081526 My 2026 Summer Update

I haven't posted much here in the last two years. I wonder if that is because I am finally finding some peace just existing and loving.  Maybe I've said most of what needs to be said.  I am not indicating that nothing changes along the way... maybe I don't need to record every moment that I discover I've grown a bit more.  

I woke up this morning thinking maybe I could provide a bit of an update if anyone is still reading.  I made a list of ten things I want to refresh or reiterate.  Here goes... only in order of how I thought about them and wrote them down.  

1.  My Relationship to Labels.  

I have a challenged relationship to labels.  I was reading some of my previous posts and words like agnostic and atheist and humanist and Post-Christian showed up.  Maybe they are all still accurate to some degree.  But what a label does is closes off the conversation.  I still think labels are people's way of shutting down a person's story.  I have a label for you... thus I know you.  I would hope that the only purpose of a label is to start a conversation.  

"Oh... that is interesting.  What do you mean by that?  How do you see that as something that fits in your life?  Tell me more about that?"  

I wish I had the grace to be more of that kind of person.  I wish listening without interjecting was more of a skill I could exercise.  But I am challenged in that department... still.  I long to understand people, but I still get defensive and still want my story to come out too.  I admire people who can just listen.  

2. My Relationship to my Mother

I think I feel closer to my Mom now than I have before.   It's seems strange.  We shared a similar story for so many decades, but in the last three years, since my sister died, Mom and I have become all we have left of our little Flatrock family of four and we share moments and memories now that only the two of us understand.  I think we have had to lean on Love alot more.  It's our common ground.  Maybe that is why we can do this journey with opposing world views.  Love is higher ground than religious narratives.  It is the cosmic glue of the universe.  

3. My Relationship with "The Church" 

"The Church" - the buildings, the programs, the ideology, the people within the walls... those six letters encompass so many things.  It is important for me to still acknowledge that I need a relationship with "the Church" because it is a part of my relationships with my Mom and other Christians.  

I still don't appreciate sermons.  They are a one way direction of one person's understanding and interpretation of the story.  There is no conversation.  There is only what the pastor says and believes and the congregants get to agree in body and stature even if they have issues floating around in their mind.  

I still appreciate the music.  Yes, some of it comes with the same misinformed dogma that the sermons do, but there is something about some of the music that makes me want to move and even sing along to.  However, I restrict my singing to my own space.  I don't need to enforce the idea in public that I am still part of this club when I am obviously not.  

I value the community.  Church has always been able to gather people together in ways that are challenged to the secular crowds.  There is a camaraderie that I find attractive and that I miss.  It's why I will stop in at my mom's church or even my sister's church either before or after the service.  I still get to be a part of the best part of the church...  The people.  

4.  My relationship with other Christians. 

Do I tell everyone my status?  Nope.  Most people don't ask.  It's the social norm of the Lutheran world.  Jesus, for the most part, stays in church on Sunday morning.  So in my day to day interactions, if I have not "outed" myself to them... the subject doesn't come up.  I have chosen some to out myself to.  Those people are closer than most.  When I started "outing" my deconversion, it was to pastor friends and close friends of my Mom's.  I didn't want Mom to go through the pain of "losing" her other daughter without others who could sit with her.  

5.  My Relationship with my Dead Family. 

"Hi Dad... it's me... checking in.  I'm okay.  Mom's okay.  We are all here.  Sean drove up to his wedding in a big John Deere tractor.  I wonder if you would secretly wish you could have done the same thing.  Did I ever tell you that Manfred is wearing your wedding ring and is so proud of it.  I am wearing Opa's.   Mom was happy to add another gemstone to that necklace pendant that you gave her.   You are remembered in jewelry of all things.  I still miss you.  Charly."  

That's right.  I still talk to them.  To Dad, to my sister, Jennifer and to my nephew, Ben.  I admit that it is really for me.  I have no belief or understanding beyond the idea that I still need to connect with them somehow, even if it is in my own imagination.  It is what I can do now, that I couldn't do before.  I was told, in Bible School,  that my dead family members were asleep in some holding area in the sky and wouldn't wake up until the "final resurrection".   I wanted to talk to my Opa and my Oma but there was a block in my brain that kept me from believing that it meant something.  Now there is freedom.  I don't need anyone else defining what my connection to my family looks like.  I get to decide how to communicate and connect with them.  I still can!!!

6.  Is Blogging still Valuable? 

I do a lot less blogging now.  I guess I got tired of reporting to the void and wondering if anyone was out there.  If it was really about me, I would have just typed it all on my computer and just left those rants and recordings in my hard drive.  The part of me that still wants to blog still wants to be heard and understood.  

I have had so many people come in my life on line that have helped me in this journey to feel better about myself.  Maybe I want to pay that forward.  Maybe I want others, who are struggling with some of the same things I struggled with,  to hear they aren't alone.  I think it still helps to hear that I'm not alone.

7. Is There Still a Place for Spirituality? 

Rob Bell says there is.  One of my favourite reads this past year has been "Everything is Spiritual" by Rob Bell.  I have the book downloaded and the audio as well.  It's a treasure of wisdom and encouragement that helps me in my humanity to explore more possibilities of keeping the mystery as part of the story.  I can still embrace story as a valuable part of life and find it meaningful.  I love that.  

8.  Do I feel less lonely today?

I think so.  I think it has helped having people tell me that I'm okay just being human.  I wish I had more community options with people without the need to gather around a two thousand year old story.  I wish there was less need of others for me to be someone I can't be anymore.  I realize that is just something I will have to deal with. It could be much worse.  I am grateful for what I have.  

9. What do I hope my legacy will be? 

One I can't seem to get into great words right now.  It involves the message of Love, religious and secular freedom and the value of everyone's story.  

10. Am I still okay?

YES!!! 

I realize I can't convince everyone of that reality.  But I really am okay.  Who I am now is who I am.  I don't need to be someone I'm not.  I don't need saving.  I need love, people, critters and nature.  I need purpose, resources and a will to keep on breathing if I have the other two in supply. 

* * * 

There you have it... My summer of '26 update.  

081026 The "Reality" of Heaven and Santa's Workshop

 I don't think Christians can define or describe Heaven anymore than children can define or describe Santa's workshop... but that doesn't mean both are not very real in either minds.  There is only one difference.  Eventually... children let go of needing Santa's workshop as anything other than a story.  

(written August 10, 2026) 

030825 What would fill the churches if...

"We, as a human species, put a lot of effort into keeping our own narrative alive. Maybe we need to make the effort to understand that it is our narrative that keeps us alive."  Ruby Neumann (March 8, 2025) 

It is my hope for the world that one day we can live with the peace of knowing that the narrative we embrace is only a small piece of the global pie.  How amazing would it be if everyone could see the planet for this floating ball in space that has no lines or boxes visible from the expanse of the cosmos.  How precious it would be if we could find the way that works for us and be okay if someone else needs a different expression of life to navigate the world.  This goes for everyone.  It is why I hold a word like "truth" very lightly.  I can only see when we hold it tightly that it puts up lines and boxes that keep other people out.  What if we could all see the truth as something beyond our grasp. Then we could just sit back, embrace a narrative that makes us better people and more loving and more compassionate.  It doesn't have to line up exactly with anyone or everyone else's view on life.  What would community look like then?  What would fill the churches if people were free to think and believe on their own terms?  Maybe the doctrine statements and belief creeds wouldn't be necessary.  Maybe people could gather around a shared love for humanity and the human experience.  

Maybe this is all a dream and I will never see this.  Earth has it's boxes and boundaries and most people are content to swim in their own ponds.  I just wonder what it would be like... that's all. 

101124 Letter to Melanie Trecek-King

Hello Melanie. 

My name is Ruby.  I live in Alberta Canada.  I just discovered you thanks you recent download video on The Thinking Atheist.  I think what you have to say can help me.  

Technically, I'm a Post-Christian Agnostic Atheist.  But I have been leaning heavily on the Agnostic part of that label  because I am surrounded by certaintists.  There is very little room in my off line environment for conversations with my people.  Because of their certainty, I am left to wade in the unknown.  I can't afford any confidence in a different narrative than the one I was raised with, I can only imagine and wonder about the possibility.  I have no platform and will endanger my relationships if I come out of my closet with any intent to declare such things like Genesis is a myth, Jesus was Jewish, not Christian, and even the Earth is not flat.  These seem like simple things, and I can embrace them in my own space... but I feel like I have to enable people's beliefs, even when they contradict my own understanding of life. 

I'm in my mid fifties.  I have learned to take care of people and put myself and ideas on the back burner.  I can be honest and authentic in my blogs, but not in my daily conversations with people.  I feel like I need to protect them.  I am thankful that I can write my thoughts and questions... I just can't share most of them.    

I am thankful for voices like yours who understand the nuance of life.  I want to listen to more of your content on Youtube.  Thank you for putting your voice out there.  I can't thank you enough for the encouragement I have listened to so far.  

Thank you.  

Ruby Neumann

Calmar, Alberta, Canada

(written October 11, 2024) 

Melanie's Website 

100524 MY quotes from last week

* There are plenty things in life that I can't live without. Having an explanation for life itself, isn't one of them. (October 5, 24) 

* I would like to have the opportunity to meet one human being where I don't feel like it's my responsibility to protect them from me. (October 3, 24) 

* The greatest loss is not losing a child. The greatest loss is the greatest loss for you. It might be your child, it might be your partner, it might be your sibling, it might be your cat. There is no universal "greatest loss". There is only your greatest loss and even then there may  be more than one greatest loss for you.   The lesson is... Don't compare losses with others and don't compare losses within your own life's journey. (September 30, 24) 

082224 It's not about evidence

It's not about evidence. I don't have access to the evidence. So many people don't have access to the evidence.  It is about the narrative we embrace, most often without choice. 

I was given a narrative as a young child and I embraced that narrative for a long time. After considerable thought, I could no longer embrace that narrative. 

Now I embrace a new narrative because that is all I have access to. I still don't have access to evidence. 

Even if I had access to evidence, I would still need a narrative, because stories are easier to hug than facts.

(written August 22, 2024) 

082024 No need to imagine.

In a world of so many possibilities,  I often find myself wondering why people plant themselves along the highway of life and don't go any further.  New ideas to them are either frightening, threatening, intimidating or seemingly impossible.  

I have done something over the course of my life that, in a way I had hoped would help me to not be so attached to the things and people in my life.  I would often imagine what life would be like without them.  That exercise wasn't all-inclusive.  I never imagined what life would be like without my sister.  I imagined my parents dying, I've imagined my husband dying.  What would it be like for me to go on without them.  I thought I needed to prepare myself if and when that happened.  But my sister was always a constant in my life.  Even up to the last year of her life, I still believed that she would outlive me.  I had no need to imagine otherwise.  But today... I am living without her because she died thirteen months ago.  

My mother has "Jesus" in her life like I had my sister.  "Jesus" is her constant and she has planted herself beside him in the highway of life.  She has no need to go any further.  She has no need to imagine life with him.  

And then I come along.  I dared to go further.  I dared to keep walking I dared to discover that, indeed, there is a world beyond where my Mom is.  Life does go on without "Jesus" at least for me it does.  So I wonder now what she sees.  Her whole world is filled with "Jesus" and yet I have travelled past that reality.  Does she still see me now? 

(written August 20, 2024)