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Chapter 3, Sarah: the Swamp

Chapter 3, Sarah: the Swamp

Last updated on: November 9, 2026 at 8:28 pm by Dorian Scott Cole

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Chapter 3, Sarah: the Swamp 2026-11-09T20:28:39-06:00 Dorian Scott Cole

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Open and Relational Theology & Social Psychology

About this series: This series is intended to help individuals who have hit an obstacle in their spiritual journey and feel that a shift in their spiritual life is necessary. It is intentionally inclusive and applicable across all faiths, personal beliefs, spirituality, or non-religious perspectives. It may challenge some deeply held beliefs, which is spiritual growth.

This resource is not diagnostic, prescriptive, directive, or therapeutic. Rather, you may find concepts that resonate with you, meditations that prove helpful, and insights to spark your spiritual growth. You are encouraged to approach this material prayerfully.

If you find yourself unable to resolve your challenges or move forward, professional counseling is strongly recommended. Catholics may want to speak with their priest or spiritual director. Others may want to see their pastor or religious leader. Those of all faiths may benefit from a counselor in psychology, or may find help moving forward with a life coach.

Spiritual growth deeply intersects with personal and social psychology. The author, Dorian, is a former pastor with university training across multiple disciplines.

If you are new to this spiritual counseling series, you can begin your journey with Chapter 1: Help, I’m Spiritually Burned Out. Or if you are new to spiritual things and agnostic to religion, follow Elena’s journey in Chapter 2: The Quest for “Does God Talk?”

Additional information on spiritual counseling may be found at Dorian’s website: Spiritual Counseling.

If you are new to this spiritual counseling series, you can begin the quest with Chapter 1: Help, I’m burned out.

▶ A Personal Note on Deconstruction

Deconstruction started for me when I was 16 and has been a lifelong process. It’s actually spiritual growth. I’ve experienced hellfire versus love preaching, New Age philosophy, fundamentalism, philosophy, and several religious beliefs.

When what you are being taught conflicts with the God you know as love, this sets us up for spiritual growth. Something in you screams, “That isn’t right. I know enough about love to understand that isn’t how God works.” And growth begins.

A Note on Rationality and Emotion

God is beyond our ability to know everything. Understanding love is a complex journey. But divine love, while not divorced from emotion, is not based in emotion. Emotions can be very misleading—just as misleading as trying to rationalize everything with philosophy. The spiritual journey is experiential and uses intuition.

The incident with the nuns is from my own experience in college during which time I was also a pastor.

The 60-Second Read
Chapter 3: The Swamp

The Burden of Agency: When rigid religious rules are stripped away, we are left with the terrifying but necessary freedom to make our own moral choices. Real life rarely offers pure, black-and-white options.
The Cost of Compliance: Violating your deeply held internal values to please an institution or follow a rulebook causes profound damage. Hardening your conscience to the pain of others leads to emotional isolation and moral blindness.
The Higher Law: Just as Jesus broke the Sabbath laws to heal and feed the hungry, true spiritual maturity recognizes that compassion and the greater good always supersede rigid legalism.

Counseling Office. Gemini Generated Image

Chapter 3, Sarah: the Swamp

Thomas beckoned Sarah into his office with a warm smile. He wondered if she had thought things through after leaving confused after the previous session. He knew she was doing deep, difficult work with a lot of resistance. Her future decision would carry heavy consequences one way or another.

Sarah was calm but emotionless as she sat down in the chair. Thomas had seen this many times. Silence, no emotion, all signs of someone tied up in knots not knowing which way to turn. Emotionally spent.

“How was your week?” Thomas asked.

She shrugged. “I kept doing the meditations. I guess they kept me grounded otherwise I thought I was going to explode.”

“I’m pleased to hear that. I know this is a very difficult time for you. Have you had conversations with your pastor?”

“He called and said that he doesn’t want to see me take the road with all the hard knocks to learn that the way the church teaches is best. I told him that the way of the church seems to be the road full of thorns and stones. He agreed that it can seem difficult at times, but in the end I will have avoided being lost and having to find a way back. Regardless, I still feel confused.”

“I fully understand. I agree with your pastor that Christianity can be a difficult path to walk if you follow the ways of Jesus.” He waited a moment for her to digest that.

She looked at the floor and sighed. “Which ways of Jesus? That’s the problem.”

Thomas nodded. “Let’s keep talking and see if you can find a way through this. I know you’re miserable. I hate this. But this is what’s before you.”

She nodded in agreement and continued looking at the floor.

I want to try something different. Usually I spend my time listening and guiding. Today I want to try a different tactic to see if there are answers within you, not from me or anyone else. Can we do that?”

“Sure.”

“Do you like movies and stories?”

“I watch gazillions of them—that is if they aren’t too spicy. That would get me in trouble.”

“I’m going to describe some movies to you, and you tell me what you think is the higher value. No wrong answers, just tell me what you think.”

“In the book and movie Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad, the theme is the burden of honor and responsibility. Jim is part of a crew that abandons a sinking ship ahead of the passengers, bringing him dishonor. He is given a second chance to restore himself by helping a tribe get rid of people who have been mistreating them. He gets rid of one, then Jim negotiates for the other to leave on a boat. He’s deceived into taking a route that will put them in danger by a man who wants him gone. They take the route and survive except for Dain Waris. On his return, Jim takes responsibility for Dain’s death and stands before the man’s father, who shoots and kills him. Do you think honor was the right call if it cost him his life?”

“Wow. That’s horrible. I mean, it wasn’t Jim’s fault. Why would he do that?”

“It was a matter of honor.”

“No. It wasn’t. Maybe the writer wrote it that way. But that’s nuts. Besides, is this a true story or fiction?”

“Lord Jim is fiction. Art mimics life. It’s a morality tale about honor. Conrad makes a point about honor. For Jim, having been dishonored and his conscience suffered greatly for it, standing up for honor was the most important thing in his life. In fear he jumped from a sinking ship and left passengers stranded. But now he presented his life in responsibility for another’s death.”

“No. Everything in me screams no. I mean, he paid his debt by helping them. This was unnecessary.”

“Okay, let’s move on.

“The characters in 47 Ronin—Ronin means outcast—were samurais who avenged their master they thought was unjustly sentenced to ritual suicide for injuring a higher lord. They followed the samurai code of loyalty (bushido) and avenged their master by killing the lord who was injured. It’s a true story that took place in Japan in the early 1700s. Afterward, for breaking the law, the Ronin faced forced ritual suicide or death sentences for their crime of killing the lord. Which was higher, the samurai code or the law?

“I suppose this story is about fairness. Maybe about vengeance. I don’t know. It seems to me that’s a weird culture where this could happen. And this absolute thing about laws that require death—who does that?”

“It’s complex, isn’t it? It’s centered in cultural values and asks which value is right. Jesus did the same when he said the Jews were placing the laws or customs of the fathers above the law of God. So, any opinion? Which was higher, the Samurai code or the law?”

She sighed. “I hope you’re coming to a point soon. I feel like I’ve wrangled enough with difficult questions. I guess there’s a higher law about murder. But the punishment, even if it was cultural, was just too much.”

“I think you’re saying there is no grace of God in this. No wiggle room. It’s absolute that is wrong, even if their actions were wrong?”

“Yes, I agree with that.”

“Moving on, in the book and movie Project Hail Mary, the character Straat used nuclear bombs to cause the Arctic and Antartic to thaw enough to provide another 15 years of life to mankind. Then she forced the main character to go to space because he was one in 7000 who could survive being in a lengthy coma, and he was the only one on short notice with the science qualifications to go. After the earth was saved through her efforts, she was sentenced to life in prison for her crimes of setting off a nuclear weapon, and murder for sending a person on a one way mission in space against his will. So which was higher, saving humanity or her crimes?”

“So, if she hadn’t done the things she did, humanity would have gone extinct. She sacrificed herself by doing things that were wrong. It’s clear to me she was a hero. I mean, it’s like a general sending conscripts into battle. Some are going to die even if it’s against their will. Somehow the greater good has to be first in line. I think the greater good is higher.”

“So breaking the rules isn’t always wrong? There can be other factors at play?”

“Yes. Did I pass the test?”

Thomas laughed. “Not a test. Answers from within, and you found them in my opinion.”

She smiled her first smile of the day. “Are we done?”

“I have one more question. There is a real-life thing you can consider. Most scientists agree that global warming caused by people will warm our earth to a tipping point beyond which we can’t recover in just a few years at current rates of warming. If a number of people were making resolving this their life’s work, literally giving their lives for this, not in the same way as Straat and Grace did in Project Hail Mary, but letting it consume their lives, what do you think is the higher purpose: trying to stop global warming or trying to maintain fossil fuel burning, or some other purpose?”

“My church believes God is in control. We shouldn’t mess with such huge things as the environment. And they think Jesus is coming back tomorrow or the next day and he will fix it.”

“I get the talking points. Maybe that will happen. But what do you think? Should we take the chance it will be tomorrow and not in another 2000 years?”

She thought for a moment. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the higher—and necessary—purpose is to try and stop it. They are working on a higher purpose. Because maybe we’re wrong about Jesus coming back soon.”

“Should you follow your conscience, your heart, and your spirit’s felt sense, or the rigid rules of an institution?”

“I think we just established that sometimes rules have higher rules.”

“Which path actually risks losing your true self: doing what you feel is deeply right, or doing what others demand you think is right?”

“I feel like I would lose my soul by doing things I don’t feel are right.”

“In my experience, that’s true. Rules or following your conscience, which one presents the greater risk?”

“Whew. Maybe I don’t really understand, just as the pastor said. But I can’t lose myself.”

Jesus advises, you can’t serve two masters. You will hate one and love the other. Jesus said this about money, but it’s true of all of life. If one seeks to be your master, your choice of one or another will leave you in a love-hate relationship. But it’s not really an either-or option. As Jesus showed, life doesn’t give us clear choices in complex situations. Faced with hungry disciples, Jesus chose for them to pick grain on the Sabbath which was against the law. He chose to heal on the Sabbath rather than leave people diseased.

“Why does it feel so uncertain? You speak plainly and it makes sense. But my pastor does the same.”

Thomas smiled and nodded in affirmation. Spirituality is about personal growth and finding our way forward. The church, some of them, gives a list of rules to obey. And while we’re in our developmental years and maybe have a lack of compassion, this can be good. But we also have to understand the damage to ourselves if we do what we think is wrong. Hardening our conscience to the pain of others is a serious consequence that leads to the erosion of our own humanity, characterized by widespread dehumanization, emotional isolation, social fragmentation, and moral blindness. When individuals numb themselves to suffering, they lose the capacity for genuine connection and allow injustice and indifference to become normalized within society.”

“Why do you know that and I don’t?” She smiled at him in appreciation.

“Not that you’re looking for an answer, but Jesus spoke about this. He asked leaders if it was okay to heal on the Sabbath. They remained silent. Jesus was grieved at the hardness of their hearts. Mark 3:3–5.”

“I read the Bible, too.”

“But you have a lens that looks for confirmation of what you believe. I think we’re making progress even if it all looks like a deep swamp. I don’t envy you this choice you have to make. It’s very heavy. But only you can make it.”

“I have to go think some more.” She thanked him without another word and left.

Thomas opened a drawer, took out his notebook and wrote, “This session Sarah saw with all of her knowing senses: heart, conscience, spirit, and intellect. It’s a heavy burden. I don’t think she will find clarity in the immediate future. The weight of others’ opinion and the trauma of it in terms of choosing either abandoning her friend or following the church rules places her in a place that is very hard to think her way through. And topping that off, she understands the potential danger to her own soul. Rational thinking is smothered by emotion from all sides. The cognitive dissonance of the choices and the question before her of the choice between what she thinks is right and the church, and the consequences of each choice will likely put her in limbo. I think she will be unable to decide intellectually. I think later, having sufficient doubt in place, she will likely visit her friend. Her actions (behavior) will speak for her.

He looked up at the cross on the wall that only he could see. “Thanks for your words. May they bring enlightenment and comfort to Sarah as they do me.”

Meditation 3: The Compass in the Swamp

When you are forced to choose between the safety of a rigid rule and the vulnerable truth of your own conscience, the mind often panics. It feels like stepping into a swamp with no clear path.

Find a quiet space, close your eyes, and take a slow, deep breath. Acknowledge the heavy weight of the expectations placed upon you by others.

Acknowledge the Fear: Say to yourself, “It is terrifying to trust myself, but my conscience and spirit are sacred gifts.”
Release the Rulebook: As you breathe out, visualize setting down a heavy, stone tablet of rules. As you breathe in, ask for the quiet courage to recognize the higher law of love and human connection.

You do not need to make your final decision today. Simply give yourself permission to sit in the tension, trusting that God speaks through your deep empathy and intuition, not just through institutional demands.

Next: Sarah asks her pastor whether he has ever broken church rules for the greater good.

Our answer is God. God’s answer is us. Together we make the world better.

Author’s Website with life and spiritual resources: Dorian Scott Cole .com