Harm Is Not Holy: Spiritual Bypass, Redemptive Suffering & Accountability

Is suffering part of a divine plan? Are abuse and corruption “lessons” souls signed up for? In this episode, we draw a clear line: harm is not holy.

As details surface about corruption, trafficking, and abuse of power, it’s easy for spiritual language to blur accountability. We explore how concepts like archetypes, karma, collective awakening, and redemptive suffering can unintentionally excuse harm or numb our moral clarity. Understanding patterns is not the same as excusing choices. Exploitation and abuse are actions—and actions carry responsibility.

We also talk about anger and trauma healing. Many survivors of childhood abuse could not access anger because it threatened safety and attachment. The nervous system did what it had to do and said, “I’m fine.” Anger, when it comes, is not a spiritual failure—it can be the body reclaiming boundary. And if it hasn’t come, that makes sense too. Resilience does not retroactively sanctify harm. Growth may arise from wounds, but we do not call the wound sacred.

Finally, we revisit a deeply embedded theological narrative: the idea that suffering was required for redemption. What happens when violence is framed as part of God’s plan? How does that shape the way we interpret abuse, corruption, and power today? We question redemptive suffering without dismantling faith, and we move the holy center away from violence and back toward compassion, presence, and love.

Pattern is not possession.
 Archetype is not destiny.
 Wrong now is still wrong.

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Transcript

A Gentle Weekend And A Heavy World

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I just had the luxury of having friends come from out of town to stay with me for a long weekend as Mark and the kids went out west skiing, and it was slow and incredibly nourishing, and I truly feel like my own little world. The steps are getting lighter after a very heavy January. Yet my little bubble is not the whole world, and the world feels especially heavy right now. And there's something I need to speak to clearly. In the past, I have talked about corruption becoming visible as part of a larger unraveling. And I have used language about systems collapsing, city blocks being torn down so something new can be built up. And I've spoken about archetypes and distorted leaders and embodying collective energies and how sometimes what surfaces reveals what has long been hidden. And I want to slow that down because recently a friend who lives in Minnesota posted something that stopped me. She said, I don't care if this is good long term. It is wrong now. And I felt that. Not in theory, not in archetype, not in collective narrative in the body. Wrong now is still wrong. What is happening to human beings right now through corruption and exploitation and abuse of power is not made holy because it might one day expose something larger. Exposure may matter, but harm is not sacred. And especially as more details surface about human trafficking, about systemic abuse, about grotesque misuse of money and power and abusing young girls, I need to say something plainly. Abuse is not divine assignment. Exploitation is not sacred curriculum. Being harmed is not a destiny that someone incarnated to fulfill. Yes, human beings are resilient. Yes, meaning can be made after trauma. Yes, healing can transform what was meant to break someone. But that transformation does not retroactively sanctify harm. Growth does not mean it wasn't meant. And strength does not mean it was assigned. When we use spiritual language to frame suffering as part of a divine plan, we risk doing something dangerous. We risk anesthetizing ourselves. We risk absolving perpetrators. We risk subtly suggesting that victims chose their pain as some higher lesson. And I do not align with that. I believe patterns exist. I believe archetypal energies exist. I believe collective belief can energize certain dynamics in leadership and in culture. But pattern is not possession. I want to use something a little lighter to talk about this. But when your child is sitting for a test and two-thirds of the class is cheating, you hope that they step outside of that pattern, that they use their choice, that they choose integrity. And if you have been a parent, you have been confronted by the opposite, where the child says, but so-and-so was doing it. But we have authority and we have choice. Pattern is not possession, archetype is not destiny. Understanding a pattern does not excuse participation in it. No one is trapped inside of a role. To exploit is a choice. To traffic is a choice. To abuse power or abuse people is a choice. To knowingly not report it is a choice. And those choices carry responsibility. When we zoom out too far, which is something I am guilty of often, when we zoom out too far into collective karma, into divine unfolding, into cosmic narrative, we can blur the line between exposure and endorsement. We can start to say this had to happen. And that is where spirituality becomes bypass. There is a difference between saying something can be built after collapse and saying collapse was necessary, especially when that collapse includes real bodies, real children, real trauma. Wrong now is still wrong now. And I want to speak to something else very clearly. Sometimes when harm happens, especially in childhood, anger is not available. Grief is not available. A child cannot afford rage. Anger can threaten attachment, anger can threaten their safety, anger can threaten their survival. So the body does something brilliant. It protects, it numbs, it adapts, it says, I'm fine. And that protection can last for decades. So if you never felt anger about what happened to you, that doesn't mean it didn't matter. It may mean that your nervous system did exactly what it had to do for you to survive. And if somewhere along the way you were taught that your anger is low vibrational or unspiritual or a sign that you haven't healed, that may have buried it deeper. So I want to say this anger is not regression. Anger is often the body reclaiming boundary. And if it never came because it never felt safe, that makes sense too. You do not have to call your suffering sacred in order to be whole. You are allowed to say it was wrong. There's another layer here that I have been thinking about. Many of us were raised inside of a story that the crucifixion was always the plan, that suffering was required, that violence was necessary for redemption. And I want to approach that gently because when we internalize that idea that divine love required execution, that redemption required brutality, it can shape something deep in us. It can quietly reinforce the belief that harm is part of God's design. But what if the sacred part of the story was not the violence? What if the sacred part was the embodiment, the compassion, the presence, the refusal to abandon love, even in the face of power? What if that was the calling and the execution was human choice? It was political power protecting itself, religious fear protecting itself, empire protecting itself. What if we have confused prophecy with requirement? What if we were told a story in a way that made violence feel inevitable and therefore sacred, instead of seeing it as the result of human fear and power? Because when violence becomes part of God's plan in our theology, it becomes easier to accept violence as part of destiny in our psychology. And that matters. Because if everything is meant, then nothing and no one is accountable. I'm not interested in dismantling faith. I am interested in dismantling the idea that harm is holy. We can believe in growth without believing in ordained suffering. We can believe in awakening without sanctifying abuse. We can understand patterns without surrendering moral clarity. And maybe this is where I land. If you cannot access your anger right now, that makes sense. If your body had to bury it to survive, that makes sense. You're not behind. You are not broken. You are not less evolved. But for those of us who can feel anger when we see exploitation or trafficking or abusive power, we do not need to suppress it in the name of spirituality. We can let it clarify us, not into hatred, not into vengeance, but into boundary, into protection, into insistence. We insist that exploitation is not destiny. We insist that power misused is choice. We insist that no archetype absolves a human being from responsibility because what we have in this world is each other, not a cosmic bypass, not a mythic narrative, each other, flesh and bones. And if spirituality means anything, it must include protecting the vulnerable and refusing to sanctify harm. We grow from what wounds us, but we do not call the wound holy. Wrong now is still wrong. And love, real love, does not require violence to prove itself. Harm is not destiny. You are not prescribed a course in pain. You may walk through it, you may learn from it, you may grow from it, but the pain was not the plan. Thank you for putting on your boots and walking through a bit of a heavier conversation with me. I hope you feel seen either in your hurt or in your anger. I hope you realize that what happened, though it may reveal something, was a culmination of choices. Each and every one of the perpetrators, the pedophiles, the abusers, the traffickers, or those who sat by and watched, they had choice. And collectively, what we have is voice to not further persecute victims by saying it was the divine plan, but by holding those who made those choices accountable. I know this was a bit of a heavier one, but as I am one who has zoomed out far too often, I wanted this week to draw in a little closer. So thanks for walking with me. I love you. Have a great week.