A CLOSET CHRISTIAN COMES OUT

A CONVERSION STORY

Where does a story like this one begin? Did it start with the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage through Spain? My culturally Catholic husband? Who can pinpoint precisely where a conversion commences? Someone on social media aggressively implied that Russell Brand’s influence on pop culture moved me to Catholicism. I find that highly unlikely but we shouldn’t underestimate the power of suggestion. However, if you asked me to identify the crux of this conversion, this decision to bow before a crucifix, I would say it's about story… and language.

“I’m going to church,” I told my husband one Sunday evening. “I’m going to the late mass. I’ll be home soon.” He did a double-take. “Okay,” he said, slightly confused by his agnostic but certainly not Catholic wife.

I walked the five-minute stretch to my local church under an electric-blue Spanish evening sky. Once inside, I was immediately enveloped by the warmth of the white interior walls lit with soft orange light. I stood, crossed my heart, sat down, and listened.

The heart I crossed had been a tight bundle of tension my entire life, and it was here, during that very first mass that I realized something profound—I had been an addict. Was it alcohol? Drugs? Sex? No, it wasn’t anything as clear-cut or obvious as any of these. My addiction was so commonplace that no one would have recognized it as an addiction unless I had done the work. My addiction, for most of my adult life, had been anger—one of the seven deadly sins.

After spending time in church, I developed a theory: we are all naturally drawn to one of the deadly sins. Pride drags some people down, desire pulls others in, and envy eats away at most of us. As for me, I could—and would—be angry about anything and everything. The world felt like one big OUTRAGEOUS mess, and I had been so outraged that I hardly had time to breathe.

But I felt justified in my anger. LOOK AT THIS PLACE. JUST LOOK AT IT—IDIOT! But this kind of anger, this constant irritation, can’t be sustained. It will kill you, physically or spiritually. You could spend seventy-odd years here, seething yourself sick.

My anger thrived on the environmental collapse. LOOK AT THIS HORROR SHOW! It fueled me day in and day out. I saw everyone as guilty of not doing enough—everyone beyond redemption, including myself. And if everyone was guilty, and there was no clear path to salvation, the only thing left to do… was to forgive.

And the only place offering forgiveness in this icy-cold, self-assured culture is the church.

Nothing about modern ideologies or belief systems encourages forgiveness. And make no mistake, we all have a religion. You may think you don’t—you might fancy yourself a liberal free-thinker—but sorry to say, you do believe in something. It might be called Socialism or Identity Politics, Wokeism, Transgenderism, Trumpism, Science, or something else, but it has its own set of rules, rights, wrongs, Gods and demons, and a dogma some follow like a dog.

The Left had been my religion for years, and it served me well until recently—when it became obsessed with identity and public shaming. Feminism, once a guiding light, turned into “not all men! But MEN, WHITE MEN!” I found little sanctuary in its new Madonna, Taylor Swift, nor its deity, Self, glittering in sequins.

As my middle-aged friends gleefully chanted "F*** the Patriarchy" and handed out plastic friendship bracelets, I realized I needed a new church—or perhaps a very old one.

In my environmental curiosity, as I endlessly pondered why no one seemed to be leaping into action to save the planet, I concluded that humanity had lost interest in saving itself. We were no longer excited about life; we were merely trying to survive it. It didn’t feel like we loved ourselves enough to save ourselves. Predictions say that in the West, by 2040, only half the female population of reproductive age will have children. That’s how little interest we’ve retained in the human story, in our glorious nature. That’s how deeply we’ve been blinded by Self and dollar bills. No connection to anything bigger than “How many social media followers do you have?”

I’m not the only environmentally conscious person to take this route to Christianity. After telling a friend about my sudden and surprising appearance at church, she sent me a podcast episode called The Story of Someone Who Changed Their Mind. The guest, Paul Kingsnorth, once a writer and protestor for Greenpeace, shared a similar conclusion: this isn’t just an environmental catastrophe—it’s a spiritual one. In this modern culture…nothing, absolutely nothing, is sacred. Human life is not holy; sex is not sacred, marriage doesn’t seem to mean much, an ancient forest, an endangered species, and a habitable climate can come and go. Kingsnorth is now a Romanian Orthodox Christian, and he writes about what modern humanity is up against, something he calls The Machine. He has dropped his environmental work, recognizing the environmental devastation as a symptom of a bigger problem.

I hosted a podcast called The Eco Enthusiast, and I was drawn in by the two episodes with Christian activists. They were highly effective in their challenging work but far from furious. They were humbly and peacefully getting God’s work done with a smile. Tony Rinaudo has reforested six million hectares of land, primarily thanks to prayer and faith. This Way seemed to give its followers superhuman strength. Thea Ormerod works in ARCC The Australian Religious Response to Climate Change and is pushing through some pretty impressive policy changes at the governmental level. And chatting to her, I learned that in her Catholic mind…God is a woman. My view of Christians changed. Instead of being rigid, uptight, controlling bores, they were heroic, humble, and wise - connecting with a story that has stood the test of two thousand years. And it appeared that, like all great stories, it left space for the reader to interpret it as they will while passing on an epic message - love thy enemy. It’s an astounding sentence. An ancient yet revolutionary thought that still sounds so fresh, exciting… and impossible. Something worth aiming for.

So yes, environmentalism could have been the path that led me to Jesus. But my true sacred space wasn’t the environmental movement; it has always been stories. In my youth, I studied theatre at university, acted on stage, and then spent my thirties learning how to write novels. I wanted to know how to tell stories with spirit, with something that needed to be said. After a decade of reading, writing, and studying Joseph Campbell, it hit me like a brick: here I am, trying to tell the story of Jesus.

Why? Because this story is in our bones. It’s this story, and this story structure alone, that digs deep. It cannot be removed without having lethal consequences.

“Oh, sure,” I can hear you say, “but all ancient cultures had this spine. So what? Why choose the Christian story? YOU COLONIALIST, WHITE SUPREMACIST!”

Well, I’m glad you asked. Someone signed my permission slip. "Yes, you’re allowed to be a Christian," it read. "You’re allowed to speak in your mother tongue."

I remember listening to Heather Hamilton, the author of Returning to Eden. Her memoir details her journey of a mental breakdown after being raised in a fundamentalist Christian church, only to return to Christianity later. She explained that the stories of Christ had helped her heal from those hectic, chaotic Christians.

She was asked why she returned to this religion and not others. She explained it this way: Christianity was her spiritual language. She used an analogy I deeply identified with. After years of learning Spanish, she traveled to Spain to realize that no matter how fluent she became, she would never be able to express herself as fully as she could in English. That’s how she felt about Christianity—it was her spiritual language, whether she liked it or not. She could try other faiths—Hinduism, Islam—but it wouldn’t be the same. She would not be as effective. She would not be as strong.

This resonated with me as an Australian living in Spain for ten years. I will never speak in Spanish the way I do in English. I, too, must use my spiritual language. As I said, someone signed my permission slip: "Here, Christianity is your spiritual language…sorry if you prefer the far more trendy Buddhism, Islam, or Indigenous spirituality…but this is your language. This is your best bet at being understood."

Since that day, I’ve begun to call myself a Christian with newfound confidence. I’m preparing for my baptism. I pray every morning and night—I know, I know. But words work wonders. The Bible and the saints offer some of the finest words we’ve crafted. It’s all poetry to me, a way for humanity to touch the untouchable. This practice has transformed how I perceive and experience the world. My relationships flow. I allow the chaotic world to simply be and do what I can without the SCREAM, the sigh, the tut, or the “Are you an idiot?”

I’ve delved into the stories of the saints, captivated by the timeless wisdom of words I never imagined uttering without a smirk. If you read Saint Augustine's Confessions, you’ll discover that these saints were just people—ordinary humans who had moments of “AHA! I think I saw something…no, I know I did. Let me try to explain.”

I’ve heard it said that, in life, it’s crucial to surprise yourself. I could not be more astounded that this is happening to me. But it is. And why do I take the time to write this small story? Because I believe we must always allow ourselves to be changed and surprised.

Peek-a-boo is a baby’s favourite game. We crave those moments of surprise that jolt us out of our skins for a second…or for eternity.

So, I’d like to sign another permission slip for anyone who needs it:

If there’s a language on the tip of your tongue begging to be spoken… you can speak it. You’re allowed to surprise yourself.

Thank you for reading. I hope to continue to document and share my conversion experience. If you would consider a yearly subscription it would help me share The Way.