A Feast of Doubts

Jan 21, 2025

About Sara Billups

Sara Billups graduated from Western Theological Seminary’s Sacred Art of Writing cohort in 2024. In A Feast of Doubts, Sara reflects on her experience in the Sacred Art of Writing cohort.

By Sara Billups

D.Min. ‘24, Sacred Art of Writing

Throughout my three years at Western Theological Seminary, I hovered around a few ideas for the half-book-length final project, trying to write about things I feared. One of the cohort’s core books was Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir. In it, Karr asks: What would you write if you weren’t afraid?

“I’d write about my need to be remembered, but equal desire to be totally obscure,” I jotted in my journal at the prompt. “I’d write about the end of a life-long friendship. I’d write about desire, a holy hunger. I’d write about parenting my kid and caring for my parents. I’d write about the unforgivable sin and the name of God.”

If you have a list of what you’d write about if you were unafraid, what’s on it? What rings true for you?

I have been writing about desire, the body, caring for, and taking care. But in an overarching sense, I see my writing and thinking continuing toward what true Christian practice looks like today.

I came to the point where I realized, with some real clarity, that if the Christian story is true: a virgin birth, a resurrection, all the miracles—and we are created to praise God, to love God and be loved back, and to love each other—then it was time for me to live like it is. It was time to become well-grounded.

Christianity has been used in horrific ways across history. There are plenty of reasons to talk about, lament, speak against, and not repeat these things. There is truth in all of them, but that does not mean the practice of Christianity itself is inadequate or false. Instead, there is an invitation to explore what can be kept and what can be set aside.

My time at Western marked a season of moving closer to Jesus than I had before, and to find refuge under his wing.

When a fruit tree is covered in snails, you do not uproot the tree. You pluck off the predators and maintain healthy soil. You root down.

You practice fidelity, grounded faithfulness, and stability, staying instead of leaving.

Under the table, where I have laid out the feast of my doubt, is a crumb, a bitter scroll. Pick it up. Put it in your mouth. It is more bitter than sweet, like honey: God’s word, creation, and promise in the life and person of Jesus. I believe because where else would I go? I believe because I long to be right where I am.

The Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination

In a world overrun by ego and animosity, the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination seeks to help nurture faithful, contemplative, joyful, holy, and deeply human ways of being. Through retreats, theological reflection, art, and conversations, the Peterson Center aims to continue the conversation that Eugene encouraged, pondering the questions that shaped his Christian imagination.

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