The Course I Wish I Had
I designed this course to be the spiritual will I leave for my future child.
I want them to know--before some church tells them that their queerness needs fixing, that their chronic illness/disability is a test of faith, that their sexual desires are shameful--that here is a lineage of thinkers who have reimagined, questioned, and transformed the harmful theology they will encounter.
Here is how they tried to find clarity in the unknown.
Here is how they wrestled with their inherited religious beliefs.
Here are your guides to encountering the divinity within you.
You are not alone.
Our 8-Week Pilgrimage
In our intimate weekly gathering, we will journey through sacred texts together--diving into biblical passages, mystical writings, poetry, and theory (approximately 40 pages/week).
Reading through lenses often marginalized in religious spaces: illness, disability, queerness, and stigmatized bodies, we will deconstruct the God(s) of Flannery O'Connor, Simone Veil, Christian Wiman, Rilke, Nietzsche, Foucault, Kristeva, Irigaray, Hildegard Von Bingen, and others.
Our conversations are shared explorations where your lived experiences and deepest questions about faith, doubt, and embodiment are vital parts of our collective meaning-making.
This isn't a lecture.
It's an invitation to communion, to bring our whole selves to these transformative texts.
Through thoughtful reading and reflective writing, we will practice distinguishing between the God we inherited and the God we believe in. Together, we will reclaim spiritual narratives that honor our full humanity.
Because the truth is simple: If we do not do the work of discovering/writing our own understanding of God, the God we worship/fear to worship will always be someone else's creation.
The Journey Ahead
Week 1: Destabilizing God
We begin by questioning authority—examining how Nietzsche's "God is dead" proclamation and Rilke's spiritual reimagining invite us to break free from inherited beliefs that no longer serve us.
Week 2: Creation & Fall
We explore Genesis, Milton, and Galeano to understand different tellings of our origins—and how these stories shape our understanding of embodiment, shame, and transgression.
Week 3: Darkness & Light
Through Wiman, Jung, and Hemingway, we confront the shadow places of doubt, suffering, and the search for meaning in apparent meaninglessness.
Week 4: The Disabled God
We challenge traditional religious stigmatization of disability through Foucault, Eiesland, O'Connor, and Weil, finding the sacred within bodies deemed "imperfect."
Week 5: Mysticism & Incarnation
With Angela of Foligno, Nietzsche, and O'Connor as guides, we explore how the divine manifests through sinful flesh.
Week 6: Is God Good in Bed?
Von Bingen, Foucault, and Irigaray help us reconnect sexuality and spirituality, challenging the false dichotomy that separates desire from devotion.
Week 7: The Queer God
We examine how theologians like Althaus-Reid and Jordan have created space for LGBTQ+ experiences within theological frameworks, reclaiming spiritual belonging for all gender identities and sexualities.
Week 8: Apocalypse & Rebirth
We conclude with visions of endings and new beginnings through Revelation, Nietzsche, Kristeva, and O'Connor, considering how faith survives radical transformation.
Topics & Questions
we will be asking throughout the course:
Creation story, myth, mysticism, soul, wisdom, faith, doubt, prayer, abandonment, communion, flesh, patriarchy, virgin, whore, menstruation, birth, erection, sex, erotic, blood, illness, disability, temptation, evil, shame, pain, anger, hate, death, ugly, queerness, desire, pleasure, liberation theology, redemption, ritual, community
Who is your God? What does your God say about you? What is your creation story? What information does your discomfort reveal about your God?
Who created what? How does God grow and change? What happens when God doesn't heal you?
⚠️ A Word to Those Who've "Made Peace" With Leaving Religion Behind...
You've found other communities. You've built a life outside religious spaces. You tell yourself: "I've moved on."
But beneath that carefully constructed peace lies a quiet hunger.
Because walking away from harmful theology doesn't mean you've stopped seeking meaning. It doesn't erase your need for ritual, for community, for connection to something beyond yourself.
What if you could reconnect with that longing without returning to what harmed you?
What if the problem wasn't God, but the narrowness of how God was presented to you?
What deeper truth are you ignoring by clinging to the safety of "I'm done with all that"?
This course is your invitation to reclaim what was always yours to begin with.
By the End of Our 8 Weeks Together...
Don't be surprised if you barely recognize your relationship with spirituality...
...because you've developed the confidence to craft theological language that honors your full self
...because you've found kindred spirits who share your questions and your courage
...because you've reclaimed sacred texts that once felt weaponized against you
...because you've discovered that your queerness, your disability, your sexuality isn't just tolerated by the divine—it's celebrated
What's Included
Dates: May 31-July 19, 2025
- Weekly 2hr live gatherings (Saturdays, 12-2pm CST).
- All reading materials provided (PDF).
- Complete recordings of each session available within 24 hours
- Private Facebook Group where you get to ask questions as you read, write, and think through ideas in real time
- Weekly reflecting writing prompts to deepen your engagement
- Optional 1:1 sessions to discuss your personal journey (additional fee)
For Writers: Additional Coaching Option
If you are a writer who wants feedback for the work you develop in this class, and support to navigate writing your relationship with the ineffable, consider the enhanced option:
- Everything in the standard course
- Two private 1-hour coaching session
- Additional hours available for purchase upon request
→ The standard MFA workshop model shaped my teaching and education at Iowa but I have discovered that deep spiritual excavation requires a different approach. While group discussions illuminate shared questions, the most transformative moments often happen in one-on-one sessions. That's why this course balances communal reading with individual guidance. Some revelations are too raw, too personal, and unnecessary for group critique.
What Past Participants Say
"Connie is really great at centering difficult conversations and adapting to the feelings in the room. Every class period felt like a deep imagining, a challenge to really look at the texts and our lived experiences and find something even in the texts we strongly disagreed with. I became so comfortable with disagreement, doubt, and vulnerability."
"This class made me feel less alone in my doubt. Connie created a place for students to come as they are, sit at the table, and feel like they are a part of these important conversations that don't happen anymore in today's world."
"The class felt like a prayer. Everything is linked by discomfort, somatic wrings, skepticism and bliss, bliss."
"We were encouraged to sit in our discomfort, to challenge ourselves to think about concepts we disagreed with, to queer language and writing and seek to understand through change and transformation."
"The times I came to class having no idea what the assigned reading meant, I didn't come embarrassed, I didn't stay silent because I was confused. I came to class excited, because Connie knows how to center conversations to search for meaning. I came excited because I knew Connie would help me find new meaning in the text."
"You allowed a loose area to allow me to inch back towards my religion and my relationship to it."
This sacred space is right for you if...
- You are intimidated, excluded, and uncertain about a God that you can't resist reckoning with
- You have felt rejected by religious communities--particularly LBGTQ+, disabled, chronically ill, and other marginalized individuals
- You love God so much you had to leave the church
- You want to develop your own voice at the intersection of faith and identity
- You want a rigorous and supportive environment for both reverence and questioning
- You are a writer and seeker who wishes to develop your own theological vocabulary
- You reject certain teachings but still hunger for sacred community and meaning
Come as you are.
Bring your doubt, your anger, your hope, your queerness, your disability, your messy desires, your wild ideas.
They are all welcome at this table.
→ JOIN US FOR THIS TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEY
Space is limited to 15 participants to ensure an intimate, supportive environment.
Your Guide
Connie worships a queer, disabled, and menstruating God. She is a mystic, artist, writer, and teacher who undresses divine flesh in object, abjected, and rejected bodies through the lenses of theology, disability studies, and queer theory. She holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard, where she was awared the Frederick Buechner Award for Writing, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her writing has appeared in The Flannery O'Connor Review, Frictions Media, Harvard Crimson, and is forthcoming on America's Test Kitchen's Proof podcast. She has just written her first book, Trash Abbey, which discovers divinity in discarded flesh.
FAQs
Q: What are the prerequisites for this course?
The desire to have conversations about faith and doubt, alchemize your sacred wounds into art, and unearth language for questions you didn't think you could ask.
Q: Will the meetings be recorded?
The meetings will be recorded and available for all registered students to access on your course platform.
Q: What books do I need to purchase for the course?
All reading materials will be provided digitally.
Q: Are you offering a money-back guarantee for this course?
No--all sales are final.