Some thoughts on cultures of control, grief & gratitude
July 2026 Newsletter
I’ve got a lot on my mind going into July, and here’s your window into it:
🤔 A thought I’m processing [on cultures of control]
💕 A thought I’m loving on [the grieving brain]
🗳️ A poll [on areas of gratitude we neglect]
🔗 Some link love
📆 A full recap & links to this past month’s posts
July’s free resource: [a gratitude mind-map exercise]
🤔 A thought I’m processing [on cultures of control]
This newsletter comes to you from San Diego, where I am preparing to present the second half of my research on cultures of control. And I’ll give you the Cliffsnotes: my research suggests that it is possible that abuse can be systematized and distributed with or without intention.
Here’s what I mean: if Lead Pastor A is abusive and controlling, that control will be implemented through cultural elements. Meaning - the church’s processes and systems and language and stories all will carry the fingerprints of that spiritual coercion. And these systems/processes will carry that coercion into every room - even rooms that Lead Pastor A isn’t in.
So now Pastor B - who isn’t abusive in the slightest- implements the system they are taught to implement, with no intent to harm. But the person is harmed. Just as if they were in the same room as Pastor A.
To me - this is such a significant piece of information that needs to be understood by churches and victims alike (and I’ll continue to unpack the implications this month!)
❤️ A thought I’m loving on [the grieving brain]
I’ve been loving the work of Mary-Frances O’Connor, who studies the neuroscience of grief. One of the factors she identifies is our brains’ map-making capacity. Our brain is always creating internal maps so we can constantly monitor where things (and people) are, and how to find them.
“If I ask you right now where your boyfriend or girlfriend is, or where you would go to pick up your children, you probably have a pretty good idea of how to locate them. We use brain maps to find our loved ones, to predict where they are, and to search for them when they are gone. A key problem in grief is that there is a mismatch between the virtual map we always use to find our loved ones, and the rea
lity, after they die, that they can no longer be found in the dimensions of space and time. The unlikely situation that they are not on the map at all, the alarm and confusion that this causes, is one reason grief overwhelms us.”
🗳️ A poll on [gratitude]
Last month I asked what areas of need we were feeling out there, and people commented they were feeling a need for a sense of gratitude, so I created this month’s free resource around this idea. It’s a tool to help you go a little deeper into gratitude.
As I was creating it, I was thinking about how easy it is for me to neglect certain areas of gratitude, and it got me thinking:
🔗 Some links for July
Here are some links I’ve been loving this month:
📅 What you missed in June
Below are some links to thoughts I’ve shared this past month! (Please note that some of my messier thoughts and musings are behind a paywall. You can read more about why I do that here, and feel free to upgrade your subscription to access them and support my research!)
How do we know what is true? - how do we know what the ‘right’ theology is?
The real problem with the SBC - It’s not about beliefs; it’s about priorities
Some thoughts on happiness, gratitude and some songs that give sunny vibes
🆓 July Free Resource | A gratitude mind map
The free resource for July is below (for paid subscribers!).
