Heretic Hereafter Podcast

Summer started off with a bang in the Strange household—one of our kiddos pulled some epically bad behavior and, as a result, lost screentime privileges for two weeks! The one upshot of this arrangement is that he was B-O-R-E-D and willing to indulge in more boardgames than usual. Our new family favorite? A cheery little card game called WE’RE DOOMED! Why WE’RE DOOMED! Is So Compelling WE’RE DOOME...

I hear it all the time: America is doomed! It’s a dumpster fire! Democracy is over, etcetera, etcetera! Let’s all move to Europe! Oh wait, they have far-right, anti-immigrant leaders, too? Okay…New Zealand? Or there’s always our good old friendly neighbor to the north, right?!?! Lefties have been threatening to move to Canada, off and on, since George W. Bush was elected in 2000. The cries grew si...

My Secret Fear For someone with an anxiety disorder, I have managed to do a lot of scary stuff. Things like: moving away from my family, getting married when I was a dumb 22-year-old, moving to another country without a job or a place to live— twice! having kids, and telling a deeply personal story onstage at The Moth. But the actual Scariest Thing I’ve Ever Done was none of those things. It was s...

Welcome new subscribers! This week, we’re continuing our series on FEAR. There’s a bit on parenting here, but if you’re looking for a more parenting-specific article, I can recommend The Extreme Weirdness of Trying to Buy a Bible for My Kids. You can also search “parenting” in the archive. Obsessing Over the Afterlife Growing up Evangelical, there were a lot of things to be afraid of, including bu...

I was out with a group of mom friends recently when the conversation turned to how much we have to schlep our kids around—driving/walking them to school, to sports practice, to lessons and day camps. There was broad consensus that: * we hate it * it feels mandatory as “good moms” AND * we wonder whether our kids could…just maybe…be a little more independent? This last point was uttered cautiously,...

I think it happened a few months into the pandemic: I started seeing the phrase “faith over fear” popping up everywhere. It was in social media bios, on protest signs, and emblazoned across t-shirts. The phrase’s ubiquity seemed to correlate with anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests. While the phrase in itself could mean many things, to this day if I happen to see a person wearing this tee, I t...

When my husband’s friend invited us to his wedding in Chongqing, China, I was hesitant to RSVP in the affirmative. It was far and plane tickets were expensive, but mainly I was anxious. China’s government is scary, right? I’d read plenty of news reports about government corruption and the lack of due process, not to mention the Uygur genocide. I’ve long followed the career of Chinese dissident art...

Maybe you’re thinking to yourself: why would I want to do that? Maybe that phrasing strikes you as odd. Don’t we want to get rid of fear? It’s not only an unpleasant feeling, it’s one that we judge ourselves for. We want to see ourselves as brave, so we try to ignore or resist feeling fear. The trouble is, the more you try to resist an emotion, the stronger it gets. Our bodies were designed to kee...

Early in my blogging career, I pitched my first-ever interview. I wanted to ask a local butcher about ethical meat buying. In emails, he seemed eager for the exposure. I don’t know if he checked out my itty-bitty blog before agreeing, what I do know is that I walked in with my notebook, recorder, and my toddler son in a stroller, the butcher took one look at us and doubled over laughing. I’m not e...

Here’s the thing no one warns you about healing: once you stop numbing all your feelings and start facing yourself, you’ll be confronted with a lot of ugliness. You think you’re a nice person ? Look, here are all your petty resentments! Pretty sure you’re capable ? Here are all your failures and shortcomings! Think you’re rational ? Behold your bizarre late-night fears! I speak from personal exper...

“There are no unsacred places. There are only sacred places and desecrated places.” -Wendell Berry A few years ago, I was hanging out with a friend who’s an Episcopal priest, when the topic of wedding music came up. I told her that I’d walked down the aisle to The Beatles’ “And I Love Her,” played by my brother, Karl, on acoustic guitar. My friend explained that, in the Episcopal church, “only sac...

Several years ago, I was moderating a local online parenting group when a post made me do a double take. It wasn’t any of the usual controversies about sleep training or “rehoming” dogs. Instead, it was an ouroboros of antiracism, which became, incidentally, kinda racist? I’m paraphrasing, but this was the gist: “I need advice on hiring a nanny. My partner and I are white moms committed to antirac...

How do you feel about these “secular saints” candles? Are they a funny joke? A cringe Millennial trend? The desperate grasping of a culture that has lost its way? I’ll admit, I’ve owned a few of these (Harriet Tubman, RBG.) My husband received a Jeff Bezos one as a gag gift that I keep threatening to smash. This is one of the problems with living heroes—they keep revealing problematic behavior. It...

It’s Holy Week for many of the world’s 2.6 billion Christians (for Eastern Orthodox, it’s next week.) Easter marks the most important holiday in the Christian calendar—the date of Jesus’ alleged resurrection. But what if you don’t believe? Or if you have major questions about it? Does Easter still matter? Can this holiday still be meaningful if you’re not sure about the whole bodily resurrection t...

It’s been 35 days since I logged onto social media. Apart from some minor boredom, it hasn’t been that bad. During my time away, I’ve delved into research on how the socials work and spent time reevaluating my own relationship to them. Here are some lessons I’ve learned and how I’m going to change my behavior going forward. Social media really is that bad. Virtually all the platforms I researched...

This quote comes from red pill influencer, Harrison Sullivan, in Louis Theroux’s latest documentary, Inside the Manosphere . Theroux was prodding Sullivan about the influence he wields over young boys. As an audience, we’d just witnessed Sullivan and his crew catfish and then physically assault a gay man who thought Sullivan had asked him on a date. In the aftermath of this unprovoked attack, Sull...

What do you spend most of your day looking at? Listening to? Thinking about? If you’re like most Americans, the answer is probably a screen. In fact, the average American spends between 4-6 hours a day staring at their phone , and that’s not counting our laptops and TVs. I’m certainly not exempt. As mindful as I try to be, phone addiction continually creeps up on me. It’s a “quick scroll” before I...

Lately, the misdeeds of the wealthy feel inescapable. Whether it’s Trump’s blatant corruption and grifting (which has netted him $3 billion so far this term) or the Epstein Files, I can’t recall a period in my life where it has been clearer that the wealthy are not bound by the same laws and sense of morality as us mere mortals. One of the clearest distillations of this distinction can be found in...

We’ve been looking at shame this month. Is it always a bad thing ? And what’s the difference between shame and accountability? In our polarized society, sometimes it feels like we have two choices: you can be a squishy liberal who loves everyone and passively tolerates everything, or you can be a merciless conservative who longs to inflict draconian punishments in an attempt to control the behavio...

One of the many things that has struck me in recent weeks is the instances of Minneapolis protestors chanting, “Shame!” at ICE agents. It’s notable because many of these protestors are presumably Brené Brown-loving liberals who are, generally, not fans of shame. Where does this impulse come from? I’ve been chewing on the comments left by my amazing readers on last week’s post , and they’ve helped...

“Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” …Guilt: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I’m sorry. I am a mistake.” -Brené Brown, PhD Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan. I sobbed through the end of her Netflix special. Brown has done amazing work bringing the vocabulary of emotions to the masses and demonstrating the power of vulnerability. But while I find her to be a winning and gifted...

On Monday, when I sat down to plan out my week, it all felt a little pointless. What good is my measly writing in the face of government goons murdering citizens in the streets? Is anyone going to show up to my meeting about racially segregated schools while ICE is abducting people? It feels like there’s no point in meal planning or going to the gym in the face of state-sponsored terror. After the...

I have prided myself on my ability to put my head down and get on with business, despite all the chaos of the Trump administration. I knew my lane and I stayed in it, trying to let go of what I could not control. But this week, the heaviness of our political reality has felt inescapable. Undoubtedly, I have been naive. I’ve indulged in the fantasy of a modern-day French resistance without ever rea...

Have you ever read a book that has you questioning your whole personality? Like, there you were, thinking yourself a unique individual, only to have some random author read you for filth? This happened to me, recently, when I came across the following two books: For those who haven’t gone as far down the self-help rabbit hole, “fawning” is the most recent addition to the Four Fs of Trauma Response...

It’s 2026 and I feel completely unprepared. What is this year? What are we doing? After entertaining my kids all through Christmas break, I could use a vacation. But while I’d rather be hibernating and procrasti-baking, life continues apace! In this time of new year’s resolutions and grand plans, I’ve been thinking about purpose —as in, do we all have one? Just one? And who gets to decide such a t...