What if the story you were given was a lie?
cultivated is what you write
when the silence stops working
Essays.
Performances.
Gut-level truths—for anyone who’s left something big behind.
featured
.02
Do you want to go to heaven when you die?
Do you want to go to heaven when you die?
That’s the question my dad asked when he walked me to school that day when I was about ten. I solemnly assured him that of course I did, even though I knew this to be a lie. If heaven was anything like the members of the 2x2s described it, I was certain.
I preferred hell.
Continue reading on Substack.
.05
Performing friendship
As I aged I had no clue how to perform friendship, and learned—from books and magazines and far too many mistakes—how to be and how not to be a friend.
I presumed once I was all grown-up, I’d understand the nuances I’d often misinterpreted.
I’d settle into the deep, protected, and protective friendships I saw others enjoy.
I settled instead onto the peripheries of friendship, and whether this was because it was where I belonged, or because I put myself there, it wasn’t where I wanted to be.
Continue reading on Substack.
.09 performing faith
Public speaking is terrifying enough without eternal salvation hanging delicately in the balance. While my peers worried about presenting their science projects, I worried about presenting my soul. “Professing" – a gentle euphemism for publicly declaring absolute belief in rigid doctrines – was the spiritual equivalent of performing Shakespeare with no rehearsals, except Shakespeare merely kills his characters; my God might actually send me to hell.
.11
the bunkhouse and the fantasy
If you've never spent a summer week sleeping in a converted livestock barn among strangers, consider yourself lucky — and frankly, a bit dull.
Conventions were the high holy days of the 2x2s: gatherings of the faithful that combined the austerity of a monastery with the charm of a rural county fair.
Minus the entertainment.
Think endless sermons, scratchy blankets, and an overwhelming abundance of grey.
Heaven, apparently, had terrible amenities.