The Black Sheep of the family talks about finding meaning in a meaningless world

By JD Goulet

30 July 2023

I got a phone call from my mom yesterday.

“So you’re doing stand-up comedy now?” she said, a note of scandal in her tone.

“Huh?!” I responded, having a pretty good idea of where this conversation was going.

“Your sister said she saw a video online of you doing comedy about Christianity… and masturbating!” she said, the note rising to a sharp pitch.

“Oh, that,” I responded casually. “That was years ago, and it wasn’t stand-up comedy. It was an open mic night.”

“Well, I don’t want that on my Facebook where people can see it,” she scolded. “Aren’t you worried no one will ever hire you when you put that stuff out there?!”

“It’s not on your Facebook, mom, it’s on mine,” I said, exasperated. “And it’s not even a public post. And if someone has a problem with who I am, I don’t want anything to do with them.”

And that is how I decided to go even more public with the video of my “sermon” delivered at an open mic night that has my family members’¹ knickers in knots. It’s based on an actual sermon I delivered to a Unitarian Universalist audience in their church years earlier, which to my knowledge was not recorded.

For those of you who are uninclined or presently unable to watch the video (which is captioned), the transcript is below.

Transcript

Back when I lived in Washington, I was a founder and president of an atheist nonprofit organization, and I got asked once if I would give a sermon at the local Unitarian Universalist Church and my first thought was, “I’m an atheist. Why would you ask me to speak in a church?” I told a few people, “Hey, I’m giving a sermon,” and they would laugh with me. “Jennifer,² our own firebrand atheist, giving a sermon in a church...” and they'd shake their heads.

So, when asked what topic I’d talk about, I had no idea at the time. So, I figured I’d just talk about the organization I ran, a subject I was obviously very familiar with, but when I stopped procrastinating and sat down to write the sermon, I realized I had another message waiting inside of me. And tonight, I decided to share a revised piece of my sermon with all of you.

Now I haven’t been in a church since I was a young teen. Most of my church memories are of the hellfire and damnation puppet shows put on in Sunday School. I have little memory of going to the grownups’ services as a teen, likely because I wasn’t paying any attention to them. I was always just waiting for it to be over so we could go get brunch.

I felt ill prepared for writing and delivering a sermon, but after doing a bit of researching and a lot of procrastinating, I figured out that when delivering a sermon to a bunch of Unitarian Universalists, it was a pretty safe bet I could have some fun with them, while also delivering a serious message.

I opened up my sermon with this poem by Louisa May Alcott, called “My Kingdom.”

A little kingdom I possess

where thoughts and feelings dwell,

And very hard I find the task

of governing it well;

For passion tempts and troubles me,

A wayward will misleads,

And selfishness its shadow casts

On all my words and deeds.

How can I learn to rule myself,

to be the child I should,

Honest and brave, nor ever tire

Of trying to be good?

How can I keep a sunny soul

To shine along life's way?

How can I tune my little heart

To sweetly sing all day?

Dear Father, help me with the love

that casteth out my fear;

Teach me to lean on thee, and feel

That thou art very near,

That no temptation is unseen

No childish grief too small,

Since thou, with patience infinite,

Doth soothe and comfort all.

I do not ask for any crown

But that which all may win

Nor seek to conquer any world

Except the one within.

Be thou my guide until I find,

Led by a tender hand,

Thy happy kingdom in myself

And dare to take command.

Alcott, who is one of my favorite historical figures from her era, was born in 1832 to Transcendentalist parents. Described as a wild child and a tomboy, she was raised among other great writers and poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. She had to start working as a young woman to help support her family. She became a staunch abolitionist and feminist and an author of prose and poetry that was often fiery in nature. She wrote about self-reliance and finding strength within herself, rather than relying on an external God or religious doctrine to define and guide her.

She wrote “My Kingdom” when she was just 13 years old, about the same age I was when I started to seriously question everything I’d been raised to believe and began down the path of separation and eventual freedom from religious belief.

Now, my childhood was steeped in Protestant Evangelical religious beliefs and activities. I don’t have many memories beyond the visual snippets of hellfire and damnation puppet shows and other frightening external and internal experiences. I do recall the thought processes that generally took place when I was exposed to people around me speaking in tongues and passionately rocking their bodies with hands thrown in the air. I was taught that this was the Holy Spirit moving in them.

I didn’t feel it. I was torn between not wanting to outwardly show that I wasn’t receiving the Holy Spirit and the embarrassment of going through the motions, trying to fake it so no one would know that He didn’t speak to me. Sometimes I could bring myself to put my hands in the air and close my eyes, but I could never bring myself to try the speaking in tongues thing. It simply felt too ridiculous to fake that.

If I needed God to be good and to have a sense of purpose, as I’d been raised to believe, why wasn’t He speaking to me? In my quest to nudge Him to speak up, sometimes I wondered, “Was that Him, or was that just my own thoughts? How can anyone tell the difference?” When I asked adults about it, I was told, “When He speaks to you, you’ll know.”

I remember reading the same sentiment in a book about sexuality as an adult. How will I know if I have an orgasm? Was that an orgasm? Yeah, I gave this in my sermon in church! The book said, when you have one, you’ll know. In the meanwhile, I figured I’d just rock my body and throw my hands in the air. It would still be too awkward to speak in tongues though, I decided.

When I did finally have one, you better believe I knew. I knew the way I never knew whether God was speaking to me. I was alone, with only one hand in the air, when it happened. But unlike being alone as a child seeking the voice of god, I was filled with joy and pleasure.

Maybe the moment of my first orgasm is when I truly became an atheist. It took me about 2 more years to use the word atheist to describe myself, but I think I realized on some level in the moment of long-awaited ecstasy that no one was coming to save me, which meant I’d have to save myself. Like Louisa May Alcott, I had to find strength from within and become self reliant. In the absence of God (and the presence of orgasms) I learned to rely on my own ability to find happiness, fulfillment, and peace.³

Some people think that outside of the framework of religion atheists can’t experience awe or have “spiritual” experiences. I can assure you that many of our encounters share the same physical and psychological sensations some consider spiritual only in the context of belief in a higher power.

To the Transcendentalists, God displayed His presence in every aspect of the natural world. No revelations were needed—no wisdom from a theological authority. “The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain,” Ralph Waldo Emerson scolded.

Likewise, my spiritual experiences are found in the hues of purple and orange in an Eastern Washington sunset… in the tranquility of the Milky Way viewed from the foot of the Matterhorn in the Oregon Alps... in the exhilaration of dancing to music I can feel… in the pride of watching my children grow into amazing beings who are improving the world in their own unique ways… and in the warm embrace of my girlfriend and the ecstasy of our union. The vastness of time and space and how incredible it is that I get to exist in this place, in this moment, to witness it with all my evolved senses, fills me with amazement whenever I pause to think on it. I don’t need to believe in a god to feel a part of the blowing clover and falling rain.

I don’t need religion to enjoy a sense of purpose or to find fulfillment. Losing religion allowed me a grander perspective by which I could care more deeply about all of humanity and the global stage on which we act to survive and thrive, or to wither and die. I am compelled to set people free from their bonds, through social action and political pressure, whether they are the bonds of religion, of poverty, of oppression, or any other hurdle to finding the happiness, fulfillment, and peace that is the natural right of each one of us. We are our own gods and goddesses. No one can save us but us.

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JD Goulet (they/she) is an American-born former corporate writer/editor & learning product designer, political leader, Planned Parenthood board member, and secular movement leader. Throughout her career, she has been an educator and champion for inclusion and wellbeing, especially at the intersection of disability, neurodiversity, sexuality, gender, and class. Their bylines appear in Harvard Business Review, Tumbleweird Magazine, Solarpunk Stories, and various regional publications. She lives in Portugal with her wife and two dogs.

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Footnotes

1. At least I have one family member who has been my champion in spite of being the family Queerdo. Shout out to my Dad. I love you! (And I love you, too, Mom. Try to relax. You’ll live longer.) ↩

2. This was before I’d adopted the name JD, obviously. ↩

3. One thing I’d change about the sermon if I were to deliver it again today would be to emphasize that we do not have to face our struggles alone. We are stronger together. Never forget it. ↩