Hi, There!
You can call me Chi (pronounced “Kai”). I crafted queerHeart to be an abode for queers like me who wish to thoughtfully navigate the beautiful and rugged wild that is an interweaving and overlapping of our spiritual, sexual and sensual realities. Curious if this could be a place for you, too? I sure hope so! Read on to learn more about the three core threads of queerHeart: Spirituality, Sexuality and Sensuality. You can also find more about these topics over at TrailTalk, my posts page. This site just launched in January of 2025, so please check back often for new posts!
Spirituality
I’m a Christian, first and foremost. I love Christ, and I hope you’ll see glimpses of my faith woven with the musings, stories and blessings I share over at TrailTalk. It’s perhaps the “Christian” lingo to say that I “grew up in the Church”, and I certainly did as a daughter to two Protestant parents. I enjoyed going to small group in my middle school and teenage years and loved the coming-of-age passage of my confirmation class where I took ownership of my faith instead of my parents’.
That ownership, however, truly diverged from my upbringing when I began college in the 2010s. Amidst family illness and my personal struggle with an eating disorder, I fell in love with a more charismatic student ministry that acknowledged and pursued the Holy Spirit’s active leading in our lives. My time in community with this ministry as a student leader and staff member augmented my faith into a listening intimacy with Christ that I never imagined before. I’m grateful to say that intimacy is still growing.
Since then, I’ve wound Lutheranism’s hymns, liturgies and warm-hearts (probably thanks to my childhood church’s love of good casseroles at any potluck) with the charismatic’s more liberal adventurousness in the Spirit.
It’s my daily walk with Christ that has transformed how I think about masturbation, sexuality in singleness, attraction, fantasy, emotional awareness, spiritual direction, and cultivating a healthy, loving and resilient sensuality – topics, as I think you’ll agree, the Church rarely talks about, and if she does, does so very, very poorly. More on that rant later.
It’s this utter neglect and fear of these beautiful experiences, that God wired into our bodies and hearts, that made me want to create queerHeart in the first place. To create a safe space where we can reclaim and reintegrate our God-given sexualities with our bodies and spirits. No shame. No condescending or belittling voices. Just an answer of our hearts to God’s invitation to know and understand ourselves more deeply with Him and walking through that together.
Sexuality
I also love to explore the rich terrain of my inner sexual life, which I’ve come to view as an ever changing landscape of beauty and wildness. (Hence the outdoorsy theme of this site.) Ever since I was little, I’ve loved fantasizing and thinking about being sexual by myself and enjoying the beauty I find in those around me – male and female. The confidence in who and how Christ made me to be sexually has definitely had its twists and turns throughout my life, from childhood bullies to dating misadventures to varying attractions to others. Challenges and wounds. Ups and downs. But in recent years I’ve nested out a solid place for my body, sexual desires and faith with Christ. There’s still so much I’m exploring and figuring out for myself with Him, especially with accepting and celebrating my divergent attraction.
I’m calling this attraction queerHearted (qH), which I like best as a description for myself instead of bisexual or pansexual. However you describe your own sexuality, you’re welcome to call yourself a qH too!
I pray this li’l nook in cyberspace will provide solace and space for you to explore your own sexuality with God and know you’re not alone. And if you’re straight and wondering what day-to-day life is like for someone who falls in the LGTBQIA+ spectrum, I pray His Spirit opens and whispers to your own beautiful heart. ❤
Sensuality
I’m also a Highly Sensory/Sensitive Person (an HSP). In short, HSPs are people with personality traits who have an awareness to stimuli that is stronger than others’. Research has found that 20% of the population are HSPs, and this percentage is equal between men and women.
For myself, I empathize with others intensely and love finding the beauty of God’s presence in pretty much anything. I also think deeply about my everyday experiences which leads to, as some HSP researchers call it, a rich ‘inner life’. I suppose this ‘inner life’ is what I want to share with you here as well.
This can be an awesome part of being an HSP, but it also has its drawbacks. I can become overstimulated, or overwhelmed, by another’s emotions, violence in media and literature, noisy environments and certain smells or textures. Ergo, I avoid movies and TV shows that are violent (pretty much anything TV-14 and up on Netflix these days is a no-go for me) and draw boundaries between another’s emotional world and my own.
Regardless of whether you identify as an HSP or not, sensation is a gift that we all share. Our senses tap against our minds always, everywhere. When I bother to stop and listen to them, my senses nudge my soul awake to the Beauty that is everyday life with God. Our sense of smell, sight, taste, sound and touch are God-given tools that allow us to understand our bodies, creation and each other. Sensuality is what I’d describe as the general awareness and enjoyment of these relationships, and is a theme I’ll touch on in my writings as well.
If you’re curious about HSP and want to learn more, you can check out Elaine Aaron’s site: The Highly Sensitive Person.
Well friend, that’s that about me and the subjects my posts will be touching on. So please, come in! Free your feet from your dusty boots and take a swing in a hammock by the campfire (or a nap, I won’t tell). Serve yourself a steaming mug of coffee or hot chocolate and stay a while for some TrailTalk. The Spirit is delighted to meet you here, and so am I.
Yours in Christ,
Chi
queerHeart: Faith. Sexuality. Community. 