50 Thorns & Blossoms

Julie Marie Todd, educator, activist, journalizer, and theologian, shares 50 of her writings. Most pieces are in a poetic prose style – a predominantly long-form, stream-of-consciousness writing from journal entries and writing groups – alongside a few lengthier prose essays and previously published works. The author explores her own inner emotional terrain and spirituality and how life in both solitude and community generates creativity, vulnerability, and change. She shares much of her journey from life as an institutional church leader to a wider embrace of spiritual leadership beyond hierarchy and traditional religion. From sweet odes to plant life to encounters with ancestors, from confessions of addiction and abortion to body love and self-hatred, from ongoing self-examination of the author’s own complicity in white, Christian supremacy to rants against racism and heteropatriarchy, many readers will find Julie’s writing compelling, provocative, and relatable.