Be a Heretic
heretic
n, anyone who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle.
Here’s the brutal truth about being human: Our inherent desire is to belong. You listen to about one Ted talk by the genius Brene Brown, and you realize that this isn’t just philosophy talking. This is hard, brutal naked truth supported by decades of science (yes, love and belonging is something people study). The problem with this desire to belong is far often we are born into or find ourselves in spaces where belonging to the group contraindicates being your true self.
Too often, in order to belong, we find ourselves trying to morph into something we are not, to mimic what the people around us want. For me, it was the conservative subculture I grew into where there seemed to be rules about how we talked, how we dressed, what we believed. And I tried…for years, I tried. I measured my shorts at the length of the fingertips. I did gymnastics to ensure no clothing rode up too far. I pressed my thumb to my collar bone and kept all my fingers together to make sure my shirt wasn’t cut too low. I was polite, meek, and obedient--all to be considered a good girl.
But I wasn’t really a ‘good girl’, and I knew it. Deep down, I believed scandalous things. Things that could only be talked about in low tones. Equality, social justice, feminism, the freedom to love who you love, and in a God who was inclusive, who did mercy not judgment.
I was a heretic, before I even realized it. And many of you reading this are one too. Some of you are inherently, beautiful different. Maybe it’s because of the crush you have on the boy who sits next to you in school. Only you’ve always been taught that boys aren’t supposed to like boys, are they? Maybe it’s because you are the only girl wearing a hijab in your high school. Maybe it’s because your skin color doesn’t fit into the snowy whiteness that surrounds you.
That feeling of not belonging hurts, doesn’t it? That feeling of not being free to be yourself is the worst possible cage we can be in.
The saying goes ‘we write what we know’ and I know this pain well. From it, my book, HERESY, was born. The world the book is set in, Arcadia, is a world where being different is HERESY, and heresy is DEATH.
One of the main characters, Shiloh Haven, knows this well. As he daughter of heretics, she’s always known she doesn’t belong. So she’s made a game of portraying exactly what Arcadia wants her to be, all in the name of survival--until she’s forced between living this life of charade or saving the people she loves.
Jacob Osgood is the rebellious son of an Arcadian leader who wants to be free, but feels just as trapped in his role as his father’s puppet. So he rebels in small ways--parties and reckless behavior--until he finds a way that he might actually be able to fight back...and a reason beyond himself to do it.
But being something other than what they’re told to be may very well cost their lives.
I hope that you will read their journey, but mostly, I hope you will learn the lesson that I spent decades learning. If you are not truly being you, then you don’t belong there. It isn’t true belonging. It’s a cheap counterfeit. And there is nothing--nothing--more important than being yourself.
So here is my new definition of heretic...
heretic
n, someone who dares to be different or, really, just to be themselves in a world that tries to make them into something else.
And I hope when given the choice between fitting in and being unapologetically, fearlessly, recklessly you, I hope you choose to be YOU (because who you are is perfect). I hope you’re brave enough to love who you love and believe what you believe. I hope you kiss that boy or rock that hijab. I hope you choose to BE A HERETIC.
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