Circling Back to Wrap up

our final episode and the last 3 live chats....

“You know, it was like very hot – with that particular hotness of a terrible, terrible thing driven by desperation beyond the immediate situation.” Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos (The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber - Season 1, Episode 8)

Wrapping up season one of The Confessional!

Join me and my last 3 guests this week on Instagram Live:

Before we get to Melissa Febos and Episode 8, I just need to say…friends, thank you. Thank you so much for listening to season one of The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber. Thank you for subscribing and rating it and sharing it with friends and for supporting a space in the world for honesty and compassion. I’m so grateful!

Please tune in the my 30 min conversations with my final guests - all happening this week! Tonight (Monday July 6, 5:30p MST) I’ll have a chat with the amazing actress Amy Brenneman, then Wednesday July 8th 5:30p MST I’ll talk with Mishka Shubaly, and finally with Melissa Febos on Friday July 9th 5:30p MST. If you are able to join us we will try and get to any questions you might have, but if not, know that the videos will live on my InstaTV after we are done.

Episode 8: Melissa Febos

Opening Essay, Episode 8

There was a period of time in 1996 when I tried really hard to seem as normal as possible. ….Pretend I didn’t have my past. Pretend my heart wasn’t just a little bit dark. Pretend I could small talk. It was when my ex-husband and I were newlyweds and he was a seminary intern in a small church in Oregon and I was new to this whole Lutheran thing and I just really didn’t want to screw it up for him in his new church. 

So, you know,

I covered all my tattoos 

 I took out my tongue ring. 

And I’m ashamed to admit this now, but …. I even wore clothes from The Gap. 

But it didn’t matter. 

Because the truth about who I really am was still there. And all the chinos and cardigans in the world couldn’t cover it. And the fact was, that no matter how normal I tried to look – it was as if in this almost animalistic way, the nice church people didn’t buy it. It was like they could smell it on me….like, *sniff sniff* this one isn’t from our pack.

Which was true.  

And that’s the thing about the truth. 

The truth will totally ignore our desire for it to just go away. It will hover around us, buzzing annoyingly in our ear.  Often the truth will show up uninvited and often disguised as something else.  The truth about ourselves and our lives, if ignored will just repackage itself as anxiety, and wake us up at 2a. The truth is a bitch like that.

I’m Nadia Bolz-Weber and you’ve stepped into the Confessional. It’s like a carwash for shame and secrets. My guest today is someone who also tried to ignore her truth. But despite her best efforts, it showed up in her life in surprising and harmful ways.

You can click here and listen to this episode directly from my website.

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