We left the bar with a knife in our pocket. That did not stop us from dancing. The lords of Babylon have always known what they were doing, using queer bodies as a wedge, trading in fear, stoking lust for power to keep the people of the earth divided. This episode walks the Four Paths through the heart of that mechanism and finds, on the other side, what they cannot take from us. Simca: the communal joy that protests by refusing to stop.

You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

Creation’s Paths is a Christopagan Creation Spirituality community rooted in the conviction that creation is original blessing, not original sin. If this episode found you at the right moment, you are welcome here.

New to Creation’s Paths? Start here: https://www.creationspaths.com/p/start-here

The book: Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972869019

Educational resources: https://wisdomscry.com

This work is listener and reader supported. If it has been nourishing to you, the most direct way to sustain it is a paid Substack subscription: it keeps the teaching flowing and the community growing. All are welcome here regardless of financial capacity. Spiritual nourishment should flow freely to all who seek it.

Become a paid subscriber:

Other ways to support: Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedorsett Cash App: https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths

Find us: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/

#QueerLiberationTheology #PrideIsAProtest #LordsOfBabylon #QueerFaith #LGBTQSpirituality #PrideMonth #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #CreationsPaths

Chapters:

0:00 Three Figures on the Horizon05:41 Walk With Us Down Creation’s Paths07:24 The Divide Is the Weapon18:59 The Face of Christ in Every Face (Via Positiva)26:11 Do Not Hold Too Tight (Via Negativa)38:04 You Cannot Have Solidarity With Paper (Via Creativa)50:08 The Joy That Cannot Be Taken (Via Transformativa)58:35 Pride Is a Protest1:00:43 Create in Me a Pure Heart1:03:43 Just Listen to It Beat

Devotion without discernment is just blind obedience. That line builds across an entire episode, and it lands somewhere true. John Cassian, a third-century desert father writing before Augustine reshaped everything, gave us four questions to apply to any belief system, spiritual teacher, community, or practice: is it truly valuable, is it genuine, does it bear the right intention, can it carry the weight of what it claims? Charlie and Brian work through each test with examples ranging from Jonestown to prosperity gospel to billionaire philanthropy, and close with a reframing of utopia as honest direction rather than impossible destination. Discernment isn't the enemy of devotion. It's what keeps devotion from becoming captivity.

Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.

You left the institution but not the longing. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who still feels the sacred moving through the world and wants a language worthy of that feeling.

Creation’s Paths is a Christopagan Creation Spirituality community rooted in the conviction that creation is original blessing, not original sin. If this episode found you at the right moment, you are welcome here.

New to Creation’s Paths? Start here: https://www.creationspaths.com/p/start-here

The book: Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972869019

Educational resources: https://wisdomscry.com

This work is listener and reader supported. If it has been nourishing to you, the most direct way to sustain it is a paid Substack subscription: it keeps the teaching flowing and the community growing. All are welcome here regardless of financial capacity. Spiritual nourishment should flow freely to all who seek it.

Become a paid subscriber:

Other ways to support: Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedorsett Cash App: https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths

Find us: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/

#Discernment #SpiritualTechnology #JohnCassian #FaithDeconstruction #SpiritualAbuse #DesertFathers #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #CreationsPaths

0:00 We Look Under the Hood of Used Cars. Why Not Our Beliefs?

1:26 Welcome to the Workshop

4:38 When the Message Sounded Good and the Warning Signs Were Right There

6:27 Before Augustine: John Cassian and the Desert Elders

8:00 Test One: Is It Actually Valuable?

12:10 Test Two: Is It Genuine or Counterfeit?

20:17 Test Three: Does It Bear the Right Image and Intention?

26:41 Test Four: Can It Hold the Weight of What It Claims?

34:28 Utopia Is a Direction, Not a Destination

40:13 Discernment Is the Vital Aspect of Your Autonomy

Something happens in the body when someone says "Jesus." A clench, a recoil, a strange silence. This episode traces that response to its source: a fourth-century theologian who needed an excuse, an empire that found the idea useful, and the residue that soaked into the culture whether or not you ever set foot in a church. Charlie and Brian walk the Four Paths through original blessing, finding in the cross not a payment for debt but a living demonstration of grace that takes in every wound the world can pour and gives back love. It ends with a practice: say it until you feel it in your body. We are born blessed, not broken.

Creation’s Paths is a Christopagan Creation Spirituality community rooted in the conviction that creation is original blessing, not original sin. If this episode found you at the right moment, you are welcome here.

New to Creation’s Paths? Start here: https://www.creationspaths.com/p/start-here

You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

Educational resources: https://wisdomscry.com

This work is listener and reader supported. If it has been nourishing to you, the most direct way to sustain it is a paid Substack subscription: it keeps the teaching flowing and the community growing. All are welcome here regardless of financial capacity. Spiritual nourishment should flow freely to all who seek it.

Become a paid subscriber:

Other ways to support: Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedorsett Cash App: https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths

Find us: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/

#OriginalBlessing #ReligiousResidue #BornBlessedNotBroken #Jesus #ChristianDeconstruction #FaithHealing #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #CreationsPaths

0:00 What Happens in Your Body When I Say Jesus?

3:26 We’re Supposed to Share the Good News. Then We Hit a Wall.

5:45 The Cringe Has Deeper Roots Than You Think

18:44 Augustine Couldn’t Keep His Toga On (Via Negativa)

37:33 The Glory of God Is the Human Being Fully Alive (Via Positiva)

43:06 What Did Jesus Actually Do on the Cross? (Via Creativa)

48:47 Transmuting Violence: The Conscience That Feels (Via Transformativa)

59:20 Whitewashed Tombs and the Least of These

1:03:01 Say It Until You Feel It

She was in the National Cathedral, surrounded by moon rocks and ancient stones from around the world, and all she could say was that the lighting was not right for her pictures. Most of us are her. The meaning crisis is not about emptiness out there somewhere; it is about distraction from what is already here. In this episode, Charlie and Brian walk the Four Paths through the meaning crisis and find that the kin-dom Creation Spirituality has been pointing to all along is not deferred. It is here. And simcha and a simple bracha are the practices that break the whole machine.

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh https://amzn.to/4tFQTFy

Viriditas. The greening power. Hildegard knew it. The forest knows it. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who has ever felt the divine moving through roots and rain and refused to call that feeling anything less than holy.

Creation’s Paths is a Christopagan Creation Spirituality community rooted in the conviction that creation is original blessing, not original sin. If this episode found you at the right moment, you are welcome here.

New to Creation’s Paths? Start here: https://www.creationspaths.com/p/start-here

The book: Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972869019

Educational resources: https://wisdomscry.com

This work is listener and reader supported. If it has been nourishing to you, the most direct way to sustain it is a paid Substack subscription: it keeps the teaching flowing and the community growing. All are welcome here regardless of financial capacity. Spiritual nourishment should flow freely to all who seek it.

Become a paid subscriber:

Other ways to support: Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedorsett Cash App: https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths

Find us: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/

#ViaPositiva #MeaningCrisis #LostArtOfSavor #Mysticism #Malkuth #SpiritualFormation #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #CreationsPaths

Chapters:0:00 She Never Saw the Moon Rock6:57 The Lost Art of Savor14:01 The Kin-dom Is Already Here16:15 FOMO Is Not the Via Negativa18:07 The Broken Shell Hiding the Spark24:14 Let It Melt28:24 Simcha Is the Root of Justice29:45 Flooding the Zone36:07 Simcha Bites Back37:12 Practice: Say a Bracha

Those who wait to deserve will never be worthy. The goalposts always move, because the system was built to keep moving them. Charlie and Brian walk into Yesod, the Sephiroth of foundation, and find the rhythm beneath every real community: gracious giving, gracious receiving, and the covenant that holds when contract fails. Stories from Berkeley, from the inflatable frog in Portland, from the dry aquifers of the Bible Belt, and from the strange company of holy rascals who refuse to wait for permission to live.

Some people pray to a God they no longer believe in because they have not yet found language for the God they do. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that language, grown from twenty years of walking the Four Paths.

.Creation’s Paths is a Christopagan Creation Spirituality community rooted in the conviction that creation is original blessing, not original sin. If this episode found you at the right moment, you are welcome here.

New to Creation’s Paths? Start here: https://www.creationspaths.com/p/start-here

The book: Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972869019

Educational resources:

https://wisdomscry.com

This work is listener and reader supported. If it has been nourishing to you, the most direct way to sustain it is a paid Substack subscription: it keeps the teaching flowing and the community growing. All are welcome here regardless of financial capacity. Spiritual nourishment should flow freely to all who seek it.

Become a paid subscriber:

Other ways to support: Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedorsett Cash App: https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths

Find us: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/

#Yesod #Covenant #HolyRascals #TreeOfLife #Mysticism #Theology #Christopagan #CreationSpirituality #CreationsPaths

0:00 We Forgot That We Belong to One Another 1:53 Druid Priest of Bridget, Sous-Chef to the Dagda 3:34 Try Pulling Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps 6:09 Edison Had Four Hundred Engineers 9:04 Which Word Would You Erase from English? 11:05 The Whole Phrase We Forgot 13:16 The Church That Laid Hands on Us (Via Positiva) 19:27 Habit, Not Malice (Via Negativa) 29:04 Thirty-Six Hidden Ones Hold the World (Via Creativa) 32:53 You Were Robbing Them of Giving 38:04 Meritocracy Was a Dystopian Satire (Via Transformativa) 41:24 Charity Is Not Covenant 42:51 How Rage Hurts the Cause It Loves 44:59 Everyone Was Welcome There 46:22 Those Who Wait to Deserve Will Never Be Worthy 47:31 A Prayer to Saint Zacchaeus

You are already the diamond. The light has been coming in for years, refracting through every sorrow, every question, every practice, and you have been waiting for a piece of paper to tell you it was real. This episode explores Hod, the Sephiroth of Splendor, and asks what it actually means to receive: not as passive absorption but as the active, creative act that turns tradition into a living third thing. Charlie and Brian walk through the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality to name the difference between obedience culture and genuine receptivity, and close with an embodied practice and blessing for the diamond heart.

You left the institution but not the longing. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who still feels the sacred moving through the world and wants a language worthy of that feeling.

Creation’s Paths is a Christopagan Creation Spirituality community rooted in the conviction that creation is original blessing, not original sin. If this episode found you at the right moment, you are welcome here.

New to Creation’s Paths? Start here: https://www.creationspaths.com/p/start-here

The book: Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972869019

Educational resources: https://wisdomscry.com

This work is listener and reader supported. If it has been nourishing to you, the most direct way to sustain it is a paid Substack subscription: it keeps the teaching flowing and the community growing. All are welcome here regardless of financial capacity. Spiritual nourishment should flow freely to all who seek it.

Become a paid subscriber:

Other ways to support: Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/cedorsett Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedorsett Cash App: https://cash.app/$CreationsPaths

Find us: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/creationspaths.com Threads: https://www.threads.net/@creationspaths Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationspaths/

0:00 The Certificate I Was Waiting For3:29 Hod: The Sephirah of Splendor5:32 Systems That Train You to Wait9:05 The Soul Is an Instrument That Must Be Played13:20 When Receiving Closes Into Control16:18 You Are Already the Diamond (Via Positiva)17:53 One Plus One Equals Three19:46 Clearing Ground Before the Seed (Via Negativa)27:04 Nobody Gets Lego to Stare at the Bricks (Via Creativa)35:31 Radiate It Out (Via Transformativa)36:45 Practice: Receive and Send39:22 Blessed Are Those with the Diamond Heart