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Poetry as Resistance After Bad Theology | Marla Taviano · Follow the Leighder

• Leigh/@followtheleighder: Haddy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leader. I'm your host, Lee Larson, and I am so excited to bring to y'all an author today, Marla Taviano. Welcome to the studio, Marla. Marla Taviano, Author: Thank you, Lee. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Y'all check this out. This is I found Marlo's work actually on Instagram, scrolling, and I loved her work talking about deconstruction, talking about her journey. She has written a number of books, Unbelieve, Jaded, and whole. they're a trilogy of deconstruction poetry, beautifully worded. it incorporates theology, obviously, but With the very human experience of lived practical human experience theology. And I I really value the way you weave, you have a power in a way with words. So, Marla, welcome to the studio. Again, folks, cannot wait to dive into this. Marla, talk about, let's just talk about before we get into faith, poetry, writing. Was that something you did as a child? What how did you get into to finding that language? Marla Taviano, Author: Okay, I love that you ask that because I did write poetry as a kid and I have poems from when I was six, seven, and eight in my handwriting in pencil, like on this little notepad. so I'm 50 now, so this is like an antique that I have for this. But then I did not really write poetry again until I was about 45. So I'm not saying I never wrote a poem, but maybe for a school assignment or something. But I went a really long time with without writing poetry. I did write prose. I've always loved to write. I've always loved to read. That's been my thing. I went to college to to be a nurse, actually. The reason I did that is because there was a scholarship available for for nurses, my guidance counselor told me about. Realized that I was squeamish at the sight of blood a couple months into that, and changed my major to elementary education. If I would have known that writer could be a job and a career, I didn't think that it could be, I would have gone down that path. I lasted about two and a half years as a teacher, stayed home with my kids and have been writing and editing ever since. So I had clues along the way. Like my high school English teacher, my professors had me grading papers and essays and writing curriculum for them. And that's always just been a love of mine, and I don't know if it came naturally because of all the reading I did, but I've I've always loved it. Poetry came into my life at a really wild time for me. I was a super good Christian girl for many, many decades. And then things started to unravel and we can we can get into that. But in 2020 we moved back from Cambodia. We'd lived in Cambodia for five years. Moved back to the States in March of 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. And in September of 2020, my husband left unexpectedly. Said he wanted a divorce. He left. I have not seen him since. And found out that he had been cheating on me for four of the five years that we lived in Cambodia. I have been trying to write my story about my faith deconstruction for it, it was going on a couple of years, and I just could not get it to. to stay like it I every time I would write something, I would learn something new or something would change. And I couldn't even bear to read what I had just written. And I thought I don't know how to do this. And that perfectionist in me, that that person who always had to have the right answer and had to have proof and had to be able to back it up, I felt like I still needed that to give proof as to why I was changing these beliefs and that it wasn't because I wanted to sin. It wasn't because I wanted to have sex with someone I wasn't married to. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Marla Taviano, Author: It wasn't any of those things. It was I truly genuinely wanted to love people like I thought I'd been doing all along. And that love for people was starting to butt up against the rules of my Christianity. And so a lot of the different things happened. But then in 2021, and people asked me over the past few years, like, how did you get into poetry? And I couldn't, I could not tell them. I couldn't give them an answer. And last year I was rereading a book. I write in all my books, like just everywhere, all over the pages. And I had read a book called Everything Is Spiritual by Rob Bell. And in the spring of 2021, I wrote in the margin of that book. That's it. I'm turning this deconstruction memoir into poetry. Like something he wrote must have just sparked that. I decided to do it. So I took all my big, big flowing long words and I Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. yeah. Marla Taviano, Author: I broke it up. Like my shirt, I'm gonna see if I can, I can't remember what it says, and I don't know if I can read it. It says something anyone can be a poet if you type in lowercase and add enough line bur aches. And it's so it's like people will I've just got someone, I just blocked someone on Instagram earlier this week because they said you can't just take a sentence and break it up into lines and then call it a poem. And I was like, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm. Uh-huh. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah, I can. I'm gonna block you. And so I I realized over time there's so many things that were conspiring against this long form writing I was trying to do. People's attention spans, my attention span, my constant evolution and things shifting. And so yeah, breaking it up into smaller chunks. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Watch me. Marla Taviano, Author: And then kind of telling myself, you don't have to explain all this. You don't have to give this airtight defense for why you're changing your mind. And so poetry became this active resistance for me. and it's been that ever since. And now I'm kind of obsessed and I can't stop. And it's really accessible to other people because I did not go to school for this, I don't follow all the rules. I'm really just saying this is what's on my heart, and I'm putting it in this short form, and it's just something I I say you can't argue with the poem. I've had some people recently come into my comments with big full-blown paragraph arguments against my 12-word poem. And so, like theoretically, you you can't argue with the poem because I'm not this is not a dissertation. I'm not citing all these sources, I'm just saying some things that I think and feel. And believe or don't believe. And the thing that makes it all worth it to me, besides the fact that I love doing it, is the response that I get. The the people telling me, like you, you commented before we started that you've seen people in my comments say, This is, this is healing something in me, or this really matters to me, or thank you for saying that, or you're making me cry. That's that's what I was born for. I've always Been born for that. I was just doing it in a different way. I was trying to save people. yeah. So I'm the same me. I'm just all the way me. Like I get to be all the way me now on the other side of honestly, evangelical Christianity and my marriage. Both of those, I have poems about this, how both of those things tried to make me smaller and less of who I was. And on the other side, I'm freer, more whole. Leigh/@followtheleighder: huh. Marla Taviano, Author: More me and it's it is genuinely amazing. Like some days I will wake up and think, my God, I can't, I cannot believe that I get to to be me and get to be free and help other people be free and be whole. And I'm always quick to tell people, because I've had a lot of people tell me, well, you hate God, you hate church, you hate Christians. I don't. I do not, I mean, I can't convince them of that probably, but I do not hate God. I do not hate church. I do not hate Christians. I have friends who are pastors. for me these days, it's it's not me being concerned about what you believe. As long as your beliefs aren't harming other people, I want everyone to believe whatever they want to believe. it's just the harming of others that is what caused me to say, you know what, I'm not gonna try to keep. fitness into this box. I'm just gonna back away. Like that, my book Unbelieve, the title poem Unbelieve says if becoming a heretic is what I have to do to love people fully and completely, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. And that's kind of what I did. I gave that up, that label of Christian, so that I could love people. Some people can do both. And I, it was wearing me out. So I chose, I chose them over my faith system that I Leigh/@followtheleighder: Amen. Marla Taviano, Author: clung to for forty some years. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That is so beautiful and and so powerful. First of all, we covered a lot in that bit, so I I I wanna I love Rob Bell. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah, you asked one question. Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Fully the expectation. Love Rob Bell. Rob Bell is, I mean, I and it's again, those line breaks, they they change the way the message is received. I don't like when you said, I don't know how it can like I've had so many experiences with Rob Bell where I was like, How did that trigger that? But I and but it's I think it's in the line breaks. It makes you think about what he's saying more. and and again, and in the way you Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: post online too as well. Like your sentences make you have to sit with that word for a little bit, if being a heretic is what I have to do. Like it's like it's just I I love that. And especially in light of AI and and being human and people needing poetry. And I found that in the last kind of month or so, like wanting to as much as like continue advocating and using my platform. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: for for all the good things was taking a note from your book and just being more human i because we need it. Like that is not only because that's what all like in light of AI, like it it's really important for us to for folks to continue sharing the human parts of us. And I was thinking about your comment on poetry, how you didn't pick it up until you were forty five and Marla Taviano, Author: Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I remember how it was just a response to the pain you were going through. And that was kind of what started yesterday or a few days ago. I posted about going through a breakup with this military guy I was in love with in my early twenties and I took myself to Alaska in hopes that the grizzly bears would take me out of my misery, which is a very twenty two year old girl thing to do. I was like, just if you couldn't kill me in a bear's foot, just what and my mom was like, Okay, just keep ha Marla Taviano, Author: yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Check in with me. Like whatever. Mothers of strong daughters. I'm so sorry. But but that that is I I I had been doing poetry too, but that's what got me back into it was was deep pain because what else could I do with all of it? Like there was nowhere to take it, nowhere to put it, and and it was really cool. And 'cause there's parts of that poetry that I Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah, yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: probably couldn't access or or I couldn't now. Like I can't access that pain now. and so looking at it, it's really profound and I'm glad that I'm not glad that you went through pain. I'm just glad that that you found your voice through that medium and are now sharing it with so many people. And it's it's fun. Like poetry and word play. Like I like it's fun. And I'm glad that like you said, you get to just do that. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Th you that's your job now. It's your world. Marla Taviano, Author: It is so much fun. It's it's not my job. I wish it was my job. Like I wish that I was making enough money to live on just by writing some poems and making some art. But I do for my job, I do get to write and edit. It's just for other people. And my stuff is more in my my free time. but speaking of fun, so in in 2023. So my first book of poetry came out in in 2021. And then I self-published it. And then I'm I met a hybrid publisher. Lake Drive Books. They were the the guy that started Lake Drive books, David Morris, he was on this IG Live. I th no, I was on an IG Live with with one of my friends. he's also a literary agent. He's represented my friend. He saw me. Long story short, I was getting ready to self-publish the second book in the trilogy. It was gonna just be two books, and then I realized how angry I was. I needed like an angry middle book instead of just here's how it started, here's the happy ending. yeah, I'm still really pissed. So I was getting ready to publish that, and he said, I would love to work with you on this. So we actually I published that second one through Lake Drive books, and then I went back and republished my first one through Lake Drive and then the third one in the trilogy. So it's Unbelieve, Jaded, and then Whole. anyway, that was that. But in 2023, I had a messed up copy of one of my old editions of Unbelieve before I republished it. And I was doing a craft day with my nieces. I think they were maybe six and eight at the time. I I love to make things with my hands. I've always done that, but I'm not very artistic. Like all of my kids can draw really, really well, especially the oldest one. She's gonna be a tattoo artist. Like she's made that her her career. I can't draw. what I can do is cut things out and glue them on things. So I cut out my poems and glued them on. illustrations that I cut out of an old kid's book, Frog and Toad. And Frog and Toad have all these expressions and they're doing all these things and they're kind of angsty. And it really fit some of my poems. And then I just put it online, like I just shared it. And people started going like nuts about this. Cause it's just like a little meme, but I did it with my hands. And then I bought a laminator, then I started looking for kids' books at the thrift store. And now I have like hundreds and hundreds of I I do poem art. Leigh/@followtheleighder: huh. Yes. Mm-hmm. Marla Taviano, Author: pretty much every single evening. and then I give it away. I wasn't selling it because I didn't know what the rules were about other people's illustrations. so I'd be like, I'll give you this for a donation to my art supplies fund. And then a lawyer recently just told me, you can sell these, it's fine. So we'll see. But the whole idea of these like these kids' picture books and especially some, I do a lot of Bible story books, the Jesus Storybook Bible. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So cool. Mm-hmm. Marla Taviano, Author: Old like 1950s white Jesus. I've got him with some of my poems. Veggie Tales has been really fun for people lately because I'm pulling like things from your Christian childhood, but then putting these new poems on them or making Bob and Larry like it's I'll put gay agenda with Bob and Larry, or they'll be saying the F word or whatever it is, like just all of this like juxtaposition things that Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. That was fun. Marla Taviano, Author: That people see visually and then they read the words and it does something to their heart. I can't explain it. Last night I was at this poetry event with two of my friends at what's called the Harriet Hancock Center here in Columbia, South Carolina, and it's a queer drop-in center. they do amazing things here. Like the queer people in South Carolina are like in the fight of their lives right now. it's so much going on with trans kids and just all kinds of stuff. But we did this night last night for an hour and a half. And the three of us are all poets and we had these different stations, but mine was poem art. And I had like a 16-year-old girl, a woman who was probably in her 60s, a couple of people who women who had been married to men and then came out as lesbians. And we're just sitting here cutting up my poems, like cutting. I have books where you can actually just cut my poems out. And then they're finding kids' book illustrations and they're gluing them and we're laminating them. Two of the women sent me like five, six, seven photos of poet poem art that they made when they went home last night that they were so excited to do. And it's so simple. I can't, I cannot really get over it. Like how simple and easy and fun it is, and yet it hits somewhere really deep in so many ways. I I don't know how to explain it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Marla Taviano, Author: even though I am usually pretty good with words, I can't really I can't really explain what's going on. I just know that art can heal. And I know that art is really, really important. And I just I wanna do it every day for the rest of my life. And I hope that I have at least fifty more years to live. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's it well it is. And that's it's the juxtaposition. And I love the Veggie Tales run. I think you also I saw your frog and toad. I think you've done another one. Did you do Franklin? Did I ever see the turtle Franklin? Yeah. Yep. yeah. So I I've been and it's and like you said, I think I've shared a few of them too to my story because they are really powerful to see very mature words on something childish. child you know. Marla Taviano, Author: I yep, I've done Franklin. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Childlike. I don't know. The child is but you know what I mean. But the Marla Taviano, Author: Well, and it's it's funny too, because I wrote a little book called Mouth and it's all about people who are upset with me cussing now. and I was just explaining that I don't think a four letter word is as harmful as, you know, pedophiles and racism and white supremacy and poverty and all this. but this one woman sent me this just this big long email, and I broke her email up. I got like 10 poems out of her email. But it was she kept saying Adult language, but then she kept also saying how childish I was being. I was being so childish using this adult language, being so childish. I was like, that is so weird that you are calling me. She even called she compared me to a toddler. And I was like, wow, I'm a toddler, like for using this adult language. Anyway, it was just funny to me that hoops that people try to jump through to defend their beliefs, the way they're harming people. And I'm why not just joke about it and make fun of it? Because I've been hurt a lot by it. I have my sister disowned me, all kinds of stuff. But it's I I I do love finding finding the humor in in everything that's that's going on and things that have happened in my life. Leigh/@followtheleighder: what you're talking about too is that that projection. Like so I went through something recently where one of my videos got dragged and I was watching the arguments they were making in the drag and the same thing you're talking about. We start picking you're like looking at it and you're like, This has nothing to do with me. Like you're like that we're not you missed you missed it. Like you you saw, you reacted, you responded. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: But there was a whole gap there. And it was weird because I was rattled, because it doesn't feel good to ever have someone come at you, drag you. That that is rattling. But it was weird to also like I was talking to someone else. I was like, I'm going to let this go. Like I know that this isn't worth stirring up. But like, this has absolutely nothing to do with me. Like, this is really them and and I guess that is the thing, is Marla Taviano, Author: right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: As poets or truthsayers or whatever you want to call us, like that is the thing is when we say something real, it's going to resonate and they're not gonna know why or how and now it's our fault. I there this is you. It's like it's it's not though, it's not me. I I just put it together. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've gotten I've gotten a lot less trolls when I started doing poetry just because that like I said, it's a little hard to argue. But then one of my Veggie Tales posts I I wouldn't say it went viral, it just got a lot more views than than I normally would get. And some guy who has Bible verses in his bio, I have a a s very, very, very short poem about how they tell me that it's not a religion, it's a relationship. Like, and but I think that's a hell of a lot of rules for a relationship. Like that's literally all the poem says. And this guy said to me, something along the lines of it your children, you're in a relationship with your children, but you have rules for your children. And so I came back and said that I really didn't have that many rules for my children. Cause they're like, you have to tell them to eat their vegetables and go to bed. And I said, my kids love vegetables more than I do, and I don't tell them when to go to bed. And then he comes back and I said, okay, listen, I I'm an adult though, actually. Like I don't need to be in a relationship with someone who's going to lay down all these rules for me. Like this acting like anyway, it was this whole thing. So I was, I went back and forth, back and forth. And then I realized, okay, I this is why I don't do this, because they are committed. He's committed to this way and of misunderstanding and not caring. And I wasn't going to defend my poetry. So let me just back off. now. But yeah, I don't know where these people come from because I I don't go around spending my days following people or commenting on things that I that I disagree with. Maybe I mean occasionally, but I'm just wondering what kind of life someone has where they want to spend all their time arguing with a stranger that they disagree with or think that they hate. It doesn't really seem very like like very fun. A fun way to spend my time. Leigh/@followtheleighder: No, and it's not a fun way and it's also just not worth it. Like you have, like we said, you have people that are responding as you're intending. That is your audience. Those people, it's not even and I mean your story, why it is so powerful is because of how common. I don't I I'm not trying to diminish it, but it's like you are telling things that lots of people are experiencing. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And this deconstruction is is very powerful and not with a lot of seeking language. Like it's it's literally just like how do you give words to what I'm experiencing? And and that's what you do so well. One of the things I have some of your poetry pulled up and it's it's so funny. Like I mean, even just like looking at this, how you have the gay agenda. Like laminated on top of care bears. Marla Taviano, Author: I mean, I was told, I don't know if you were, but I was told that the the there was a gay agenda. Like I don't exactly know what it was, except that they were out to destroy traditional marriage. They wanted like straight people to suffer. They hated God, they wanted to hurt God, you know, like all of these, they want to make everybody gay. This big gay agenda. And then the gay lifestyle is the other one I do. Leigh/@followtheleighder: but Marla Taviano, Author: Because that was another thing that was this gay lifestyle, as if, I don't know, they're just going around doing the most explicit sexual things they could ever think of, like 24-7. it's just laughable. So a lot of my my gay lifestyle are like Bert and Ernie, like sitting on the couch reading or doing dishes or or eating cookies, because Yeah, so it's a clap back to to the nonsense. It's just really nonsense. It's fear-mongering. It's it's hypocritical because a lot of it is people who have been divorced three times, cheated on their their spouses, but yet they want to make sure that that two men can't get married. yeah, I I don't know. But humor helps. Humor helps to kind of show Да і сначала, і цалсорис and hypocritical. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. And what you were saying about people coming on and saying like, you just hate Christians or God or you know, whatever that is, that is just them wanting to outright call you an enemy so that they don't have to engage with the nuance. Like if you're just an enemy and you hate everything I stand for, I don't have to listen to you. And because if I do, I might start questioning things. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah, uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. We don't want that. Yeah, that well, that's how it started with me. Rachel Held Evans back in like 2009 or 2010. She wrote this book called Evolving in Monkey Town. And we were like the same exact person where we were really smart and we went to a public school and it tried to evangelize all of our classmates and we knew the Bible front to back. Leigh/@followtheleighder: You might have a point, Marla. God forbid a woman has a point. Marla Taviano, Author: And then she was questioning things and starting to change her mind. And I thought, well, at first I was not going to read this book because no, thank you. But it was completely out of fear. And so I finally convinced myself, listen, read the book. And if you can show why she's wrong, that's gonna be great. And if you cannot show why she's wrong, or you start to agree with her, then you need to explore that because that's not being honest. just push pushing her away. And I read it. And it changed everything. And then I started reading other people, like progressive Christians. And then I moved into, wow, people who aren't Christians are writing good stuff. And then I discovered, all the books I'm reading are by white people. And so in 2015, I think it was, I started like intentionally reading books by black authors and then indigenous authors, Asian authors, Latinox. And so then I started the bookstagram. And Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Marla Taviano, Author: Like it changed my whole entire life. Like books have always been so powerful in my life, but for a long while there, they were just reinforcing everything that I already thought and already believed. And when I started branching out to what I was told was not truth, and like you said, written by the enemy, I slowly began to realize that I'd been lied to. Like I had been deceived and told that these people were the enemy just so I would stay in the lines, just so they could still control me. I even wrote books. We could talk about this if you want, but I wrote books back in the day. I have them here and you can see all the tabs in them because I've been rereading them and run. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Please. Marla Taviano, Author: From blushing bride to wedded wife, practical advice from a girlfriend, what marriage is really like. Is that all he thinks about? How to enjoy great sex with your husband? If you recall that my husband cheated on me while we were missionaries and then left. But what I'm writing about now, and this will not be poetry, and it's kind of giving me fits, is I was gonna write about my marriage and write about like how it fell apart and what happened. and so I get my books out because I wrote about marriage 20 years ago. So I have a lot of stuff I can like I have these stories in here I can write. Well, here is the shocking fact that I've come I've come to realize is that I was this pick me girl for the patriarchy. I was doing their dirty work. I was in here telling women, I don't care what your husband does or doesn't do or whatever, God wants us to be good, submissive wives. We need to love our husbands. We need to give them sex. We need to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I I did their work for them. I did it all. Like I went and spoke to groups of women and told them how to be good, submissive wives. And I am someone who is always kind of, I don't know how to describe myself. I always said I was a good Christian girl, but I was a good Christian girl who got in trouble with my mouth. Like I would get in trouble in Sunday school when I was eight. Because the teacher would say something and I was like, yeah, no, no, no, I don't think you're right. Like I would, I would push back. But I believed so deeply inside of me that the Bible was right and the God that I worshiped was true and real, that I had to somehow always keep forcing myself back into that submission. I was a natural leader in my family. My my ex-husband was not, but I knew God's plan was for him to lead and me not to. So I'm like just pushing him, pushing him, pushing him always anyway. So now I'm reading back through this and realizing, besides the fact that he's got some covert narcissism going on, and I'm not even quite sure that he ever actually loved me because I have letters from when we were dating, 162 letters from the late 90s. And I'm already seeing this toxic stuff in him, these red flags. In my journals, I have 65 journals. I'm reading through every word of those. I'm reading these books that I wrote. I'm reading these letters. I'm reading emails. And the red flags were there. Everything was there. He I was being used. He was using me. Pastors were using me. Christian organizations were using me. the patriarchy was using me. And I was letting them because I've I had. In my journal, use me God, use me God, use me God. How does God use you? He uses you through the people who want to use you. And that's I was just a part of that. So no longer is this book going to be just about look how terrible my husband was. It's going to be look what I did to enable this. And not just blaming myself. I would say I didn't know better. I kind of didn't know better. And I also kind of saw all the red flags and ignored them. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. Right. Marla Taviano, Author: And there was a cycle of abuse in my marriage where it's right, it's spelled out there in the journals. At the beginning of my journals, I didn't write down the things that he did that hurt me because the Bible said keep no record of wrongs. At some point, I ignored that verse and I started keeping a record of every single wrong. So he's hurting my feelings. I forgive him. We have sex. Everything's great, I say. And then Couple days later, same cycle. A couple days later, same cycle. 22 years of this. And and I know now about trauma bonding and things where they they hurt you, and then there's that intermittent reinforcement and the dopamine you get from making up and everything's great again. And he really does love me, and on and on and on. So it's so it's become a really big project, but it's been healing. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Marla Taviano, Author: And enlightening and freeing. And I just know that it's a universal experience, not in the way that every single person has experienced it, but thousands and thousands and thousands of Christian women have experienced this in their marriage. and I think that it's time for that to stop. So I will keep speaking up about. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It should absolutely. Marla Taviano, Author: That I'm doing a series on my Substack right now about a church in Cambodia that we were at that was really occult. and yeah, I think that if all of us just spoke up about what happened, because people get away with it, they get away with it and they keep abusing. We're seeing that right now in our I mean in politics and the government. I just watched a clip of Donald Trump with Barbara Walters that I share every time I see it, where 36 years ago. She's calling him on his bullshit. And he's saying the same things now. Like he became president somehow. It's just a we've got to we've got to make a change. We've got to speak up. We've got to do something. And it's easy to feel helpless and hopeless. But there are a lot of us. And if we all I don't know, if we all did our little part, I think we can make a difference. Leigh/@followtheleighder: You know, it's really powerful that you're talking about the theology of sex and intimacy and how the lack thereof or how the power and balance thereof in your previous relationship has brought in a whole new Marla Taviano, Author: Mm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: expanded theology for you, whatever that looks like. I d we haven't really talked much much about your your reconstruction yet or if you've gotten there or what that looks like. But I I just had a call with with someone, a conversation with a a seminary professor who was talking about the intimacy as a form of an an She's talking about it as a as a queer non-binary person. She's a she they and she was talking that she they were talking about that that was a a pivotal part for them was reclaiming love, intimacy, connection with another human being in a way that was life giving for them both, because previously it wasn't. And and that is such a powerful part. Marla Taviano, Author: Mm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: you know, they talk about the gay agenda and all these like hedonistic like as if we're like organizing orgies and like that is a whole probably a theology. That's not mine. They they whatever, man. They but but it's it's really much more about the consent, the life giving, the love, the respect, the power, the integrity and dignity of sharing such a vulnerable moment with two people. I mean it is Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. I know this sounds like very reductionist, but it is. I am going to share my organ with your organ. We're gonna always share that is like when you that is an incredibly vulnerable th and experience and and that extends again to women, queer and of course, children, right? And consent and respect with we we're seeing in the headlines in light of the Epstein files. So Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It is interesting to hear so much of your language and the way that they approach sexuality as being very subservient and self-seeking and mine and taking. When I sometimes, you know, it goes in that sort of like how the patriarchy damages itself, like it robs men of tr like, or you know, participants in the patriarchy, I guess is what I'm saying, of having a more holistic sexual intimacy life. even if they are loving. Like I'm not saying that they're not loving and then they're not having great sex. I'm saying when you approach it with that mentality. I did some work in Pakistan last summer where there were they were talking about a lot of the same and this was not in the cities. This was in like rural areas where this is very much The idea that we see on Fox News of what Pakistan and these countries are. Like that's very rural. That is not happening in the modern cities. So we're talking about two different things. And that was one of the things they talked about was that marital rape is not even a concept because that's it's not rape. i in in there like it it's like a a whole different way and female pleasure is is not like Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Talking about how much when you go to engage in counsel and minister to to women who haven't been exposed to a different way, like you have to be very cognizant that particularly if you're doing anything with women's health, that the idea of an orgasm is is maybe not even a concept. And and I love that you're bringing attention to this because I know we're saying like there's It it really is so selfish that the patriarchy thinks they're the only one that get to orgasm. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. It's evangelical Christianity in my experience, like and things I see online now with like I don't f like it just comes into my feed every once in a while if someone's commenting on some toxic Theobro pastor that doesn't want women to vote and doesn't think that women there they also don't think there's anything any such thing as marital rape and all that. it it just it's so I mean, I I get it because it to some extent I bought into that, right? I'm writing about this. I'm reading, like my first book is not as painful to read. The book about sex is so painful to read because not only was I so ignorant about sex and about women's bodies and about anything. Like I was so ignorant about the most important things. And then I'm just regurgitating. what I've been told about other things. And I'm putting it in this book. And women are reading it and like following it. And it's so it's like me like causing all this harm by by my ignorance. Like ignorance is not just this neutral thing. It can cause a lot of harm. And I had I have a good friend who is a therapist and she had posted something. She's talking about, I can't even remember now what it was, but something about narcissism or emotionally abusive husbands or or something, but saying that in her experience with women, there was 100% of the time there was also sexual abuse. And I listened to what she said, but in my mind I thought, okay, my husband never Like never raped me, never did anything, not like didn't force anything. And I'm thinking through this. And I kid you not, today I am on this this journal right now. It's my biggest journal. So I'm like making my way through this. And I just randomly opened to this page in the the back of it. And I am laying out. So he was cheating on me at this time. I did not know. It was in 2019. And I am saying all these things. Like I'm I'm writing about this sexual experience that we had the night before. And I say, It was a long time of me trying and him being really rough with my body. I know he wants to blame me and I'm not having it. Like I wrote in here that he was rough with my body. I did not remember that. Like in 2026, I'm like, I don't think he was ever, I don't think like th this happened and I blocked it out. But I wrote about it first. I wrote about the next morning and then I I blocked it out, which is why this has been so wild to go. through these journals. And I wish every woman had the kind of record that like I have so they can go back and see these things. It it's just so sad to me what women are going through. And like you said, the patriarchy is not, it's not good for men either. It s might sound fun to be the one in charge, to be the one that gets all of his needs met, to be the one that gets to orgasm whatever he wants because he demands it from you. But imagine missing out on this mutual loving. Kind relationship. Like I am really that was a big grief thing for me. I wrote a book called The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist. And it's talking about how they never ever really loved you. That never occurred to me. And I did not want to believe it until it my relationship. And I go back and read these letters and I'm thinking, it fit every single thing. Every single thing I thought until the sexual abuse part, which I now realize, okay, it fit that too. But it Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Marla Taviano, Author: Every single part. So me realizing that I have actually never been. I mean, maybe a couple guys I dated in the past, I don't know. Like my dating life was pretty short before I got married at 22. but I have never been in a romantic sexual relationship with a person who loved me and cared for me and wanted like unselfishly wanted me to have pleasure. And so that was like a grieving period for me. Just a few months ago, I had to go through this grief of realizing I had never, had never had that. but the cool thing is I have three daughters who are 25, 23, and 20. And we talk about this stuff all the time. Like they know or they already knew what their dad was like, but then other things that I tell them, so it's it's like listen, I I don't want this for you. Like I want something better. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Marla Taviano, Author: For you. And I'm I hate the fact that you have a shitty dad and your parents did not have a loving relationship. But I really hope that you can use that to see what you don't want in your life and that you deserve something better. And will I ever be in a relationship again? I don't know. I'm still recovering. It's been six years. I still love to go to my bed by myself. like I have a cat that sleeps with me sometimes. I I love being able to do my own thing. I love that freedom. I have so many things to write and do and see if someone comes along, maybe, but I I just want to get myself in this healed, whole, free place and then only ever be interested in someone else who is also healed and whole and free. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That is so beautiful that being able to walk in and process your faith now is empower. I mean, we talk about your followers and commenters being touched and changed by your work. But now you've got three daughters that get to, you know, live and make their own mistakes, but they don't have to make the same mistakes you did. And or hopefully they don't. I mean, we that's it, but like you're like, come on. I I showed you that it's it's Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Whatever that the this knowledge, and that's why sharing it is so important because we we we f it's so isolating when you're in it. as like you were talking about. And there's so many things that you didn't even realize that your body or subconscious was clocking before your mind did, your psyche. that's really powerful. And I know that. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: too, like going back through journals and reading stuff about my ex husband and like he's been really dark and moody lately. And I don't and you know, just like you can you can see it. There's a whole paper trail. There's a book I read and I can't remember the title or the author, which sucks for y'all. Sorry everyone. But it's a beautiful book of po it's a s sh small little book, but it's about a woman whose mother was Mormon and Marla Taviano, Author: Ha ha ha Leigh/@followtheleighder: Sh Mormons are I Mormon women are very famous for journaling everything. That's very that's a a very strong part of their culture because women are not allowed to speak. They journal every not allowed to speak, but you know, journals are a big deal. And I think that's probably a whole other thesis podcast we could write about is like journaling as an act of rebellion, but or as a sense of self in those environments. But Marla Taviano, Author: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Her mom dies and she wants to go read her mom's journals that she knows she's been keeping all these years. And she goes into the closet and every single one of those journals is blank. And it's like, whoa. Like and it's just kind of goes into what does that mean? Like and her kind of breaking down like why did she keep getting journals? Why did she keep these journals in a sacred place but never touch them? Like and her de you know, really trying to wrestle with like who was my mother? Marla Taviano, Author: Wow. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And ooh, I'm getting like chills talking about it. I I found my diary from elementary school and it was there's a mention of nine eleven in there and it's just very pure, you know, just going back and I think journaling is critical. I also think sometimes I'll look at them and be like, ugh, that was me. Or but it's why they're that's why they're journals and and not tweets give us a little space to be messy. Can you talk about we've talked about your deconstruction and really wrestling with it. How have you found what have you found to be helpful in your reconstruction or sort of like this this build back up into who you are? Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah, yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: What practices or books have you found to be really helpful for you? Marla Taviano, Author: That is a great question. I have a poem. I don't know which book it's in. I have so many poems. I want to know where they all are, but I don't. but it talks about how everyone says to me, not everyone, but a lot of people tell me, you can't just deconstruct, you have to reconstruct. And I say, Yes, I'm like tearing apart my faith and I'm putting myself back together. for a while there, I was very concerned with which. parts of my faith am I gonna keep? Which things do I not want? And at the beginning, I was just letting go of just little, little bits at a time. And so as I'm reading through my journals, another thing I'm just so glad that I have them because I didn't, I couldn't, I'm not able to remember how this all went down. And now I see it. Like I see the first time that I cuss in my journal. I see the first time that I say, I'm gonna say Mama God or Mother God instead of father God. I see the first time that I I really, really, really want it to be okay to be gay, even though I know the Bible says differently. So I'm seeing this. So I'm I'm seeing that these that these different books and things that I have read, like what it what they did and how they changed my mind and my heart. So one of the things I do, okay, I have not read my Bible for a really, really long time. and for me, it's not so much, I don't think, it's not necessarily that this would trigger me or that I don't believe it anymore. It's it's more of I've I read it over and over and over and over and over again. And I missed out on so much else that's out in the world, so many other things that I could read. And I even wrote in my journal, like in 2017, 2018. I'm like, wait a second, you're telling me that everything that ever was said that was good and godly, and we should follow. It was it ended. Like at this certain point in history, and it's in this book, and then nothing else is being written that's that powerful and that moving and that divine and that anointed. That doesn't really make sense to me. If God is still in control of the world, if God is still working and still moving, why would God make this very, very limited time book? And then the other things that are written just they're not, they're not as high, they're not as special, they're not as great. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Marla Taviano, Author: So I started reading things that felt to me the same way it used to feel to read the Bible, where I'm getting like it's it's really speaking to me. I feel like someone divine, something divine is speaking right to my heart, which I thought was a thing that could only happen with the Bible. And I'm I'm I realized, my gosh, I'm so bored with the Bible. Like I've it's like a I've read it so many times, it's it's just really boring to me. And I want to move out and and read all these other things. So I I still do a lot like I used to do, get up and journal and read. I'm just not reading the Bible. I'm reading other things that fill me up. I do reread things. I have this book here on my desk because I'm rereading it. This might be the third time. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter that I read years ago. And that's what really woke me up. Cause she just wakes up to. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. yeah. Marla Taviano, Author: The fact that she's a part of the patriarchy, like that everything she does is in service to the patriarchy. And it it it's so it's so good. And it's still moving to me today. Like I was kind of reading it as research for my book, but realizing, this still matters to me, this is still important to me, this is still profound to me, even more so now on this other side, like this so many years later, that I'm still getting. insight and wisdom and inspiration from this book that this human wrote. and so people ask me, Do you still pray? I I don't pray. if I'm really if I I have a fair amount of anxiety. So if I'm feeling anxious, I will Talk through it. I might, if I'm gonna pray, I pray to Mama God. I just read this like just in case kind of prayer that just in case there's a God and she can help me. I'm gonna say this thing. I don't care about a lot of the things in church. Sermons bored me. Like I don't like to listen to things that I'm bored by. I would like to listen to a podcast about something I'm interested in, not a random sermon that I have to sit through. Singing, I've never really loved, singing so I don't miss that. I miss the certainty of heaven, which of course is kind of ironic. It's not, it was never certain. I just thought that it was. So that's the one thing that I kind of try to convince myself of just to calm my anxiety. If something happens to one of your kids, Marla, you will see her again. Like it's you're it it's gonna work out. There'll be some way that you this is not the end of like forever. and someone even just DM'd me a couple hours ago and said, How do you find community? I miss the community from church. And I was like, you just, it's not easy, but you you've got to go, you gotta go out and and do it. So I found it here. There's a my friend Taylor is a black queer woman who started an organization called Liberation is Lit. So she does all kinds of stuff fighting for rights for all people in South Carolina. I get used books for her, people sponsor them. She sells them at these events and markets. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Marla Taviano, Author: She sells band books. she's just doing amazing things. And at this poetry event, she was one of the ones that was there last night. And I was explaining to the people who came like how we met. And I said, This is my like I used to do so much ministry in the church, like volunteer in the nursery, do this outreach, do this, do this, do this, do this. I never loved any of it. It wasn't me. What's me? I love. thrifting for books. I love reading books. I love sharing books. I love writing books. Like now this is this thing that I'm doing good out in the world and I'm doing it through the thing that I absolutely love, which is what I want for everyone. And I feel like in the church, a lot of times women don't get to do what they love. They get to do the dirty work behind the scenes that men don't want to do. so that's another thing that I speak up about. Like Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Marla Taviano, Author: Be you, do you, even if you're a Christian, serve God with the thing that you that you love, the thing that you're good at, the thing that that comes naturally to you. So for me, I I don't miss church. I never loved it. Some people really do. I yes, it was kind of fun to have a small group or have people like build in friendships or whatever, and that's been a little harder to cultivate, but again. I I write poetry about I'm tired of being in a group with people where our common denominator is we believe these ten things, like and not something else that bonds us together. So when I do these poem art workshops or or go to these book things or whatever, I'm with people who who love the same kind of things that I love. And that and we're all different and we believe different things. but we have this common bond, something that we love. And we all love people and we love community. And so yeah, it's I I have not, I I call myself an agnostic if people want a label. And it's more, it's less I don't know and more I don't care. And that's kind of the the where I find myself right now. It could be that I'm burnt out. It could be That I'm 50 and paramenopausal, it could be a lot of different things, but I don't care. is a big thing for me because I do care very, very, very, very much about a lot of things. And I don't have the time, the energy, the space, the desire to worry about things I do not care about. Like you're saying, the people that come on and want to argue with you, I don't care. Like, I don't care. If you don't like my poem, I don't care if you don't believe this or that. I don't care. Like, I don't care. Which is why I titled my book Unbelieve and I put the word heretic in the subtitle. Because I realized that's what people were doing when I was deconstructing publicly, like online, while I lived in Cambodia, 2014, 15, 16, and people would come back at me and want to say, You're being a heretic, you're being a heretic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Marla Taviano, Author: I just wanted to own that and say, I don't care. You can call me that if you want. I'm gonna call myself that because I don't care. And it's really, really freeing when you don't care if someone calls you a heretic. that's been one of the most freeing things of my life. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Just the you're like, I don't even I like yes, I'm a heretic. I don't I I I don't respect it. Like that's that's the whole thing. Like I good. I'll never forget this very evangelical girl in middle school telling another girl that she was gonna go to hell because of her beliefs. And I just remember the other girl just like looking at her and she was like, Okay, but that doesn't scare me 'cause I don't believe in hell. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah yeah Leigh/@followtheleighder: And then like the other girl didn't even know what to do. Like she was like, What? She was like, I just told you the worst possible thing I could imagine telling someone. And she was like, And like, I I I don't even I don't that why why do you believe in a god that believes in that? Like and she it was just like so like, ooh, like you just you spiraled a person. Like she was like over on the side, like, what do you mean? Like Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Я absolutely. I have someone in my life, like someone who is very evangelical and did not get along with me very well. And they had a kid who was, I think she was five at the time, but she was insistent. I found out, I found this out from another person who was there. But she said basically, I'm going to hell. I because I'm not gonna ask Jesus into my heart. Like she was adamant, I'm not gonna do it. And her mom and dad are like, You're gonna go to hell, and she's like, fine. And then what do you do with a kid who cannot be scared, right? Like you cannot scare this child. And that's a thing. It's so all of this is fear-based. And we're seeing it now in so many things, like where you've got to be terrified of immigrants and and trans people. And like the it yeah, it we could go on and on and on. But I the fear part, it just Leigh/@followtheleighder: Race. Marla Taviano, Author: It's powerful. It works. It works on so many people. And that's one of my things is making it less scary. We lived in an apartment complex in 2014 in Ohio, where most of our neighbors were Somali refugees. We had no money. My ex husband now ex husband had had a heart attack. He almost died. He lost his job. We lost our house. Anyway, we've got these refugee friends who are feeding us on their living room floor these delicious meals. When we had, I mean, I was going to the grocery store with like six dollars at a time, like spending my six dollars, bringing home the food, going again when I had ten dollars. And so I did a lot of sharing about my Muslim friends who know they don't love the Jesus that you love, and they are loving me in the most tangible, real, amazing way. And Yeah, it just make it make sense. Make it make sense that that your words and your beliefs are more important than what you do and how you treat people. I just couldn't I couldn't do it anymore. so kudos to the people that can have beliefs and love people. But we're seeing a whole lot of people who cannot seem to love people and delight in not loving people and it's just sad to me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I have so enjoyed this conversation and I know that my listeners are going to want to learn more about you. How can they where did where should I send them? Where do they go? If they wanna follow all things, Marla Taviano. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. I like a part of me does not want to hang out on meta platforms, but that's where it's I'm at right now. So I Marla Taviano is my Instagram handle. And then I also have White Girl Learning, where I share books by authors of color. And so on Instagram a lot, that's where I'm sharing my art and my books. And then I have a Substack, marletaviano.substack dot com. I was doing poetry there for a while, and then I switched to some other stuff, and now I'm in the middle of a series about A cult that was a church we attended in Cambodia that's still going on. It's based in the UK and they have 20 churches around the world. And I didn't realize that they'd actually, when I Googled them a couple of weeks ago when I started my series, they've actually been accused by a lot of people of being a cult. So I wasn't the only one with this experience. So I've been going through my journals. You you said something about putting putting in your journal and not a tweet. Well, I've been turning like quotes from my journal into Instagram posts. Yeah. And through because there's two parts of it. One is like things that I used to believe that I no longer believe. And then others to let people see my process and my progress. Like this is where so I'm going to be sharing some this month. I don't know when this releases, but it's June right now. So for Pride Month, I'm going back and looking. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. That's also a strategy. Marla Taviano, Author: about the things that started to change my mind about about queer people where I was it got to the point where I could kind of accept queer people and still love the Bible but then I thought you know what I don't even care. I don't actually even care what the Bible says. I care about loving people and that's what I'm gonna do. So yeah, Instagram threads and Marlo Taviano threads too and and Substack are where I hang out online. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Perfect. Awesome. Well, Marla, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been awesome. You're, like I've said, your work is incredible. It's helping so many women. Folks, again, that is Marla Taviano on Meta Platforms, and you can also find her links to purchase her books and more of her writings. I am just, again, so so thankful that you you stopped by. You made time for me today. That was really generous of you. Listeners, let me know what you thought of this conversation. I would love to have Marla return at some point in the future. So if you have any questions or, you know, anything, suggestions on things that you would like us to cover in our next conversation, please let me know in the comments. but other than that, this has been another episode of Follow the Leader. I'm your host, Lee Larson. Until next time, see ya. Marla Taviano, Author: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Awesome.