Ep. 7: Our Spiritual Journeys

Both of us were raised in traditional religions, Renee in Mexican Catholicism and Cristina in Evangelical Christianity. We have both experienced some spiritually transformational moments that drew us away from the problematic parts of these traditions and had us exploring more of our ancestral spiritual gifts and legacies that were grounded in non-european traditions. These transformational moments were not always pleasant and left us with so many questions about how we continue on a spiritual path. And yet we are now in a place where we can acknowledge the ongoing journey of our deepening relationship to spirituality, and give it the importance it deserves not just in our lives but in the work we do. Ultimately, we see the work we do in social justice, in reproductive justice, in education, in motherhood as a rooted in spirituality. In this episode we grapple with defining spirituality as the embracing of our whole humanity while also discovering the divinity in ourselves and in the world we live in. We are both grounded in a Chicana feminist understanding of multiplicity in regards to our identities, our perspectives and our spirituality. As we attempt to remain grounded in a spiritual journey that is complex and ever shifting, we also move in the world with an intention to give our children a deeper more nuanced understanding and practice of spirituality. As well, we center the work we do in this podcast, in our book project, and our academic careers within a spiritual framework. You hear us speak to our past experiences, to how we got to where we are now and to why spirituality is so much a part of our work.

In the next few episodes, we will be exploring this topic more landing on the importance of spirituality in social justice work, but also the importance of a social justice framework within spiritual work. Dive into this topic with us as we create conversations at the intersections of spirituality, religion, womanhood, sexuality, cultural identity, motherhood, and social justice.