When I talk about spiritual, what I do not mean, is crystals.

What I do not mean, is pews.

What I do not mean, is rules.

When I talk about spiritual, I mean one thing only: what’s real.

What’s real is that history runs in your blood, and through the streets and trails around you.

What’s real is that, in the most literal, physical way possible, you have the stars in you.

What’s real is no life, no world, no reality changes without people to change it.

What’s real is that god is not hidden, waiting for you to die. God is everywhere, urging you to live.

Do you ever notice how the times you feel the most, are the times people are most rigid, or least comfortable talking about.

Grief. Funerals. Heartbreak.

Love. Desire. Longing.

Birth. Death. Change.

Controversy. Awkwardness. Honesty.

God forbid you have a big feeling.

God forbid you have an original thought.

God forbid you not want what everyone says you’re supposed to want.

I want to tell you that this is hard. It is the hardest thing to write about because it is the hardest to put into words.

It is the stuff of discussions, and examples, and questions. It is the stuff of laughter, and back-and-forth.

It is the stuff of feeling, being in, and not simply reading or speaking about.

But it is the stuff that’s been forgotten.

So the writing is some small reminder.

How do you show someone the significance of the spirit, when all they know is the physical?

How do you help a person understand the role that the spiritual—the truly spiritual—played in people coming together to transform the world for Civil Rights and Human Rights in the 60s and beyond.

That every one of those events was made to matter by a few people, usually young, usually educated, usually with plenty of other options, who started out in a single room.

People have learned skepticism, and jadedness, and irreverence, from seeing the problem-things that some have called religion shoved down throats, used to subjugate and colonize and take advantage of.

But the trick was convincing so many smart, caring people that the spirit belongs to a building or a cause, when it is as natural and necessary as water.

Because if you can get enough people to fear any alternative.

 To doubt any authenticity. To not hope, or believe, or question—you can prevent any change.

Think about it.

When I talk about spiritual, I mean everything that’s true, and nothing that isn’t.

I mean everything that matters, and nothing that doesn’t.

I mean what’s worth it. I mean life. I mean you. And us. All of us.

And I could pretend that opinions are enough for that.

I could pretend that politics or policy or changing minds are enough for that.

I could pretend that social work, community building, research and academia, having a job and donating money, are enough for it.

But then I’d be lying. And I think you know that if you’ve convinced yourself of it, you lie to yourself too.

Because if any of it were enough, why would the world be as it is?

If it was a matter of therapy and personal growth and working hard, why would you still feel the way you do?

If it was a matter of of social enterprises and nonprofits and getting enough people to care or vote differently, wouldn’t something be a little more right at the moment?

It won’t be, because every single one of those things is an attempt to mend a million cuts, when the heartismissing from the body.

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So, I’m building a space for the heart. An initiative that is proudly, boldly, spiritual.

That’s Grove House.

It’s some work, yes. But it’s also an analog hangout. It’s life.

And it’s important that it exists.

Because it is not the spiritual that is worth being nervous about, or skeptical of.

It is the lack of it.

It is a world, a life, a reality that removes it from everything, and makes you too afraid or too dismissive to explore it.

It launches with a founding fellowship. Capped at 6 for round one, but with more space in subsequent cohorts.

To express your interest, write me a short letter.Talk a little about who you are and where you are in life. Tell me what draws you here. And tell me what you carry — what interests, skills, lived experiences, identities (past or present, shed or current), values, or vibe you might bring. Submit here.

Bring your questions. But if ever there was something worth trying, it’s this.

If it doesn’t fit, at least you’ll have shaken things up a bit. But what if it does?