The Heretical Poet

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was, and always will be, aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, Marla. Thanks for joining me.

01:42 - Marla (Guest)

Thank you, sam, I'm so happy to be here.

01:47 - Sam (Host)

podcasts this year, which in: 2025

01:59 - Marla (Guest)

before we get into your story, I turned 50 on Halloween this year and I was trying I mean, to be completely honest. I would like people to buy my books and I sit over there on Instagram yeah, I've been about my books and everybody's like yeah, we already bought them. I'm like, oh, so I need to go talk to new people.

02:22

e United States of America in: 2025

03:14

And honestly, too, the goal might be a little small because, as we're recording this and I don't know when it will release, but it is January 10th and this is my third interview and I have three more in January, that's six. Six times 12 is 72. So we'll see.

03:33 - Sam (Host)

Yeah so.

03:35 - Marla (Guest)

d and I told you that back in: 2008

04:03 - Sam (Host)

So thank you for saying yes. I remember when you emailed and I got it over the Christmas, new Year break and I was like, oh my gosh, as if Marla needs to pitch to me to come on the podcast. Um, your books are fabulous. Your Instagram is fabulous, if people have not seen it. Um, the poetry is just like, equally incredibly and insightful as it is funny as all heck. So we love that combination. Um, but okay, so you already mentioned that you are in the US.

04:36 - Marla (Guest)

Um, commiserations oh, from here in.

04:40 - Sam (Host)

Australia. Um, but where in the world, or where in the US rather, are you at the moment?

04:49 - Marla (Guest)

time, I believe, was January: 2022

05:48

ved to Cambodia in January of: 2015

06:18 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I mean, I'm sitting here in Australia in January and it's stinking hot, so I'm just like ice would be, like I mean ice, not generally ice, but like oh, and that just sounds like delightful, but, um, okay. So I like to start these episodes with a super broad, vague question, just to see where people start it, um, which is, where does your story start?

06:56 - Marla (Guest)

en morning when I was born in: 1975

07:53 - Sam (Host)

That's um so, yeah, I love, I love that you were born on Halloween. It can't, and I. I just think it's the most ironic like beautiful thing that like you, were just like born to be a heretic. I just love that.

08:06 - Marla (Guest)

It's the most ironic, like beautiful thing that, like you, were just like born to be a heretic. I just love that.

08:08 - Sam (Host)

It's just I know Okay, what flavor of.

08:15 - Marla (Guest)

Christianity were you raised in. I I now call it white conservative evangelical Christianity.

08:23 - Sam (Host)

Great.

08:23 - Marla (Guest)

Love that flavor. Yes, it's delicious. At the time I called it Christianity because I just thought that was what it was. It was the correct way. I mean everything we did. There were plenty of people who called themselves Christians, but we were the right ones. I can't like the arrogance of that to is just mind blowing now. At the time it wasn't arrogance, right, it was just. This is how it is like, it's just facts, yeah. So, yeah, that's I would have. I would need all of those labels. As far as a denomination, I've been to Baptist churches, non-denominational churches, grace, brethren, and if you don't know what any of those are, don't worry about it. It's all pretty much the same.

09:13

Very conservative and I was good. I was a good kid and a good teenager for the most part. It's funny because, ironically, I believed it all. So I wanted desperately to be good. But there's always been something in me that pushed back on things like questioned my Sunday school teachers or got me in trouble at school or church or whatever.

09:40

And it's funny because I was homeschooled for a little while, then went to a public school in fifth grade and at church I was just a completely different person than I was when I started public school after three years of being homeschooled. I was very quiet and shy. We had this bus ministry and so he got picked up on the bus. My dad drove a bus and he comes and sits in this fifth grade Sunday school classroom and his jaw just dropped because I am. He does not recognize this person. He goes back to school on Monday and he's telling everyone you would not believe Marla, she talks, she's loud, she's this, she's that. I just felt so comfortable in church because I had been there for so long and I I knew so much and all of that.

10:35 - Sam (Host)

Oh my goodness, now I know from reading Unbelieve that you gave your life to Jesus, in inverted commas, at the ripe old, very cognitively developed age of three years old, right yes, and as a therapist, I have a lot of opinions on.

10:57 - Marla (Guest)

As a not therapist, I have a lot of yes. I even wrote the poem that you're talking about. I wrote that I would tell people that I was four, because who's going to believe me that I was three? And now, looking back, I'm like who's going to believe you at four that I was four? Now, in my defense, I was reading by four years old, so I was ahead of the game. But come on, let's. I mean come on, yeah.

11:28 - Sam (Host)

How do you think about that now, as like an adult looking back?

11:34 - Marla (Guest)

It is infuriating to me, it really is. It's sad, it's heartbreaking. I don't remember being terrified of hell, but I've met so many people on this deconstruction journey that said they lived their entire childhoods like terrified of hell. My own sister I'm not sure if she was scared of hell, but she was scared of a lot of things, so she was always praying like trying to get saved again, just sure, I had my, the woman who stood up as a maid of honor in my wedding. We were really good friends. We went to Japan together to do our student teaching and she also, I think even in college, was still praying like to get saved, just to make sure, just to make sure, just to make sure. And so, yeah, I don't have a lot of trauma that I can remember around that I was pretty confident that I was saved. But I just can't.

12:34

I cannot fathom little kids. I mean even now. I have three daughters. My oldest is 24. And we're always talking about how her brain is still not fully developed Like she's. She's very mature, she's grown up. We're like one more year You'll have a full brain and then you can decide if you want to be a Christian or not. All of my children accepted Jesus in their hearts and all of them have decided they don't want him in there anymore. So they've uninvited him or however that works. But it's just, it's a mess and it's sad and we can laugh about it, but it's sad. It's sad and I did. Ironically, one of my sisters disowned me. I didn't used to say this out loud on podcasts, I would just say a relative, and now I'm like, yeah, who cares?

13:27 - Sam (Host)

what do you think gave you that confidence as a young person and as a child that you were, you know? Quote-unquote saved.

13:36 - Marla (Guest)

I do not know, I don't, I don't know. I mean, was it because I was smart and I was usually right about things? And so, since I was, since I knew this for a fact, I'm not, I'm not sure, um, but yeah, I I don't. There were times I remember. I'm trying to work back. I wish I had like diaries and stuff that I wrote back then, because I'm trying to figure out what did I question things?

14:05

I do remember when I was eight years old that my Sunday school teacher either called me a problem or called me something because I would mouth off to him Like he would say something. I'm like, eh no, I don't think so, but I'm not sure if I was questioning the Bible or if he was just getting Bible facts wrong. And I knew all the Bible facts. I was like you might want to read that story again, because that's not what happened, cause I had read. I don't remember the first time I read all the way through the Bible, but I was probably nine or 10. So before I could even understand a fraction of what was in there, I was just reading it, because that's that's what you do, and there's so much in the bible that is completely, wildly inappropriate for a nine-year-old or a 10-year-old or 14-year-old portion of it, to be fair oh, yeah, yeah okay, and so what was it like?

15:08 - Sam (Host)

I mean how, in terms of, like, growing up in a space that is ultra conservative, what did that look like in at home, in the household that you were raised in?

15:20 - Marla (Guest)

that's another thing that I have been looking back on and been trying to figure out, because I wouldn't describe what I was in as a cult, but that's a very loose. There's loose definitions of cults. I mean, we followed all these rules and did all these things. So it could have, could have been, but I didn't have to dress a certain way, so I was not wearing anything on my head or wearing a skirt or anything like that, and I have poems in my books about my parents that they had a lot of toxic beliefs, but as far as me being a girl, and what could I do as a girl? I could do anything. So I was playing sports, I was mowing the grass, I was climbing in the hay bales and helping my grandpa on his farm, I was getting dirty, climbing trees. I never was told that I couldn't do certain things, and I talked to my parents about this.

16:19

I want to say in: 2018

17:03

So I, I was. I had this modeled to me.

17:07

It was not really a complimentary marriage. And then I married someone who, unfortunately, wasn't as great as my dad, so he did believe in this stuff and he thought things should be and that's a whole thing. We can get into that If you want. Want. It wasn't all hellish, but there were times when he was like, yeah, you can't, you shouldn't be doing that, this is like a man's thing or you're a woman and um, but yeah, I forget the question. Oh, you said what was it like? Okay, so back to that really quick, okay.

17:40 - Sam (Host)

I forget the question most of the time once it comes out now that's.

17:42 - Marla (Guest)

I say that about six times every podcast. What was the question? Most of the time once it comes out. I say that about six times every podcast. What was the question? No, so we did. We went to church. We went to Sunday school every Sunday morning, then church and then church on Sunday night, and then prayer meeting and youth group on Wednesday night every single week for my whole entire life.

18:02

And and we had I mean, most of our friends were from church my parents did not drink or smoke or cuss. We, yeah, we, we fought. We listened to Christian radio at home. I had to hide my cassette tapes. I don't know how familiar you are with groups in the U? S, but I had Aerosmith MC hammer, sinead O'Connor, um, that I would listen to on my Walkman and my parents didn't know, um, but yeah, and I didn't really rebel. That much I've I've never smoked, didn't have sex till my wedding night, didn't drink alcohol till I was 34. So I, um, I didn't mind the rules because they didn't. There wasn't really anything I wanted to do that I yeah, I mean.

18:57 - Sam (Host)

I guess my question to that would be did you not do those things, or only do those things at those points and those ages because that's what felt right, or that's just what the conditioning gave you as you were a young person?

19:13 - Marla (Guest)

I had no desire to drink, like. I remember that and I remember going to a party and people were drinking and I think I was in eighth grade and it was snowing. There was like a foot of snow and this one of these kids in my class went out and just puked in the snow and then fell face first in the snow. I'm like, yeah, this doesn't really seem that fun to me Now. Sex, on the other hand, that might've been fun. I had a boyfriend in high school and we didn't. We did not have sex, and then other guys that I dated and then eventually met my husband, and so I think that might've been the one that I would have been into. If I didn't think that it was the wrong cussing, I would experiment with it because it sounded kind of fun, but again, didn't, wasn't really a big deal. And I'm really having trouble thinking of sins right now. What are the other sins?

20:12 - Sam (Host)

well, I mean, I know that you got divorced, so we're hitting that one pretty hard yes, but my husband cheated on me while we were missionaries so I think I get a pass. So you get absolved for that.

20:22 - Marla (Guest)

Yes, yes, Because I didn't.

20:24 - Sam (Host)

I didn't leave him, so the good old divorce, I mean, and also like the good old, there's no hierarchy of sin, but there's actually like there's absolutely a hierarchy of sin. So like we love that, okay, let me speaking of that really quickly.

20:41 - Marla (Guest)

So I'm writing right now about my 80s childhood. I'm going back and trying to figure this stuff out in my 50th year and my mom gave me a book it's a Christian book when I was 10, I remember specifically that I was 10 because the book is called Almost 12, the Story of Sex, and I was like I'm not almost 12. I'm 10. But she still gave me this book. I bought it off of it off the internet a couple of weeks ago and it came. It is horrific and it's talking about don't pet each other and you're going to want to this and that, and. And it says something to the effect of there's not a hierarchy of sins, but if there were, this would be the worst. Having sex, if there were, this would be the worst. Having sex before you're married would be the worst out of all the sins, like, I don't know, murder.

21:32 - Sam (Host)

I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure queerness will top that every day of the week to be fair absolutely. I really hate that.

21:40 - Marla (Guest)

Queerness premarital heterosexual sex murder. Yeah, yeah, oh my gosh.

21:47 - Sam (Host)

Oh, yes, like that to me is just like a crazy concept. But anyway, I'm curious, as, like a teenager, when you know it's the time where you're working out like who you are in the world, who you want to be in the world, how did you relate to the god that you knew at the time?

22:10 - Marla (Guest)

I spent a lot of time in prayer. Um, I remember one of my biggest prayers was dear god, please let me marry my boyfriend. Because I was just afraid, like what if we went to college? And then we broke up and I just really want to marry my boyfriend? So I prayed that a lot. I did not marry my boyfriend but I I had a core group of friends.

22:38

So my high school is very small 71 kids in my graduating class and there were six of us that kind of hung around together and I was dating Jeremy. My friend Rebecca was dating Michael, then there was Tammy, who didn't have a boyfriend, and then Sylvia was an exchange student from Italy on our basketball team and we were all Christians except for Sylvia. So we made sure that we witnessed to Sylvia so that she could become a Christian like us. So we're all Christians. And so I was at a public high school, but it was a very small town, it was very conservative. A lot of my teachers were Christians, or at least went to church. So it wasn't that. Um, it was pretty normal to to talk about God, to believe in God. Um, I I felt very like it was very strong burden to witness to my classmates any of them who maybe weren't saved. And I did worry about my boyfriend sometimes because he didn't seem as like dedicated and committed and he went into a Methodist church and I wasn't quite sure if they were Christian or not. So I would pray extra for him. But yeah, I mean, god was real to me and I was in control of everything that I was going to do and I knew that I wanted to go to a Christian college. Like I got a full ride scholarship offer to a state school and, of course, turn that down because that would not be honoring to God, would not be honoring to God. I wish I would have free college, but no, I went to a Christian university at a Bible minor, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.

24:35

I love to read and write. That's what I love to do, but that's not something you can do for a job. I didn't think so. I knew I didn't want to be a teacher and I went to talk to the guidance counselor. She told me about some nursing scholarships that I could apply for. I'm like sure. So I did that.

24:52

I got $6,000 and was a nursing major, went through some gen ed classes at my Christian school. The first class I took that had anything to do with nursing. Intro to nursing there was blood in a video. I about puked and I was like, oh, is there going to be blood? I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to need to change my major and I was already two quarters in. We were on the quarter system then, so I changed to elementary education. I tested out of some stuff I finished in three years. Did my student teaching in Japan? Taught school for less than three years, had some babies? I haven't. I haven't had a quote-unquote real job ever since. Now I write and edit you know the thing that I should have done all along.

25:41 - Sam (Host)

But I didn't know that you could do that yeah but yeah, god was there the whole time.

25:48 - Marla (Guest)

I went to a um a church camp during the summers. I was a counselor there to help other kids get saved. I have poems in there about kids that I led to the Lord.

26:00 - Sam (Host)

Led to the Lord um, that's where I met that phrase for so long. I love these episodes because I hear phrases that I that used to just be like second, like just second nature for me, and then I hear them and I go oh, she haven't said that for like years so I never want to say it again.

26:20 - Marla (Guest)

Um, but yes, I, there's one woman in particular. She was was 12 in my cabin. I led her to the Lord and she's now I'm 49. She's got to be 40, I would say now.

26:34

And so I wrote a poem in one of my books about her where she said and this made me feel really good, because she said, even with leading me to the Lord and even this, and even that this whole entire time that I've known you in like 25 years or whatever she said it's always been about love with you and that I was not perfect, obviously, and I caused a lot of harm, I am sure unintentionally and maybe kind of intentionally sometimes, but deep down inside, I love people. I wanted them not to burn in hell, I wanted them to go to heaven, I wanted them to be on the right side of everything. So my heart was in the right place. But, yeah, looking back back, I don't. I don't even there's a lot like I. I don't wallow in guilt over that, um, but I'm I'm very honest and very um open about this.

27:39

Is what I used to believe. I didn't know this. I thought this, I thought you couldn't be gay and and go to heaven, and so that what drives me to talk about it so much now is not a guilt thing, it's just I want to make things right, I want to make things better, and I don't want other people to be perpetuating harm. Obviously Seems like we're fighting an uphill battle. Sometimes, though I don't know, it's hard for me to gauge how things are going. But yeah, I definitely. I think that's what I'm trying to do.

28:17 - Sam (Host)

Believe some shit um, I think, though, that part of uh like for, on a personal level, deconstructing and processing religious trauma, is looking at the part that you used to play in that system as well, and I know, like, even for myself as a queer woman, like the harm that I perpetuated onto other queer people as a young person just because of my own internalized, you know, queer phobia and my own sort of like rigid belief system Just mean like it just meant that I perpetuated a really harmful system as well, that I perpetuated a really harmful system as well, and so I think, for a lot of people, that is just one of the hardest parts to have to process and unpack and look at, because it puts you in the system that you've now left and that's really bloody hard for a lot of people to look at.

29:19 - Marla (Guest)

It is, but it's so freeing and it's so worth it and it also, like I look at it now, as I have all of these receipts like and these books that I wish were not in the world, where I'm writing to Christian wives to tell them.

29:32 - Sam (Host)

I didn't see the list.

29:34 - Marla (Guest)

Yeah, I was like I, you can't come to me now and say, like people still do this. People who don't know my background will say you are not, you're in a bubble, you're not listening to Christians. If you would just go read this or do that, I'm like honey. I not only read every single book you've ever read. I've read 500 more than you've read and I have written four, written four books from a conservative, evangelical Christian perspective.

30:08

I have read the Bible many, many, many, many, many times. I know it inside and out. So all of that, and I have changed my mind and I have changed my heart and I have repented and turned away and asked for forgiveness and I am now on the side of the people that I was harming and finding ways to celebrate them and all that. So, and I think it gives hope to people, all kinds of people, like people who are in it right now, that, oh, she got out, she's fine, she can do this, or people that I have harmed and they're like, oh, so maybe every white Christian isn't perpetually terrible, maybe some of them can be different. And so I don't. I'm not sad or mad anymore about my past and I'm using it, redeeming it and it's it's been fun and it gives me stuff to write about yes, it does, um.

31:17 - Sam (Host)

I'm curious if that um I mean obviously in particular in America, because, like obviously you know, you described it as a conservative, evangelical style of Christianity. Did that evangelicalism weigh as a heavy burden on you, or did it just come naturally?

31:47 - Marla (Guest)

um, both, it was. It was in me, it was deep in me and that's just all that I knew. But there were times when if people wanted to come and fight with me and have some arguments about things, I would have anxiety, like I need to get this right. I need to make sure that they don't there's no chink in my armor. I need to make sure that I have an answer for everything and anything that someone could throw at me and I I actually did. And the times that I didn't, I could work around it. I was pretty persuasive. I, like I said, I'm pretty smart, so I could use that to wear other people down, and it probably some of them. I didn't win the argument. They probably gave up because, not because I was smart, but because they could see I was not moving, like nothing was getting through to me, and that's how I feel.

32:36

Now there are some people Trump voters in particular you cannot get through. There's not a way to get through. So I don't bother anymore, like I just that's not where I waste my time and energy and I have more than enough people coming to me with genuine questions, really wanting to understand, wanting to know, like I have people from my conservative town that I grew up in um, that I didn't really even know them very well, asking me like my my daughter just came out as bisexual. Is it possible for me to love her and love God or still be in the church? And I can. So somehow they're seeing me.

33:20

So, whereas other people are like no more, no more Marla, there are some people who look to me as, oh she, I could be safe talking to her about this because I know she understands my background, but I see that she has changed her mind and her heart art. So that's the kind of stuff I'm here for. Like that's. Those are the people that I'm here for, and I used to waste a lot of time arguing with people and I haven't argued in a long time and I think those people are all gone because I'll post things and no one fights with me. Every once in a while I'm like, wait, nobody fights with me anymore. Where did they go?

34:01 - Sam (Host)

what is it like for you to receive those messages? I'm like wait, nobody fights with me anymore. Where did they go? What is?

34:07 - Marla (Guest)

it like for you to receive those messages. It it just feels really, really good, like it feels really good. I've had so I've had so many people come out to me, like in a message or something like it's brought me to tears before because I could have been the best person ever, however many years ago. No way in hell is anybody coming out to me like that. There's not a chance of that because they're not going to risk what I would say or do or try to save them or whatever. So it's, it's an honor and it feels like it's just so freeing to be able to love people, not only like in spite of who they are, but because of who they are, like the way it there's just and queerness as a whole big thing just opens up a whole new world literally, and I've talked to people before that sex I wrote a book about sex like to married women, christian women, blah, blah, blah.

35:18

I would go around, speak on sex for all of that, and maybe it's perimenopause or maybe it's I'm divorced or whatever. It's just not at the top of my mind right now. I'm like sex. So when people will tell me that you deconstructed because you want to have sex or you're just doing stuff with the queer community and they're all about sex. Or you're just just doing stuff with the queer community and they're all about sex and I'm like sex is not, I don't even care about that.

35:50

If people do care about that, then I'm saying go do whatever you want to do and be free. But I don't like that's laughable to me that you think I'm deconstructing for some sex reason. Yeah, and it's like I still still to this day, 49 years old, I've never had sex with someone I wasn't currently married to. So it's, it's not. But yeah, the freedom of being able to love everybody and to want them to be whole, like my sister told me, sometimes love feels like hate, marla, and it doesn't like love doesn't feel like hate. Love feels like I want you to be whole, I want you to be who you are, who you want to be, who you've been afraid to be. That's what love is. The only time love feels like hate is if your two-year-old's waving a knife around and you take it away and she cries like that, like okay, fine.

36:46

But, no love should feel like hate to someone, and that's what it feels like to anyone who's queer. If you are conservative, because you're not allowed to believe that they are headed to heaven, they're definitely headed to hell. So you know, um, but yeah, it's been, it's been so great, like I feel sad. I feel sad for everybody who's not where I am and I. I don't mean that in a way like come over here to this exact spot that I am Cause. Now, I'm right, it's not even about that. It's about me being whole and you being whole and me being free and you being free and you don't have to be like I am. Like you can be married to a woman. I can be divorced and not married to anybody. Like, whatever, you can love sex and I can not care about it. Maybe I'll care about it in a year, I don't know. It's like just be, be who you are, who you want to be, your whole self, and um, it's just it's so great.

38:00

It's so great. I love being being a heretic. I feel like everyone should try it.

38:04 - Sam (Host)

It's pretty fun um and I mean also for anyone listening for the record um, there's a lot of things that queer people care about, and sex is not always at the top of that list, speaking exactly, so, um, we care about a lot more than that. For any conservatives listening though, I suspect they're not.

38:26 - Marla (Guest)

I'm going to invite some of them.

38:30 - Sam (Host)

Now I know that you did the very traditional, good Christian girl thing, which was you got married and you had babies. And so if you look back on those decisions, do you think that, um, they were decisions that you made as you, or they were decisions you made because they knew that that were you knew that that was the trajectory that you were supposed to take?

38:55 - Marla (Guest)

okay, that is another great question. Um, I, okay. So I have this book, where's it at, called Poem, art Therapy, cathartic wordcrafting after infidelity and divorce. I don't know where my poems are, so I'll just paraphrase this one. But I talk about how if I had believed it was okay to have sex before I got married, then my husband and I would probably never have gotten married, because that's what I want. I was like we have to get married because of the sex that we can't have. I think I would have gotten that out of my system. And then I've been like, oh, you and I don't actually have anything in common. You and I don't actually have anything in common, like I am lusting after your body, but that's about it, and now I don't care. So and did it for the sex. And then the babies.

40:05

I always wanted to be a mom. I played with my baby dolls all the time. I would like I I my book that I wrote to moms when I was an evangelical Christian. I have a story in there. I'd have this little sun dress kind of thing. I'd untie it like, hold my baby doll up to my boob, like I wanted. I wanted to be a mom. So I, um, I didn't love every part of being a mom. Sometimes it was hard and I I felt like I wanted more time for myself.

40:41

My husband was not super helpful. The thing that I always say to people when I look back and say, oh, I shouldn't have married him or this or that, my getting my three girls out of the deal. Like these people that I love more than anything in the world and they are amazing humans. They're 24, 22 and 19. I wouldn't have them if I did not marry him, so that right there, I would have gone through anything to to make sure that they were a part of my life.

41:16

And and I don't know the whole Romans 828, everything happens for a reason, or works together for good, or whatever I. I obviously don't know the whole Romans 828, everything happens for a reason, or works together for good, or whatever I. I obviously don't believe that, but I do believe that there's a lot of redemptive stuff in all the shit that we go through. I have a caveat, which is one of my friends. Their baby died when she was just a little over one years old and I kidnapped like that. One don't ever tell me that God's going to bring something good out of a child's death or or even like someone being raped or any kind of thing that, no, I I'm not. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about something could have been really hard and something good was in there and that's definitely my kids for me, but I did a lot of, I will say, things around my house that I thought were expected of me, and then volunteering at church in different capacities that were not my gifting and were not interesting to me.

42:26

So, my, I have not cooked food. Well, okay, so I do make my own, like eggs and bacon, but I don't cook meals Like tonight. I will tell you what I had right before we started talking. I had salmon, green beans, asparagus, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy as a whole entire meal. My, my children made it. I did not make it like you trained them well.

42:55

Well, yeah, they love to cook. I do not cook. If they're not making something that I can eat, then I get something like some crackers and some cheese or whatever. I do not like to cook. I hate to clean. I have always hated it. I do not like working in the church, nursery, I do not like singing in the choir like all of these things that I did.

43:17

books everywhere she died in: 2012

44:00

So, yes, there was a lot that I did in my marriage that I thought was expected of me, whereas, like I said about my dad, he did those things. Like he likes to cook more than my mom. So he cooks like he does this, he does that, and that's not how it was in my mom. So he cooks like he does this, he does that and that's not how it was in my marriage. Like I, I worked from home for a lot of the time. I took care of, I changed every diaper, took care of every child, did every cleaning, every cooking. All of that yeah, it was not a great deal for me.

44:41

So now my, my, my young adult kids live with me when I earn the money and pay the mortgage and they do everything else like I am spoiled, rotten and I don't know how long they're going to be here. I hope it's forever, but they probably want to go do some other stuff.

44:59 - Sam (Host)

Just keep reaping the rewards while you can.

45:03 - Marla (Guest)

I know, but it's like it should be harder when your husband leaves unexpectedly and you're a single mom. And it would be if they were little, probably, but they're big, so my life has become easier.

45:19 - Sam (Host)

I'm also pretty lucky in that I hate cooking and my wife loves cooking, and so I always joke with people when, whether I'm like personally or professionally, um that you, you choose to marry someone. You don't choose to marry someone who is good looking because looks fade. Choose to marry someone who cooks well because hunger does not fade, right, so like exactly really what we want brilliant to be like fed for the rest of our lives um, yeah I'm curious whether um were you, did you still identify as a christian when you got divorced and when you found out that your husband was cheating on you?

46:01 - Marla (Guest)

it's been so this. He left in: 2020

47:12

myself a Christian and so, yeah, it's not. It's not a label that I that I use anymore, but it's funny because I have other poems that talk about how my friends who are Christians for a while. There they would say things I had three or four friends tell me some version of please don't be mad at me or please don't take this the wrong way, but I really see God in you. No, it's fine, that's cool, but my one of my kids told me isn't it funny that all these people are seeing God?

47:52

in you like after you quit, god like you quit, show you that if there is a God, then it's this good version of God, that that is in me, not the one that makes all the unfair rules and and wants rapist felons to be president of the United States and so on and so forth.

48:21

So I, I mean I'm friends with pastors, christians, and and I always am careful, like especially in my book Jaded, which is the second book in a trilogy it's it's called A Poetic Reckoning with White Evangelical Christian Indoctrination, white evangelical Christian indoctrination, all those important words, and I make sure that I tell people that's the only flavor of Christianity that I am fighting against. To be honest, because you can be, I always say I don't actually care what you believe if your beliefs aren't harming people, and I mean I mean I do care a little bit what people believe, but that's the bottom line for me. So if you're a pastor of a church, um, what do you believe, like? Do you believe it's a sin to be gay? Do you believe, um, that women are less than men, whatever it is? Um, those beliefs harm groups of people, big groups of people who are made in God's image. If you believe in God, and.

49:26

the United States in January: 2015

50:07

I stopped going to church in: 2017

50:50 - Sam (Host)

Uh, white evangelical christianity, because I know that, um, the systemic racism in the us was part of what was a bit of a turning point for you.

51:01 - Marla (Guest)

ever believed yeah, so around: 2009

52:56

Oh, jim Crow laws, their segregation's, segregation, slavery, the prison like school to prison pipeline, all of like it's. I mean, even now there are fires raging in Los Angeles and and the they let people out of prison to go likely not. And then they're what they're working. They're laboring for completely unfair wages. So it's just, it's modern day slavery.

53:42

le. And and so from there, in: 2017

54:46

Yeah no black authors, no indigenous authors, no Latinx authors or Asian authors. So I, at that point, made a conscious effort Asian authors so I at that point made a conscious effort. So now I mean 90% probably of what I read are by authors that are not white, because it's I'm catching up, like I have to catch up on all the goodness that I missed out on for all of those years, and there's so much still to read and to learn, and so that space has been really really good, like it's not just we can't just learn, we have to to act. We have to, but it does. It changes you, it changes your mind, it changes your heart. You just see things differently. And that all kind of kind of came together at the same time that I was deconstructing and then the the last two pieces to fall into place.

55:44

For me, it wasn't until: 2017

56:43

And then the final piece was the whole pro-life, pro-choice, where I had always been just so worried about the babies and then realizing how much harm was done, how many people supposedly cared about unborn children, but the minute they were born, nobody cared about them, and this control that people wanted over women's bodies, like all in it, all just, and that was. That was it. There was nothing left for me to to be worried about in the Bible. But, yeah, so the anti-racism journey has been an absolute gift, and that's what I try to tell people, that's what I tried to communicate on my Instagram account, is that, yes, there's a lot of hard, hard stuff to learn and yes, we do need to repent and make reparations and all of that, but there's a lot of hard, hard stuff to learn and, yes, we do need to repent and make reparations and all of that, but there's so much joy and celebration and it's a whole new world opening up. That's just like with a queer community. It's a whole, it's an. It's a whole new world and it's such a gift, just like it's a gift to me to have someone queer come out to me and I've I've been the first person that several people have told which I cannot, like I would pay a thousand dollars. I don't have very much money, but I like I would pay that kind of money. That's like something you should pay for because it's so. It's such an honor, something you should pay for because it's so. It's such an honor. Um, and then to have black friends that include me in things that that normally I wouldn't, a white person, wouldn't get included in. They don't just like queer people don't owe me anything. My black friends don't owe me anything. None of these people owe me a single thing. So when I am given some kind of access or some kind of honor, like that it's just a huge deal. And, like you had talked about the beginning of the podcast, like we can say whatever we want, but we don't on this podcast. We don't do racism or homophobia or any of that.

58:54

There are times when I have unintentionally messed up. I'm pretty far on this journey, but I would say something, especially like with the disabled community, or a word or something that I've done and I don't. I don't realize that I've done it. Or something with a black friend and they didn't. I was centering myself, or whatever it is, and people have called me in like privately, told me oh, that hurts like hell, like I hate that.

59:23

However, I also realized that they get a bunch of shit all day long and they don't bother to tell it Like they don't if. If they're coming to me to say this, to me it means, marla, I believe in you, I think that your heart is right and I still want to be in relationship with you. This, just this one thing you did. Can you see how that's not cool? Yeah, um, so. So even that part is is actually really an honor and really great. Once I get through the sting of, of, of not wanting to mess up and it's not just not wanting to mess up. I don't want to hurt people Like I hate. I hate the idea that I caused someone discomfort or pain, even unintentionally, someone discomfort or pain, even unintentionally, and the more you, the more you work at it, the more you learn.

:: 00:20

Um I think of like people's pronouns the more you practice their pronouns and then you're not going to mess up because it's going to come naturally to you.

:: 00:28

Um, so yeah I'm curious, throughout all of that unraveling of I mean all of those uh like systems of you know shit in in society, basically, um, but I'm wondering what it was like for you to unravel all of that and unlearn and relearn new things and the impact that that had on your personal faith and your personal relationship with the God that you had spent years and years and years being in relationship with.

:: 01:07

That one is still really tricky for me, because I don't know for sure if I believe in God. Yeah, but what it feels like if I can try to describe it is it feels like the God that I did believe in is still there. I'm just ignoring him. And that is kind of funny, because if there's a God, then there's a God Like it's not this. There's a good God and a bad God. I mean, maybe there is, who knows?

:: 01:41

But I had a lot of Muslim friends who would talk about Allah and and at some point it clicked to me oh, there's not my God and Allah, and I think Allah is my god, like. So that whole idea of still kind of believing that there is that god, like that old testament god, or. And then I'm making these hand motions because I don't know where, I don't know how to describe that, um, or still, like I say I don't know how to describe that. Or still, like I say I don't believe in hell, but somehow in my mind there's like this mental image it's still down there. Yeah, I just don't believe in it, but it's still there. So how is it still there? I don't know. And then there are things in my life that I'm like.

:: 02:35

Another poem is about a God thing, like I got together with friends and we were all we used to be Christians, and things would happen and we're like, oh, this is a God thing, but we don't say that anymore. So what are we going to say? And we just decided we're going to say it's a God thing, like, and we're going to laugh, like we're going to say it, we're going to yell it, and then we're going to laugh because it still is amazing. Example the one that I. That's really at the top of my mind right now. One of my dearest friends, corinne, lives in Las Vegas and I she, she and her husband flew me out from South Carolina to Las Vegas in 2021. Like, after my divorce, I hung out with her. It was so healing, and then they did it again in 2023. Now we're going to do it again in 2025.

:: 03:21

So, there is a um, an author who I follow. His name is Tyler Merritt and he actually endorsed the back cover of my latest book, whole latest book whole and he's doing a book signing at my friend's son's high school in Las Vegas in January. Okay, so she tells me, would you like to come to Las Vegas to? I've never met Tyler in real life. Would you like to come to Las Vegas to meet Tyler? We'll fly you out. It's January 17th.

:: 03:55

I'm like oh my God, yes. Well then I'm like oh, corinne, I have jury duty on January 7th. Is that what if I have to still be? I don't know what to do. She talks to her husband and her husband says that's too close, I don't think we should risk it. I'm crying, I'm so upset, upset, okay.

:: 04:14

Well then Tyler makes this announcement a week later oh, I've changed the date of my book signing. It's not January 17th, it's January 28th or 29th or something. And I say oh my god, corinne, he changed the date. Is that far enough away? Can we do that? And she's like yes, buys the plane ticket. I have a ticket for January. Like if I would have bought that plane ticket for the first date, I wouldn't have been in Las Vegas for his book signing when he changed it and then I got excused from jury duty and I was like, not only, like all of this magical stuff, like god had to orchestrate that, right, well, I, who knows why that all happened. And here's the thing, here's the big, big, big thing. This is the kind of shit god gets all the credit for. Yeah, all of the horrible things that happen, that's not god's fault yeah fires in la not god's fault.

:: 05:18

Hurricanes in north carolina not god's fault. This person died in a car wreck not god's fault. This happened, this happened not god's fault. That that's my biggest, biggest pet peeve.

:: 05:31

You, god, you take all the blame and all the credit or none of the blame and none of the credit. So, for what I have been doing lately, I will take the blame. I will take the credit not for the hurricanes, but for the things that happen in my life that I, that I, have control over, yeah, so, yeah, I don't know what. I don't know what I believe about God. There are times when I feel desperate and I will pray, mama God, like if you're real, please help me. And I'm realizing all those times that I wrote. I have 62 journals that I wrote to God. I still have them, over a period of 20 years, and I'm realizing, oh, that that felt so good because I was writing down my thoughts and getting them out and just asking something for help. Yeah, I can still do that, like, I can still write that out. Do this, talk it through. It doesn't really matter if there's a god at the other end of it or not. Um, because when I think about all the shit that happened in my life while I was a christian, it's like, really, really, you, you miss those days when god took care of everything and worked everything together for your good, you know, like your husband cheating on you while you were a missionary or whatever, so, so I don't know.

:: 07:02

I don't know what I believe, and certain people can talk about God and I'm fine. Other people talk in certain ways that that just really makes me cringe, um, and so right now, I'm just really enjoying the whole God is not a part of my life, just like I'm really enjoying not being married, I'm really enjoying not having snow outside the shovel. It's a lot of things that I did for a long time and I'm good right now. I'm good, and I'm good right now. I'm good, yeah, to go to church, don't need to read my Bible, and so, yeah, god, if, if, if.

:: 07:43

I've also had people ask me what if? What if there really is a God? What if you really are going to hell? And I say to that you know what if? If that God exists and that God is going to send me to hell because I've chosen to love people while I'm here on earth, I'll do it, I will go willingly, I will walk down the steps to hell. That's the choice that I'll make. So fine, but I will not ever again sacrifice people here now, because I'm afraid of that hell, and that's what I feel like a lot of people do.

:: 08:19

Yeah, absolutely, and I think, and also, if hell does exist and that God does exist, hell's going to be full of all the queer people and it's going to be stylish as fuck down there.

:: 08:33

So much fun? Oh, yeah, so fun. Why would I? I okay, some of the people that are trying to get me to heaven. I'm like, wait, are you gonna be there, because I'm gonna pass like I'm sorry if donald trump is in heaven.

:: 08:47

I don't want to be there, I'm afraid he'll be in hell.

:: 08:51

So I think if we tell he's also going to be there, we'll put him somewhere else.

:: 08:54

Yeah, we'll just put him in the corner, it's fine. Um, I mean, that probably leads to like a nice little segue of like I love. Uh, one of the biggest things that I've loved is like reclaiming language that I used to think that the church or Christianity used to own. And we've just come out of Christmas and the language of joy and peace often feels churchy. It feels like Christianity owns that language, and so I love asking people what brings you joy and peace now oh, um my two cats first of all.

:: 09:36

I had so many cats when I was growing up and then I didn't have cats for the longest, longest, longest time. And we have two cats and every day I think to myself or I tell them I love you so much and you bring so much joy and peace to my life, my kids, like I said, they are amazing books.

:: 09:56

You can see the books behind me almost almost all of these are um BIPOC authors. I don't have any white authors on these shelves um the things that I collect, um friends that I've made online writing. I make poem art. You know what I've I've made online writing. I make poem art. You know what? I pulled out some poem art just for this. Can I read a poem?

:: 10:22

Yes please.

:: 10:25

Okay. So this is. I don't know if you know Rainbow Bright. She is a little bit younger than me. I think she just had her 40th birthday, but she was this. There's a tv show and then I have the. I bought the doll, I bought um. Do you know frog and toad and burton ernie um yes, I make this art. This is the gay lifestyle. I love that the creator of burton, ernie, is gay and so he doesn't explicitly say that they're gay, but they were roommates the whole entire time.

:: 10:56

Yeah, roommates, in inverted commas.

:: 10:59

Frog and Toad same deal, both male amphibians who were best friends. But he's like bringing him tea in bed, and so there's a lot of stuff in the States about that. Frog and Toad are gay. They are gay. Their creator also was gay, yeah, okay. So, rambo Bright, this is a love poem to my queer siblings. Frog and toad are gay, they are gay. Their their creator also was gay, yeah, okay. So, ramble bright, this is a um a love poem to my queer siblings.

:: 11:20

I see you over there being awesome and I celebrate you for all that you are. I celebrate every part of you. You've been told to hide, diminish, get rid of, pray away. You are not and have never been an abomination. You are and have always been a beautiful creation. You are so freaking generous, forgiving me for all the years I lived in harmful ignorance. I will fight for you to have every single right I have as a straight cis person in this country and I will fight to open people's eyes to the fact that we have been taught lies our whole lives. I love you and I love your queerness. So, so, so, very, very, very much, very much, much, much love marla and I take my poems and then I glue them on illustrations from kids books.

:: 12:01

So that has been a lot of fun um to do and gives me very much joy and very much peace and then I share it with people and it's just been a fun way to use my hands and get back to. I used to cut things up all the time when I was a kid and I'm not very artistic Like my kids can draw and paint and crochet and do all that. I can do any of that and I don't want to but words. I can cut words out and glue them. I love to laminate, yeah.

:: 12:34

It's about my level of creativity as well, to be fair.

:: 12:38

It's been so much fun again to see people like get excited about my little pieces of art. I've been to a pride festival two years in a row now and had my poem art sitting out and give it away for free. And people come with all their rainbow everything and they're looking through and they'll start laughing and they call their friends over, like to sit there while people are looking at the little art that you made. It's just like another one of those. Yeah, this feels so good. And since you asked, I have.

:: 13:13

I don't know if you've seen my latest, latest book what makes you fart? I have seen it online. I haven't read it. So the subtitle is find your passion and figure out your life. By the time you finish reading this book, I have this theory that when you're relaxed and happy and your body is just ah, then you fart. I fart in bookstores and it's it's actually a documented phenomenon, but nobody can figure out why people do it. And I know why because you love books, like you'd go somewhere like whatever you love anyway. So that's what I try to help people do is figure out like, what do you love? What makes you fart? What do you and it can be anything like you can cut things up and glue them and laminate them and give them away like that can be your thing. Whatever it is that you want to do, so that gives me joy and peace too, is helping other people yeah figure out what gives them joy and peace.

:: 14:13

Yeah, I love, I love to finish these episodes with some encouragement for the listeners and for people out there. So what would you say to someone who is fresh and new in their unraveling or their deconstruction? They've just pulled on that thread. What would you say to them?

:: 14:41

on that thread. What would you say to them? You can do this, it gets easier, it gets better, and part of why I wrote my books. So it's a trilogy unbelief, jaded and then whole and I my hope is that it can be a shortcut for people. There's not really. Let me actually. I'm going to read one more poem, um, that speaks to this. It's called a note on the trilogy and it's from the final book, a note on the trilogy.

:: 15:10

When people are first deconstructing their faith, they're often not ready for the full marla, which is why unbelieve is the soft opening to jaded, the bitchy little sister. But there are no rules here. You can skip right to whole if you'd like, as long as you know that in real life there's no shortcut to wholeness. And I say that. But I actually do believe there is a little bit of a shortcut, and that is by learning from people who have gone before you, and that's what we do, right, like when you're learning how to do something. Uh, example one of my kids is crocheting and she's watching videos of other people who already know how to do it, and then she can do it right away. What if she was had this thing of yarn and this little hook, and she was just sitting there and had to figure out how to make something like how would she do that? She can't just figure it out out of nothing, but to see someone else who's already done it and they can tell her how. I can't tell people exactly how, but there's a lot of things I address that that you might have gotten stuck on or that are really hurting, or a way to reframe how you're feeling. And what my favorite thing is is when people read my poetry and then they start writing their own, like that's what I hope it does. It's very simple, it's easy to understand, it's easy to imitate, and I'm not saying write your poems just like me. I'm saying this is easy, you can do it. Just put some thoughts down, rearrange the words a little bit and then you can have a poem that helps get out your feelings. And it's just so great, just like your podcast.

:: 17:10

When people hear someone's journey, we're learning. There's two different things. We're getting from it new experiences that are not familiar to us, and then things that resonate with us and that we can relate to, like. I listened to your interview, like when you were telling your story, and of course, there are things that I like. You're talking about being on a missions trip and you're like, wait a second, why are we telling them what to do? That's me in cambodia. I'm like, um, wait, but they have a better way of doing this particular like, squatty potties, which I also write about. Like, did you know that our, our body's natural way to relieve itself is to squat down into a position, and then it comes out. Meanwhile we're sitting up here on our thrones and we're like, why can't I? Anyway, all of that to say that we, my people who read my story it's they're not going to resonate with every single thing, but if they're deconstructing, I promise there are going to be some poems that they do relate to, and that's my encouragement.

:: 18:19

I am genuinely, genuinely happier, freer, more whole. On the other side and this is not. I do a lot of writing for my job, for entrepreneurs and people who are promising people things on the other side of paying them a bunch of money. You do not have to read, buy my books or read my books. Just go to my Instagram and get some free content. But I am, I'm promising you. This is not. This is not a like, a fake thing.

:: 18:52

I am genuinely so much better off on the other side. Same with my marriage. People actually told me when my husband left they're like you're going to be better off without him. He told me that like he actually knew that. But I knew that and I have a poem about that too. I know that I'll be better off on the other side of my marriage, on the other side of evangelical Christianity. Getting there is hell, like it was hell to to go through deconstruction and divorce. But it's very, very true, unlike if your child dies or something tragic happens and you're like, oh, it's better over here. No, to hell with that. Yeah, but deconstruction absolutely is better on the other side because it's well I don't want to use the word right, but kind of, you're on the right side like you, literally yeah you're on the good side, yeah the, the authentic side, the curious side, all of those things yeah.

:: 20:00

It's freedom and wholeness and it's just so much better. And you can, I. People ask me if I've reconstructed my faith and I say, well, I deconstructed my faith and then I put myself back together. I didn't necessarily reconstruct the faith. You can do that, you can still. You can go to an affirming church. You can read the Bible whatever you can read. Womanist theologians do whatever. It doesn't have to look just like this, but I'm telling you it's it's, it's, it's good, yeah.

:: 20:34

Agreed Great, it's really good. Yeah, agreed, agreed, it's really good. Oh, thank you so much for joining me. I have loved this conversation. I love talking to people so much, but I love when I get to laugh with people because, like that's my favorite thing in the world to do. So I love when I have guests that are not all like serious and I get to laugh with them, so that's great yeah, I'm not super serious.

:: 21:04

I mean I can be. I think we can't remember how much we talked about some serious stuff. Yeah, it's just. Yes, so my poetry it's funny. That was really important to me that I make it funny, not every single poem, but hopefully you'll laugh when you, when you read them. That's kind of the the idea. Yes, well.

:: 21:24

Thank you so much for joining me.

:: 21:26

It has been an absolute pleasure thank you, sam thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.