In this episode, we have a special guest, the Reverend doctor Angela Yarber.
You know when I hear RIV, I don't think, I think,
oh my god, chure, Yeah I feel that. Yeah right. Angela's
spiritual journey is so interesting. It's not at all threatening. So nobody be
scared. Do not turn off the podcast. It is gonna be a great
interview of promise. Yes. Plus, she has an amazing cool new book
called Queering the American Dream, and we're going to talk all about it.
Yes, yeah, so super queer friendly, not scary religious, just putting
that out there. I'm pretty sure we will not discuss fire and brimstone.
Not a thing unless we're gonna roast marshmallows some morse. I do all about
that fire and brimstone. Well, maybe that's awaiting us in our afterlife.
Some moors for everybody of it. Okay, help me in. Why don't
we take a quick break and get to the interview. Let's go all right,
be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome to Latter Day Lesbian,
the podcast about an ex Mormon gay girl just trying to figure out her life.
My name is Mary, my name is Shelley. So Shelley we have
a special guest today. We do. Yeah, this is so cool.
I'm not I can't even quite remember how we were turned on to Yeah,
weird wording turned on by Angela just can't turn on to Angela. Sorry,
Angela, you're gonna have to deal with us. We can't mean it's we
really can't. But uh, I don't know, It's just it just seemed
like such an interesting story that I was like, we should have her at
So, yeah, I'm going to introduce the Reverend doctor Angela Yarbor, and
I'm gonna go ahead and read her bio that I picked up on LinkedIn and
we were talking earlier, and she's like, um, I think that's right.
I don't know. We're gonna give it a shot, okay. So
Angela Yarbor is no award winning author and artist. She's the executive director of
The Holy Women Icon's Project, a nonprofit seeking to empower marginalized women by telling
the stories of revolutionary Holy women through art, writing, and special events.
Through the nonprofit, she leads retreats in addition to offering art exhibits, workshops,
lectures, and dynamic public speaking around the world. She was a pastor
for fourteen years and continues to consult with churches on queering worship, preaching,
and spirituality. And we're going to circle back to queering worship because I want
to know more about that. She was a professor for Women's Gender and Sexual
Studies and Divinity School professor for over a decade. Her painting, writing and
work has been featured on NPR's Progressive Spirit, Maya Angelou's Memorial Celebration, and
the television show Tiny House Nation. That's really interesting. She is the author
of seven books, four of which have been included in the top lgbt Q
Christian books of their respective publication years. Whether it's painting, writing, leading
retreats, or public speaking, her work endeavors to inspire and empower, offering
beautiful hope and creative justice in the midst of systems designed to disenfranchise and oppress
the marginalized. Nice up, give it up. Welcome, Reverend doctor Angela
Yarbor. Thank you for being here, Thanks for having me. I appreciate
it. That's quite the intro it is. I'm realizing that's a long bio
there on LinkedIn. I'm realizing that I need to update some of that are
the title of our nonprofit has shifted to the Tahome Center t h oh Am
since I posted that, So that's a good reminder to stay on top of
all the things that need updating. That's right, But it's still the same
project during the same work, just called the Tahome Center now rather than the
Holy Women Icons Project. What is tahome refer to? Oh? To home
is a Hebrew word that means deep or depths, and it's I won't go
into the whole long etymology of the word, but it's the word used in
the Genesis Account for Jews and Christians out of the depths God creates. And
it's this feminine term for the watery chaos or the depths, syncretized with the
Tiamat, which is a Babylonian creation goddess. So all this like queer,
feminist Wiley stuff is embedded in that one word. Very cool. Yeah,
well she's got some weird watery depths going pretty sure. Ge Well she gave
birth to seven children. Oh oh yeah, yeah, I could do that.
I told you I was a Mormon. I mean, what do you
do excepts at home and have babies? Yeah, what are the ranges of
your your kiddos their ages. The oldest is twenty two, the one that
disappoints my dad, like I was telling you, because he lives with his
girlfriend. And then the youngest is about to turn nine. Not fast enough.
Yeah, I got a lot of time till retirement. Unfortunately. My
oldest is eight, so same age, and then my youngest is four.
Yeah. Oh you're hating it. You're hating hard right now. Oh yeah,
I love them so much, and it's so hard. It's so hard,
especially when you're trying to like queer parenting and subvert the status quo with
everything about families that makes it's wonderful and good and challenging. Yeah, you
can't just turn them loose to the system. And I don't mean that in
like an anti system way, but just I feel like they need more,
They need more shown to them than what still is just out there in the
world teaching them about families and life. And yeah, no, I'm with
you on that for sure. Yeah, and don't just default to bullying,
because that's I feel like middle school, I mean even elementary school to a
degree, but definitely middle school in high school is so fraught with that need
to fit in. You're just looking on the kid that's weaker than need to
pick up everyone. It's just this instinct that we all have. It might
be in little ways. For oldest is eight, don't freak her out.
Hey, Angela gets worse. Okay, that's trying to say, buckle up,
Angela. That's interesting. Mary and I were having a conversation yesterday.
She's never had kids, never been involved in like kids stuff, really,
and so me having all these kids, it's difficult and it's difficult for me
too. And she's asked me, and it was yesterday like, how do
you do it? Aren't you just exhausted and crazy? And not my time?
I am. However, I look back to the years where they were
all younger, like where you are right now, Angela, and I'm like,
oh, I know, it could be so much worse. I've been
through the worst. Yeah, I feel like we've just gotten out of some
of the really tough times and ages because now everyone can like feed themselves,
they can go to the bathroom by themselves. That's huge. Those things really
make a big difference. Yeah, So I'm grateful for that and our process
of becoming a family and foster care systems and adoption and unjust policies and all
of that have made becoming a family with children really hard, and so I'm
grateful and raging and tired at the same time. Oh yeah, yeah,
I'm sure. I was actually looking in some articles as far as like,
when did it become I guess legal, sure, legal for a gay couple
or anything outside the norm to adopt children, And it's been relatively recent that
it's even allowed. For the longest time, they couldn't adopt if they weren't
married, and of course marriage was illegal for anyone except for straight folks.
So I know this has nothing to do with your book, but well it
does. It's interesting to me. How was it, How was it for
you adopting, because you just said there's struggles there. So for my son,
who is eight, we did an open adoption, which meant that we
connected with his birth mother during pregnancy, and she's aw and is a huge
part of our lives still, and so is his birth father. But we
had done all of the adoption, home study, case study, all of
that stuff in my name when I was a pastor, and then that job
became really toxic. And this is all a part of the book. Wearing
the American Dream, so it ties in, but the job became really toxic,
so I ended up quitting and then called my adoption agency, who is
their agency is the oldest with working with same sex couples in the entire country,
and so they get it. And on the one hand they're like,
well, we're glad that you're honoring who you are and all this, And
what this looks like legally is that a single person with a stranger living in
her home, who doesn't have a job, is trying to adopt a child.
So we had to do the world's fastest home study for my wife instead
of me, so she was able to legally adopt him. I couldn't until
same sex marriage became legal, and then it costs like four thousand additional dollars
and all of this extra invasive work. So that happened with our son,
and just a few years later, my daughter's only four and we adopted her
through foster care, and that came with a host of traumas and really invasive
homesteady interviews for us. But some of the first things that were said when
we went into court the judge, the first thing he said was that our
two year old was fat oh my god, and asked us what we had
been feeding her, and then made a joke about how complicated this was going
to be because there's no dad, why because it was my wife and I
and how he didn't know what to say. And normally I'm a person who
would offer corrective, who would say something or call someone in, but here
we are waiting to see if he's going to rule like in favor quote unquote
of us adopting our child. So we couldn't really say anything because of that
power dynamic. Yeah, you have to sit there while he beats on you
and says rude things, and it's like whatever you say, whatever you say,
because you want your child. Oh ass truly was he old and white?
I'm just throwing that out, yes, And this was in this was
in Hawaii. So in Hawaii, like if you're white, you're called a
hawe yes, And the essence of being a halle is also being kind of
like a dumb holle. And so he encapsulated the essence of what that word
means in every possible way. And I just remember us and our social worker
and our attorney all looking at each other like with our eyes enormously why thinking
what on earth is wow ass hat saying? And how does he get to
make family decisions? Like exactly how is even allowed to talk to people's right
like, oh, I'm so sorry? How old was your daughter? And
was she in the room? She was in the room, and so is
my son? Did they hear that? They did? I don't know if
they quite registered it. And at that point, my son, I think,
had experienced a couple negative things from kids who you know, didn't understand
that you could have a two mom family and said, oh, that's gross
or something like that. But on the whole, my kids have had pretty
good experiences around that kind of thing, and that's part of because of the
people that we've chosen to surround ourselves with. Yes, yeah, so we
feel really really lucky about the chosen family, the o'hana that we've created.
Yeah, how long ago was it that you were in the courthouse with your
two year old daughter and this guy said those horrible things? Oh it was
only two and a half years ago. Yeah, so it's not like it's
nineteen fifty seven. People, get your shit together, come on, truly,
truly, And what's infuriating is that so many times if you were to
share that story. A lot of straight folks would say, oh, well,
you know, oh, no big deal, it's right, you know,
it's just one comment. But the thing is, and that's not even
a microaggression, but it's an example of these little underhanded slights that happen all
the time, and they're like death by a thousand paper cuts, absolutely,
you know, and you don't really know how to defend yourself against those kinds
of things because you're you're stuck wondering, like this guy really say that?
Yes, man, I'm so sorry, And you know you're right about straight
people, wouldn't. I mean, the straight people might feel bad for you,
but whatever, it's not their problem. But it is the straight people.
I think they need to stand up and call out these howlies and be
like, hey, man, no, because he's not he's not going to
care if you say it. He obviously doesn't respect you anyway, So it
needs to be his peers. I don't know exactly exactly, And they were
all in a weird power dynamic too, because you know, they were the
social workers and the attorneys, and ultimately he was the one who you know,
got to make that decision. But nevertheless, my daughter is with us.
Yay, safe and well, so good. I'll count that as a
win. But but yet another example of how we have to actively queer what
it means to be family, to queer what it means to be pretty much
anything these days, because the self is at odds with everything around it.
Yes, well that is kind of a good segue because I kind of feel
like we're burying the lead here. It just got so good. I couldn't
help. Mary's always like the lead. And I'm also talk about this the
judge. I mean, we're here ultimately to discuss Angela's new book called Queering
the American Dream. Yeah, Mary needs to read some ship that we can
go back to talking. Mean you okay, Angela? Mary, so you
keep using that. It's so great. It's like queering this queering that is
that? Would that be an adjective at that point? Yes, right,
that's a verb? Okay, dr Yeah, I feel like we're all losing
the English language as we know it. Let's let me just text an emoji
to convey all of my emotions, the queer flag, and we know we
need do you say any actual words? Well, what's interesting is that,
like you know, queer can be used in so many different ways. But
the queering I think of that quote of the Late Bell Hooks where she said,
I don't want to mess up the quote, but the essence of it
was queer, not so much as who it is that you're sleeping with,
though that can be a part of it, but queer as the self that
is at odds with everything that is around it. And then you have to
create and invent and imagine places to survive and thrive. And so I think
in that way, queering obviously applies to everyone in the LGBTQIA plus alphabet soup
community, but it also applies to others who are at odds with everything that
is around us. And when the self is at odds, I believe,
like in my book and Queering the American Dream, when the self is at
odds with this farce of a dream where we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps
and slap on a good Southern woman smile, you know, and make our
own dream like that, when all the systems are designed to disenfranchise you,
it just doesn't work right, and so we have to subvert and overturn and
dismantle and ultimately queer that dream. So that it's expansive enough for everyone.
I love that. Well, before we get into the book, let's go
let's go back a little bit and talk about you. Our listeners are probably
like, way, mate, who is this person and it's a friend we're
chatting with and having coffee in the morning. It doesn't feel like that.
Yeah, that's kind of how we roll. Okay, So let's back up
before you were a reverend or a doctor. Let's just talk about Angela for
a minute. I'd love to hear about your background. You did not grow
up religious, is that correct? Right? Okay, it's correct. You
chose that at some point. WHOA, why did you just throw that down?
Let's hear more about that. Because you identify as queer, that's right,
and you're married to a woman, that's right. Okay, So let's
hear about that story, your journey to becoming ordained. So I don't come
from a religious family, although I did grow up in the Southeast and so
I was in the Bible Belt. It was present and everything that we did.
Because as when I was living in a government subsidized living place, there
was like a van that came and pick up kids and brought them to vacation
Bible school. So I had that like evangelical quote unquote saved experience. Because
of that, I could sing vacation Bible songs with you all day long.
You know, deep and what deep and what? I'm a fountain flowing deep.
Y'all sound weird. Oh, there's so many, this little light of
mine, I'm gonna let it. You know that one too, I'm sure,
of course. Abraham head Man, he's on Man's on Sarah. There's
so many. Mother and the concubine. Don't forget the concubine and the bastard
child, the bastard child who founded Islam. Wait, that's not it's not
a left those parts out, sure, exactly exactly. Y'all had to be
the patriarchs. No patriarchs present, that's right. So I wasn't raised in
a religious home, working poor family, and had this plan as a high
schooler to go into the performing arts, and I did end up being a
professional dancer for a number of years while simultaneously being clergy. So wow,
the dancing reverend. Truly, I'm assuming it was not exotic dancing. It
could be role dancing. No, there's lots of money to be made there,
but whatever that's true. They passed the play. They passed the play
the plate. Now that sounds like a very subversive liturgy. I kind of
want to design that absolutely. So I ended up going to this conservative though
I didn't know that at the time because I didn't know anything about Christianity,
this conservative Christian church because they had a rock climbing wall and I was interested
in rock climbing. So they kind of like hooked, you know, teenagers,
and that's a good one. And in that I had a really conservative
religious experience that I called Jesus is my boyfriend, and so I did that
where I kind of fell in love with Jesus. My sister was in love
with Jesus, and one of your girlfriends was, and that's why you lost
her. I did lose a girl to Jesus. Yep. And at that
point I wasn't out to myself or to anyone else. I didn't even have
the framework. How old were you, I'm sorry, I was sixteen seventeen.
So instead of planning on heading to Juilliard and you know, creating a
life on the performing arts, it was this pivotal time in my life where
the ministers at that church sat me down and said, the performing arts,
the arts, those bring glory to you and not to God. Do them?
So yes, I ended up going to a small liberal arts college that
was associated with Baptists, but luckily the religion department there was moderate, so
I wouldn't say progressive. One of them was progressive. They kind of pulled
me aside and said, you know, this version of Christianity that was handed
to you, that's not the only version. There are lots of different versions
and lots of different ways to be a person of faith. I ended up
becoming the youth minister at his church where his children were youth at the ripe
age of eighteen, so wise to be a youth minister then. And they
also said, you know, we don't know anything about dance or the arts,
or that's not our thing. But if those are your skills and your
talents and your loves, and you also have this love for faith, why
don't you put the two together. So that started this long journey for me
of looking at the connections between the arts and dance, believe it or not,
which has a very rich history in the Christian tradition, but that's completely
erased strategically erased by most people in power right, And so through that process
I ended up becoming ordained, going to seminary, and then going to do
a PhD. But all along the way I realized in my preaching and serving
churches that my language was really shifting from I believe to we believe to the
Christian tradition teaches us. Because my own theology was morphing from a theology more
to a philosophy, especially as I explored more of goddess traditions from around the
world and interfaith dialogue. And so that's more where I reside now. I'm
still ordained, but I say I hold my ordination with an open hand,
so it could be revoked. But no one has tried to do that yet.
Oh so that's a thing they could just say, like, nope,
we're going to take that away from you. It could be, but because
there is not a centralized hierarchy in the Baptist Church, it makes it a
bit more complicated because you're ordained by a particular faith community, and so that
particular faith community, we need to gather together the twelve men who served on
my ordination council and have them called together their own I don't know synod of
sorts to say that they should revoke my ordination, and I do have clergy
who have since renounced their ordination, and I've toyed with that idea, But
instead I think of the myriad queer women who have come before me and who
are still seeing me, who've never seen a representation like that, And so
I choose to keep it kind of on behalf of the communities that I represent,
and see that as really important. Yeah. Yeah, well, in
Mormonism, you don't have to be ordained at all, but you can lead
a congregation. Well you got to be a man. Oh well, of
course you have to be a man, but yeah, you could be like
a local plumber or electrician or something like, Hey, you look like you
could lead this entire congregation. You're you're in charge, quite realize, Oh
yeah, there it's um. Oh no, it's a calling from God.
Yes, let's not forget that. Yeah. No one has to go to
like preacher school. You just preach your school, random guy, and they
need seminary. They lead someone to lead a congregation, so they're like,
oh God wants you. You don't get paid or anything. You just have
to give all your time, and the bishop can be a dentist, a
plumber, whatever, and then he, somehow, because God's mantle is now
on him, has the ability to counsel people. Yeah, that's so crazy.
Seriously. Okay, yeah, it's like getting the worst therapy of your
life and you think that you think that what he's saying is from God talking
about screwing people up. Yeah, it's horrible practice. Well, and I
feel like I knew that about the role of bishops, but I assumed that
it functioned like it does in most denominations where they had a training. No.
No, the bishop's training is basically here's the manual, which means like,
here's here's the punishments you dole out. Like I remember, I know
it's not about me, but when I was sixteen, I had had sex
with my boyfriend and so I went into the bishop with all the guilt and
shame and told what had happened. And he literally got the handbook from his
shelf, set it down. It was like he was going, let see
for anication, for anication. Okay, you yeah, you are this fellowship
for six months. You cannot take the sacrament. You need to come in
and meet with me as it. There was no like say three Hail Mary's.
Yeah, and our father and most Mormon, I'm gonna say most when
they go into their bishop, it's like they're looking for spiritual guidance and family
guidance. And these guys have no clue. They're just like, oh,
well, you know, and it's their opinions. Well, if you would
be intimate with your husband more than he would treat you better. I mean,
I've heard horror stories. Oh so predatory, isn't it. Yes,
yeah, so, Shelly, this sounds like a good time for a break.
I agree. We'll be right back. We are back anyway. Now
I'm not the guest being interviewed, but I haven't put that out there.
Back to you, Angela, back to our guests. Yeah, So how
old were you when you went through seminary, became ordained around that time,
and then when did you kind of back out slowly? Well, I was
only twenty two when I was ordained, So I was in seminary from age
twenty two to you know, for three years, so till twenty five,
and then started my PhD. So I was really young. I went directly
from high school to college to seminary to PhD program and then finished all that
at twenty nine. You like school, Yes, I do. It occupied
all of my twenties, and I do love learning still, but I'm glad
that I don't want to now I'm the professor who gets to take papers rather
than write the papers for someone else to grade. And I would say that
I started moving away even as I was being ordained, but it wasn't a
moving away at that point of faith. It was of even at the point
of ordination, I didn't have any traditional views, like my views were not
seen as orthodox, and I even remember talking about that on my ordination committee.
Because it was a relatively progressive group of people, A lot of their
ideas weren't orthodox either, and so believing things like Jesus was a revolutionary and
maybe not necessarily the son of God, those kind of things we're okay,
wow, right, Even the feminist theology side of things was affirmed by this
group of twelve men. That's pretty amazing, actually, yeah. But then
it kept moving farther and farther and farther to where I was wondering, well,
you know, I don't I don't know if there is a god doing
the calling, and I definitely believe Jesus was a historical figure and still today
quite the revolutionary who did a lot of subversive queer stuff. I wouldn't call
him a son of God because I don't know if there's a God who exists.
I think that we've constructed lots of versions of goddesses that I think are
very compelling and meaningful. But I also don't come down on a firm line
to say that I'm an atheist or an agnostic, because that's a little too
wishy washy, And then an atheist is a little too firm. So do
you check that spiritual but not religious bucks pretty much? Yes, I would
definitely do that. Yeah, I like it. I have such similar viewpoints
to you, and I love the idea of Jesus being queer. Let's just
go ahead and say he was, because like did he definitely? Was he
more into Mary Magdalen or was he more into John Beloved right right? Exactly
and exactly? And he raised Lazarus from the dead, so he must have
thought he was pretty special. I'm just saying exactly, but I agree completely,
and so many of the things that he did fall into this category of
queering the self that is at odds with everything around it, and so flipping
over tables and being friends with the outcasts and the tax collectors and sex workers
like those weren't everyday ordinary things that rabbis did, though there are plenty of
fabulous rabbis today to do. But at that time, you know, this
was quite subversive. And in that way, I would use the term queering
almost almost hand in hand with the term subversive, And in that way,
I do think that Jesus as a person, as a historical figure was very
subversive. Sure, I love that people, and I'm just learning this,
it's actually okay to take the version of Jesus that you were taught in some
of these hardcore religions and still like have a love for Jesus, but an
understanding of who he was not, you know, because it was hard for
me leaving Mormonism because I had this, I had this connection to Jesus just
because like that's when you're raised in Jesus and the Manger and he loves you
and blah blah. So when I left Mormonism was hard to kind of like
toss Jesus. But the more I thought about how I was raised, who
Jesus was yeah, I'm like, hit the door Jesus, you know,
God's son and blahl, Like the whole thing was just this ugly, patriarchal,
growdy thing to me. But now like listening to you talking about no,
Jesus, he was a rebel, you know, and he hung out
with these people, probably wasn't even the son of God. Like that sits
nicely with me to still have that person in my mind of someone to be.
I think about the cool stuff that he did, but get rid of
the guilt and shame that he died for my sins and every time my sin
he cries, and you know, all that horrible stuff. So yeah,
wait, you don't believe Jesus was a demigod whose celestial father had sex with
a teenager to create him. You don't believe all that was right and that
was hard. I love Jesus, but story I don't like. I love
Jesus, but the rape path? Why do we believe that? Why do
any of us believe that? It doesn't even make sense to me what you
have bought that? And in Mormonism, if I were to go in for
my worthiness interview, which is basically, if I can get a temple recommend,
which means I can go to the temple, which means I could be
saved. So if I don't do this, I don't get saved, I
don't get my family. The plumber slash head of the church gets to interview
her and decide if she gets to be saved or not. Yes, so
what exactly? And there's a list of questions and one of them is,
um, I'm misquoting it, but it's like, do you believe that Jesus
is the son of God? Blah blah blah. If I were to say
no, like I love Jesus blah blah, but I don't think he was
a literal son of God. Sorry, you can't go to the temple,
meaning you can't be saved, meaning when you die, you are separated from
your family, Like you have to have this exact version of Jesus. And
finally, like this realization, like I don't actually have to have their version
of Jesus. And so I love hearing you say this, like this is
my version of Jesus and it kicks ass. I love that. Thank you
for sharing that. Totally. I personally feel like we have all been taught
that Jesus is like a demigod because of ancient Greek and Roman mythology. It
was fitting in with that whole mindset. Wasn't it Constantine that tried to get
everybody on the same page and change change the Holy Day to Sunday because that's
when the Pagans were worshiping, and he wanted everyone to let's all get along
here with our religions, oh and vote for me. Right. We never
see anything like that today, No, that would never happen. How did
queerness fit in to this whole old journey with the church and becoming ordained and
your belief in Jesus, etc. Well, I was not out to myself
or to anyone else when I was ordained. In fact, at that point
I was engaged to marry a man along the way realized that's not going to
work, and it wasn't even because I quite realized that I was queer at
that point, even though I knew I wasn't super into him like sexually.
So instead of getting married on our what would have been our wedding day,
I spent I was in the Middle East doing research on interfaith dialogue. As
you do, Yeah, exactly. I think I was dancing with whirling Dervishes
in Syria around the time that I was supposed to be, you know,
walking down the aisle that's called Angela dodges a bullet. Yes, that's your
next book, by the way, you're welcome. Oh perfect, I love
that a bullet and instead dances with the dervishes as you do, as you
do. So I didn't end up coming out until I moved to Berkeley,
California. How cliche, that'll do it, and I met my wife there,
the person I'm still with today, and was doing my PhD and also
teaching where queerness was huge. This was at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,
which is associated with UC Berkeley, and a host of the seminaries attached
to it are either nondenominational or Unitarian Universalist or Disciples of Christ UCC more progressive
denominations where queerness is affirmed but not simply affirmed, but also like celebrated.
Yeah, and so a big number of my students identified as queer. It
was my first time with my knowledge encountering trans folks. I had never met
anyone who was trans to my knowledge up until that point, and so being
exposed to and learning about with gratitude and openness. The queer community also helped
me realize that the desires and yearnings of my own heart lived there as well.
And so even though I feel like it's super cliche that the girl from
Georgia moves to California and then comes out as queer, that was indeed my
experience. I think I saw that on a Hallmark movie. Was that was
the story one only recently? Right, it was just a flash Christmas.
Right. I was about to say, it's been like the past couple of
years where they're like, let's make queer holiday movies. Yes, was there
a reindeer out of a stable somewhere and the girlfriend had like a beautiful lab
puppy in that one together? And the old man who's the school custodian turns
out to be Santa. Yeah, sure, pretty sure that's how it went.
Yes, it was a big city of small town. Oh yeah,
exactly. They're probably listening in and next year we're gonna sit down. Here's
the screw. I haven't done the school custodian angle yet. We'll have to
do that exactly, and we're like, where are royalty go to court?
I just know it, that's funny. I'm hoping we don't get that judge
that I have, right, I think we've gotten to the point in this
discussion where I want to entro your book unless there's something else to the book.
I think we're finally to the book, unless there's something else you want
to discuss about your background and sort of how you got I mean, there's
so many questions. I mean, at what point did you start writing literature?
It was during my PhD program because my first book ended up being my
dissertation, and so all of my previous books before this one, before Queering
the American Dream were academic books. Well, and then I had one coloring
book because I'm an artist too, so that doesn't come It would be for
my children, yea Holy Women Icons contemplative coloring book. But prior to that
it was all academic publishing. So this is my first foray into memoir,
into commercial publishing. So this is really new for me, in a new
way of writing. I'm both really excited and thrilled about it, and a
little nervous too. Do you enjoy it though, I mean clearly, oh
yes, I love it. I do. I see it. I'm very
lucky that my jobs are painting and writing, and they're also my spiritual practices,
the methods of self care. And so I do sincerely pinch myself on
a pretty regular basis that the things that I really love doing it to be
my work. That's cool, that's awesome. Well, I was going to
read just a short blurb from near the beginning of the book. Please,
okay, Well, let's let's just dive into it. This is an excerpt
from Queering the American Dream. And there's a link in the show notes to
be able to order this book. And I'll repeat this at the end in
case anyone was like, where do I get that? Again? You have
to copy and paste the link into a browser window. Unfortunately, our podcast
host doesn't let you just click it just a little fyi there. People have
been like, your link is not clickable, Like, I know, that's
unfortunate, But this excerpt says how in the hell did we get here?
It should be just a travel memoir, not a eulogy. For eighteen months,
my wife, Toddler, and I roamed the country as my brother's addiction
morphed into a bigger and bigger beast. In this meandering travelation, nice word
turned a funeral narrative. The lives, legends and legacies of the revolutionary holy
women I paint and write about were and continue to be my guides. They
are how I survived this, and I believe they can help you survive and
thrive too, no matter your grief or loss. So there's a lot going
on in that statement. You were traveling. You were traveling around the world
at that point, around the country, around the culture and the United States.
Okay, and what was going on with your brother? So, my
brother or my late brother he's since deceased, was an addict for a good
portion of his life, and at this point in time, he was addicted
to duster, which a lot of people aren't familiar with. It's when you
inhale computer duster. Yeah, anytime you do it, it's called sudden sniffing
syndrome. It can just cut off the connection between your brain and your body
and kill you anytime. So each time you do it is like a game
of Russian roulette. And at the beginning of our travels, we thought that
he was just struggling with something, but we didn't know what. And a
midway through our full time travel, we learned what it was and had never
heard of that, and we're trying to get him into rehab. He didn't
want to go to a faith based rehab, and all of the ones that
our family could afford are faith based and rooted in twelve step programs. Also
a lot of rehabs, when you go in, you have to test positive
or some kind of a drug or alcohol, and he can't because computer duster
doesn't make you test for anything, because it's not made to be a drug,
right, And so getting him treatment was incredibly challenging, and so we
left on this adventure the day the Supreme Court ruled our marriage legal, and
for eighteen months, the intent was discernment, traversing the American landscape to see
where we might end up and plant roots to form this retreat center. But
along the way, because of my brother's addiction, it kind of enveloped what
we were experiencing, and so it was impossible for me not to experience the
world and these travels and even these revolutionary women that were traveling alongside of me
in the forms of paintings, to not experience them through the lens of my
brother's addiction and then subsequent death from that addiction, and throughout it all he
ended up spending upwards of twenty thousand dollars on computer duster and essentially, you
know, dusted himself to death. Wow. Sorry, that's tragic. It
is he died when he was only thirty three years old and had experienced a
hell of a lot of trauma before that, and had a family who loved
him, and we did everything that we could. But loving an addict is
really really hard because of someone, especially someone who does not want to get
help or whose addiction prevents them from trying to get help. And so it
breaks my heart still. It's almost five years ago now that he died,
and it breaks my heart, especially for my mother. Absolutely. The book
opens with me officiating his funeral. Wow, you officiated his funeral. That
must have been not easy. No, it was not easy at all.
And I'm very fortunate that I had a lot of clergy colleagues and others who
offered to officiate and who offered to help. But the thing is is I
didn't trust anyone else with I didn't want addiction to be the only memory of
him. He was the first full person, right, and I didn't trust
anyone else with the rituals and lamentations and words for honoring someone like him,
and it ended up being a very small family affair for a host of reasons.
But yes, that's how the book opens and then goes back in time
to when the Journey Journey began, and at the very beginning there, we
didn't really know anything was going on with him, So it was just kind
of my wife and my toddler and me, and we're footloose and fancy free,
you know, kind of like gallivanting through the woods in rural Vermont.
Yeah, let's take another quick break and a more booze. We'll wrap this
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So this book is a memoir essentially. What inspired you to write a memoir?
Well, I've always loved travel memoirs. That has been my kind of
like armchair travel, my go to when I want to read something that's just
for fun, because as an academic, so often i'm reading for research and
not just reading for fun. So there was that piece of things, and
that's what I thought from the outset. But then as my brother's addiction got
worse and worse, and then as he died, I wanted to honor him,
and I wanted to provide hope for other people who are struggling with addiction,
to see that there are ways out. And then alongside that, because
you've got my story. But then in each phase along the way, there
are these different revolutionary women from history and myth whose stories that I share,
and so part of it is also to give an even bigger platform and to
shout their stories from the rooftops and say, it's not just my family who
queered the American dream, but they are all of these amazing I keep using
the word revolutionary, but that's the best word for them, revolutionary women who
have queered this dream throughout history. And if we follow in their footsteps,
if we heed their wisdom, then we can kind of, as we talked
about at the beginning, go back to making this dream expansive enough for all
people. And how did each of the women that you chose to be part
of this story play into it? Like how did you select them, and
how are they pivotal to different parts of this book. It's really interesting because
I've painted or created assemblage art for about one hundred and fifty women from history
and mythology, and about one hundred and twenty one twenty one hundred and thirty
or so of those are sold in homes and galleries throughout the world. But
at the time that we were leaving, I think I had about one hundred
in the collection and there were only about sixteen left, and I had a
couple shows along the way as we were traveling. So what I did was
I packed up those actual paintings so the paintings of the women in this giant
green tuppaware container and it was stored in the storage compartment of our pop up
camper traveling all over and then we had these really wild experiences, like in
rural Vermont where the binge stored and I randomly, as a campground host,
meet a couple who loves folk art and we call my iconography folk feminist iconography,
and so they're going on and on about how they love it, and
I say, well, I'm I'm actually a folk artist, and looking at
images on my phone wasn't enough for them. So we end up hauling out
the green tupaware beIN and like hanging a pop up show on the birch trees,
and they end up purchasing some of the pieces and we hiked them down
to their camps and just kind of wild stories like that. And then some
of them were the roles of the women, like Polly Murray, for example,
who was the first African American woman ordained as an episcopal priest. But
before that she was a civil rights attorney who coined the phrase Jane Crowe to
acknowledge the sexism that accompanied racism at Jim Crow Laws she also didn't have the
language for it at that time, but was queer and was likely gender nonconforming
or transgender. So here she is this woman who's criminated against for her race,
her gender, her gender identity, and her sexuality, right and all
of these profound rays who writes a book that Thurgood Marshall called the Bible of
the civil rights movement. And I am teaching about her and writing about her
and showing her painting when I'm in rural Virginia and seeing Confederate flags flying everywhere
that are hampering the otherwise gorgeous like autumnal glory from the gorgeous mountains and trees.
And so there's just different women who kind of come to the forefront of
the travels because of things that were happening in the world at the time,
or because of the location of where we were traveling. Wow. Yeah,
So it sounds like the locations corresponded to the women's stories that you are also
painting about and then writing. Absolutely, that's cool. So what is the
sort of takeaway that you would like readers to know when they read the book?
What are they going to get out of it? Potentially? My hope
is that they'll leave both inspired and empowered and perhaps more than that, galvanized,
like to go forward and queer their own dream and subvert and dismantle all
of these dreams that are handed to us as what the status quo is,
the way that we have to live and have to be, and say,
you know, that's not working for me, and that's not working for most
people. Actually, that it's these are dreams and status quo that disenfranchise the
marginalized and erase the voices of so many who deserve to be heard. And
so to reimagine, to invoke radical imagination of what it means to live and
be and embody your dream in the world. Yeah, I guess that's my
next question for you. What does queering the American dream mean to you personally?
That's a really great question. I would say that it means for my
family in particular, that the way that we were living and the dreams that
were kind of passed down to us as the way that we need to be,
the family living in a big house with the white picket fence and you
know, two point five children and all of that. That that's designed by
a system and a structure that's rooted in white supremacist sis, heteropatriarchy, to
throw the big woke words out there, and that it's not a system that
works for my family and that works for most people, and so we want
to dismantle it and reimagine something better, to reimagine a better world, and
to say that that world isn't just off there yonder by and by, but
here now on earth, in the present, for us and for the people
that we care about, and for indeed all people. That's great. And
one percent of the proceeds from book sales go to support your foundation. That's
the Tea Home Center. Am I saying that correctly? Tay Home? Okay,
Tay Home. So what's interesting is that all of the money goes to
two different charities. One is are my publisher, Parsons Porch. They are
a nonprofit publishing house whose motto is books to bread, and so everything that
goes to them goes to help feed hungry families. They're in Cleveland, Tennessee,
so in that area. And then all of my author royalties that typically
go to the author go directly to the Tahome Center to help empower marginalized women
by teaching about these revolutionary women through art writing, and special events. That's
amazing, cool, thank you, Yeah, yeah, tell us more about
that center. How does that work? Sure? So it started off well,
the work of the center with these revolutionary women in art and in writing
has been going on for well over a decade with me, but we didn't
become an official nonprofit until about five years ago on Hawaii Island, and then
it moved here with us and we were first incorporated as the Holy Women Icons
Project, And after a while we realized we aren't just a project, We're
a center. And also that name is quite a mouthful, and so we
ended up that we are the to Home Center, which means deeper depth,
so a center for deep spirituality and a place where marginalized women can come to
find a breath for self care, where people can come to learn more about
social justice issues, and then where we lift up these stories of revolutionary women
from history and myth. That's really our primary goal, and that's both in
painting and in writing. And then those modalities come out in the retreats that
we lead, the courses that we teach, workshops and things like that.
How do people find out more if they want to come to a retreat,
is that something that's open to anyone really or absolutely yes, So they could
check out our website that's home Center, that's t h O M Center so
C E n t R dot org org and check out what we're doing.
They can also follow us at the to home Center on Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter. We're kind of on all of them. I still haven't learned TikTok,
but maybe one day we keep trying too and it escapes us. One
of these days we'll get it, and then we'll help you get it too.
Might be perfect perfect. I hope that my young in turn was gonna
help me figure that out, but she's one of the rare gen zs who's
like, I don't get it either one exactly. So any of those platforms,
we also have an email list that they can sign up on through to
homecenter dot org, and that's also where they can go and purchase the book,
or anywhere books are sold actually is a great place to to get it,
or even at your local library. If you don't have the funds to
buy it, you can ask libraries to order it for you, and most
of the time they will no nice. That's why I say, even if
you can buy it, go in there and tell your library to order it.
So that's there for others. Absolutely, we did this interview with some
book people. There's a better word to that. Now. These are the
people who collect them and put them in packs. Flight, Oh, curators,
curators, that's Oh, it was called our shelves. Our shelves.
Yeah, it's through kid books. They curate diverse kids books. Yeah,
yeah, so how cool. Yeah, because they're so hard to find.
And the issue is they're hard to find because no one requests them. It
libraries, well, no one requests them because they don't know they exist,
because they're not in the library. So it's this cycle of like they're out
there, but no the libraries will order because nobody requests them. No one
requests them because they don't know they exist. So that was why I'm saying,
go into your library regardless and say, hey, can you get this
book so it can start to be publicly available there. That was my Absolutely,
that was her little spiel. I love it. I love that spiel.
Thank you, thank you. What have we left out? What else
would you like our listeners to know? To be honest, I feel like
we have covered a whole lot a lot together. I definitely want people to
know that the work of the home Center can't happen in a vacuum. It
can't just be me doing it. It has to be this amazing community,
the community that I call the Subversive Sisterhood of Saints I love around the world,
who you know, who lives up these stories together, and so the
more folks get involved, the better. So I imagine there's a way to
donate right on your website. Absolutely, absolutely, We're always happy for donations.
And where do the retreats happen right now? Since we moved from Hawaii,
our most recent retreat, which was a pilot retreat called Queering the Dream,
happens here in the Saint Pete, Florida area, which was recently ranked
for the second year in Ago as the top beach in the United States.
So that's a lovely place to holiday. Yeah, so that's not that far
or drive for us. We did that last year. I'm you know,
it's away. It is quite the drive. I mean, it's pretty,
but that's pretty far. Okay, Well, the Tampa International Airport is only
thirty minutes away. There you go a quick ride, and so we offer
those here and then we also offer some online retreats, including some free ones.
On the website, there's access to a free seven day online self care
retreat, just that we've been offering throughout the pandemic because I don't know about
you, but I think we all need some serious self care right now,
especially that kind of like radical self care for collective good. Yes, so
we have those available as well. That's great. Well, gosh, Angela,
thank you so much. This has really been a very very interesting conversation.
We really appreciate you coming on the show. Mary. You didn't tell
me she was so awesome. Oh okay, I god, no idea.
I'm like, oh no, another She's like when she say you unwrap,
you find that out after you unwrapping. That's so nice. Good blushing over
here. Good thing. This is a podcast and not a video. We'll
have been amazing and hilarious. You're fantastic, No, you're fantastic, nose
go on, stop. Well, our guest today has been the lovely and
vivacious doctor, Reverend Doctor, Angela Yarbour. You got to get those things
in the order, I think, Reverend Doctor. And the book is Queering
the American Dream. It's available now. Check the show notes for the link
to order yours or I guess your local bookstore. Perfect, don't forget to
visit Tayhomecenter dot org and throw some support. That's right, and get some
support from them as well. Yeah, there we go, perfect, there
you go. Thank you so much, Angela for being on the show today.
We'll really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Well,
that was amazing. Yeah, what a cool person. I really enjoyed that
coming. She might be my new best friend. She doesn't know this yet,
but I'm about to call her. Are you guys are going to go
brunch or something? Yes? Okay, yeah, Well we're gonna skip over
patrons this week. Thanks to everyone for their support on Patreon and supercast.
If you would like to give a support, please visit Latter day Lesbian dot
org slash support. We really really appreciate it. And while we're feeling appreciative,
why don't we thank Dan from Extension Audio for leaving it in for sure.
Thanks for leaving in Dan, Yep, thanks so much. And remember
everybody please sear clear of cults because they're no joke, no joke at all.
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