if you look at the New Testament with fresh eyes, you’ll notice something weird: Paul talks about Jesus more than Jesus talks about Jesus.
Paul (formerly Saul) was a Pharisee, who was killing followers of the Way.
I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison (Acts 22:4 NIV)
On his way to Damascus, (with followers of the Way in captivity, might I add) had a dramatic conversion experience and started spreading his understanding of the message of Christ to the Gentiles. This was a huge and controversial shift—Jesus’ ministry was primarily to the Jewish people, but Paul helped shape what would eventually become Christianity as we know it today. Even though he never actually met the man named Yeshua.
Paul’s letters—written before the Gospels—start reinterpreting Jesus’ message in ways that make it more universal. But as Christianity spread, things got… complicated. Over time:
The Jewish roots of Jesus’ teachings were downplayed or erased.
The Roman Empire co-opted Christianity, turning it into a tool of power (Looking at you, Constantine).
Jesus went from a radical, brown-skinned Middle Eastern rabbi to the brown-haired, blue-eyed poster child of Western religion and fifth member of Tame Impala.
And before long, Christianity wasn’t just different from Mystical Judaism—it was weaponized against it. The very faith Jesus practiced became an afterthought, and instead of focusing on his message and way of life, people got obsessed with doctrines about his blood and death. If you go to a church today, pay attention to how often they preach from one of Paul’s letters compared to what Christ taught. It’s kind of astonishing once you realize it.
So, What Does This Mean for Us?
If Jesus wasn’t a Christian, maybe the real question isn’t “Are we Christians?” but “Are we actually following Jesus?”
Because following Jesus doesn’t look like building empires, controlling people, or gatekeeping salvation. It looks like:
Prioritizing love over dogma or what’s accepted in christian culture.
Praying and Meditating, Fasting, Eating Well, and caring for Creation.
Calling out religious hypocrisy.
Communing with Nature, aligning himself with the Source.
Serving the marginalized, the unhoused, the incarcerated, the political ‘enemy’, the poor, and the broken amongst us.
Living in a way that reflects divine abundance rather than fear and scarcity.
Yeshua’s teachings weren’t about creating a belief system—they were about awakening people to the reality of God’s presence in everything, everyone, and everywhere. That’s a message that transcends religion entirely. And if you’re someone who’s uncomfortable with a word or title like “God”, go ahead and swap that out for a word like Universe, Source, Love, or use my favorite: the Divine. Don’t let the wording hold you back from this. My definition of “God” looks very very different from what you’re used to, I promise. I’ll be talking to Alex O’Connor or some other atheist/skeptic podcaster about it at some point, I’m sure.
Yeshua came to fulfill the law. The law that he knew and loved. The law that he lived. And not the law as its written, but the Spirit of the law. That is why when asked by a Lawyer who was a Pharisee which commandment was the greatest, Yeshua sums it up with Love God and Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.
So, whether you’re Christian, Deconstructing, Atheist, Spiritual-but-not-Religious, or just here for the existential crisis, one thing is clear:
Maybe it’s time to stop asking, “Am I a Christian?” or “Why did Jesus die?” and start asking, “Am I living like Jesus?” or “How did Jesus live?”
