Aaron J. Smith
Poet · post-Christian theologian · spiritual director
I’m a poet, a spiritual director, a post-Christian theologian — and I’m kind of a mess. I live in Oregon, where the green is honest and the weird is celebrated. I drink too much coffee and not enough water.
I’ve been deconstructing and reconstructing for over twenty years. Religious trauma and church hurt are part of my story. So is the slow, strange work of finding that the Jesus story — stripped of the institution’s need to manage it — still has something worth following.
Formation
I’m a chaplain in formation with the Order of Hildegard, an interfaith community of practice for people who have been pushed to the margins of traditional religion. My practice as a spiritual director draws on Ignatian discernment, centering prayer, and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Theology
My theology is post-Christian in the sense that I no longer hold the dogmatic structures of Christianity — but I have not left the tradition so much as I have learned to read it differently, against itself, through the lens of those it has harmed.
The through-line in my theological thinking is kenosis: God’s self-donation as the shape of divinity itself, which means that power-over is always a theological problem, and vulnerability is always a theological resource. My framework — incarnational, lamenting, liberative — grounds my work in the body, takes suffering seriously rather than spiritualizing it, and orients everything toward liberation, for the marginalized first.
I am not trying to build a platform. I am trying to be faithful to the thread — the one that runs through the poems and the theology and the direction sessions and the tarot. If you’re here, you’ve probably found a piece of that thread. Welcome.
Where to go next
- Spiritual direction — accompaniment for the in-between.
- Curious Tarot — contemplative readings.
- Writing — poems and essays at The Cluttered Mouth.
- All Things Made New — my podcast.
Send a note
Prefer email? Write to contact@aaronjsmith.net.