Tell it Anyway: A Reflective Essay on Betrayal,Belonging and the Refusal to be Silenced

Abstract

This reflective essay explores the personal and theological impact of betrayal within an academic context, particularly as experienced by those working outside traditional institutional structures. Written from the perspective of a feminist practical theologian, it considers what it means to speak out from experiences of silence, displacement and erasure. Drawing on theologies of disorientation, feminist insights on lived experience and the fragile ethic of academic friendship, the essay frames vulnerability not as weakness but as theological witness. It is a call to resist erasure, reclaim voice and write from the ache – not for vindication, but for liberation. Grounded in practical theology and written in a confessional tone, the piece offers solidarity to others navigating marginal spaces and invites a broader ecclesial and scholarly conversation about faithfulness, belonging and the slow work of grace.

It happened late at night, the kind of hour when the world is quiet and your guard is down. We had just returned to the hotel after a long day out with family. I wasn’t expecting anything – certainly not while on holiday, surrounded by laughter, momentarily at rest. And then I saw it: the title, the topic, the territory I had spoken of so freely – now published under someone else’s name. There it was, on my computer screen – the idea I had once offered in trust, with its phrases, titles and theological contours, now rendered visible without me, detached from my presence, my story, my voice.

At first, it was disorienting – like walking into a room where someone is telling your story, but forgetting to mention your name. I stared at the screen, thinking: Wait . . . that’s my title. But why is my name not there? The breath caught in my chest before I could form a coherent thought. What followed wasn’t just surprise – it was the slow ache of a thousand unspoken expectations breaking open.

Titles are not just words. They are orientation. Intention. They mark our stake in shared discourse, an extension of our voice into the world. So when something I had carried – nurtured, spoken of, hoped for – was published without even the courtesy of acknowledgement, it didn’t just feel like theft. It felt like erasure.

What hurt most wasn’t the topic itself, but the silence. The shared meals. The conversations. The spaces where my dreams had been laid bare in trust. And yet, not once had she said: ‘I’m working on this too’. Sharing research ideas is never only intellectual. It is confessional. A whisper of calling. A glimpse of what we hope will shape the world.

When that sacred sharing becomes a site of erasure, it feels not only like a professional breach, but a spiritual one. My mind spiralled: Was I too open? Too trusting? Did I silence my own intuition because I longed so deeply to connect?

As a feminist practical theologian, I believe that lived experience is a site of divine encounter. Reflection born in pain is not just catharsis – it is theology. Feminist theology teaches me that vulnerability is not weakness but witness. To write from within disorientation is not to abandon clarity, but to resist the tidy, linear myth of theological certainty. Helene Egnell speaks of ‘the messiness of actual existence’ in feminist interfaith work – where theologians, activists and educators meet in ‘the dialogue of life’, wrestling with faith that is always embodied, contextual and unfinished. ¹ Likewise, Pamela Cooper-White insists that all theology – and especially pastoral theology – must begin with lo cotidiano, the realities of daily life, ² and with what Moltmann called ‘the open wound of life in this world’. ³ These wounds, these daily aches, are not distractions from theological work; they are its very ground. To write from this place is not to lose theological authority, but to reclaim it – rooted not in certainty, but in truthfulness.

Walter Brueggemann describes disorientation as ‘a sense of being gotten at and trampled, which reduces to tears’. ⁴ It is precisely from such a place that I write – from within the ache and confusion, not having resolved it. He also writes, ‘Disorientation . . . express[es] the pain, grief, dismay, and anger that life is not good. They refuse to settle for things as they are, and so they assert hope’. ⁵ This refusal – to stay silent, to be erased – is a hopeful act. Even here.

I felt exiled – not from a physical place, but from an imagined academic community I had longed to belong to. Especially as someone embedded not within an institution but affiliated only through an honorary title, I have cherished the freedom to research – without the demands of teaching or administrative work. Yet the loneliness of that freedom is real. From that ache – the ache of feeling like a lone wolf – I have often reached out, hoping for connection, seeking kindred spirits.

What are the unspoken codes of belonging in the academic world – especially when you’re not tethered to an institution, when you’re researching from the edges? I hold an honorary title, gratefully, but it grants no corridor. No door to knock on when your voice shakes. No shared tearooms to debrief after heartbreak. Just the silence of a screen. Just the ache of asking: Does this path I’ve chosen have room for someone like me?

Sometimes, even connection can amplify the ache. I’ve noticed it after Zoom calls with my university supervisor – someone who has offered the kind of academic companionship I longed for: attentive, generous, willing to listen and share, to encourage and guide. These calls should ease the ache, but strangely, they deepen it. The moment the screen fades to black, I’m left with a sharper sense of absence – a reminder of what isn’t there. It’s not her fault, nor a lack in our conversation. It is, perhaps, the nature of distance. The body longs for nearness, for shared air and unspoken rituals – the quiet comfort of walking down the hall to debrief, of leaning on a doorframe mid-thought. There is no easy fix for this loneliness. Only the recognition that longing is part of the work. To need others – even when they cannot always be there – is not weakness. It is the mark of a vocation rooted in relationship. A faith that still reaches for communion, even when it can only grasp light through glass.

I wanted a friend. A local friend. Someone I could meet for tea, not just Zoom calls. Someone without a time difference. Perhaps that longing clouded my intuition. Or perhaps I misread her entirely. But in the wake of this betrayal, I feel lonelier and more vulnerable than ever in my vocation. Where do I belong as a researcher? Do I belong anywhere at all? Who are my people, and how will I find them? Or – in choosing a non-traditional path, devoting myself to research and writing apart from tenure-track norms – have I unknowingly accepted the forfeiture of community too?

I never gave much structured thought to what academic friendship might look like. I just hoped it would be like any meaningful friendship – marked by mutual trust, warm encouragement and the joy of journeying together. I knew that being outside a physical institution would make things harder. There would be no shared rhythms to stumble into – no chance encounters on stairwells, no office doors left ajar for impromptu tea and theological meanderings. But I still imagined I might meet people – organically, gently – and that some would become companions.

I’ve never been drawn to networking. As an introvert, conferences leave me drained and disoriented – rooms full of strangers and the pressure to connect in ways that feel performative. What I longed for instead was the kind of connection where ideas are shared not for gain, but for joy. Where we listen to each other’s callings and speak words of fuel and blessing into them. Where brainstorming isn’t strategic but sacred. I’ve tried to be that kind of friend to others – offering time, affirmation and trust – and I think that’s why this particular silence has cut so deep. I had expected, perhaps naively, that friendship would be its own ethic. That mutual care would be the default, not the exception. That we would cheer one another on – not race for the mic.

This reflective piece is my attempt to process not just the event, but the vulnerabilities it exposed – vulnerabilities tied to my non-institutional status, and to deeper questions of trust, identity and belonging. I write to expose the quiet shame (Why didn’t I see this coming? Am I a bad judge of character?) and the creeping self-doubt (Am I overreacting? Am I imagining this? Is this normal in academia, and I just didn’t know?).

I think I am grieving more than just the loss of trust. I’m grieving the loss of clarity. For many years, I served as a hospital palliative chaplain – a role with rituals, rhythms and recognisable meaning. It was a title that made sense to people. I could explain myself in a sentence, and people understood the work I did. Now, when people ask what I do, I stumble. ‘Researcher’ feels too narrow. ‘Academic’ feels inaccurate. I don’t teach, I don’t have a post, I don’t walk corridors with my name on a door. I’ve carved out this space – a space I believe in – but it is not easily recognised by the world I live in. And sometimes, in quiet moments, I wonder if that means it doesn’t matter. That fear – the fear of invisibility – echoes in the silence left by this incident. Without institutional scaffolding, who holds me when something breaks? Who do I debrief with? Who names my growth?

In chaplaincy, there were symbols that steadied me – even on the hardest days. A lab coat embroidered with the name chaplain. An ID badge clipped to my collar that granted me access to the wards. These weren’t just functional; they were reminders that I belonged. That I had a recognised role, however marginal in the medical hierarchy. There were others like me. There were shared practices, common prayers, a language we all knew. I could name what I did and be met with understanding, even reverence. Now, the work is still sacred – but the container is invisible. There is no badge for theological witness, no lanyard for slow vocational becoming. The rituals were quieter, the recognition rare. I have built a life around words, but some days, I ache for the structure that once held mine:

I grieve not only what was taken, but what I had hoped for.

I grieve the absence of witness.

The lack of language when introductions stumble.

The quiet envy I sometimes feel when others speak of colleagues and corridors.

I grieve the strange ache of building something no one knows how to name.

And still, I light a candle.

Not because the way is clear,

but because I believe that the work still matters – even here, even now.

And yet I know I am not alone in this space of between identities. There are others – writing, wondering, grieving – who are asking the same questions in the quiet. We are scattered but not solitary. We are searching, but not lost. To write, even from the ache, is to reach out a hand in the dark – trusting that someone, somewhere, will feel it. That even in our scatteredness, something of us might meet.

I write also for them, too – for those who may be navigating similar terrain, or who have known this kind of wrestling. I want them to know they are not alone. To speak from within disorientation, as Brueggemann reminds us, is itself a theological act. He writes, ‘Humanness depends on being faithfully heard. And being faithfully heard depends on risky speech of self-disclosure uttered in freedom before a faithful listener’. ⁶ We speak not because we are certain we will be believed, but because silence itself can kill. ⁷

To speak honestly from confusion and ache is a pastoral task. Grace is present here, too – even when we cannot see the shore, even when we have no idea when or how we’ll find our footing again.

What sustains me, even now, is remembering why I chose this path in the first place. In midst of confusion and grief, my daughter asked me a simple question that pierced through the fog – a question that brought me back to centre. It reminded me of the deeper why – the thread that has guided me all along: the calling to listen where voices are faint and muffled, to hold space for those who are often unseen, and to do this work not for recognition, but for faithfulness.

Faithfulness is often unseen. It does not trend. It does not boast. It is the quiet, daily choosing, again and again, to honour the call – especially when no one else sees or names it. It is sitting at a desk when no one is waiting for your words. It is crafting sentences that may never be cited, but still speak life. It is believing that theology is not proven in metrics, but lived in integrity. That love – even in silence – still bears witness.

I chose this work because I believed – and still believe – that theology must bend its ear towards the margins. That our task as practical theologians is not to preserve systems, but to witness lives. My calling has always been to move towards the overlooked, the silenced, the wounded. To lift up voices that bear wisdom in the shadows. This work is not about recognition, prestige, or platform. It is about faithfulness.

Faithfulness, for me, means asking: Am I using what I’ve been given – my training, my tenderness, my theological imagination – to serve those who are easily missed? Am I still turning towards the gap between what the Church says it is and what it has become? If I can answer yes to that, then I am still in my lane. Still running my race. Still doing the work I was called to do – even if the world does not quite know what to name me.

So I write from the middle. From the ache. Trusting that God is still at work. That I will be carried, in time, to reorientation. That faithfulness, for now, is simply this: to let go of knowing and instead remain open to grace. To look for the personalised, unexpected gifts that appear even here. This piece feels like one of them already. A moment to pause, to lift my head from focused research, and search for God anew.

Much like the moment my eldest daughter offered me clarity – that night, as I sat stunned in front of the screen. She didn’t join the outrage. She asked,

What is the best outcome you want for yourself, Mum? And we will work backwards from there.

With that, my centre returned.

I knew I wanted two things. First: to learn. To understand this experience so I can honour the pain without repeating it. To reflect on what clouded my discernment – was it longing, loneliness, or my hunger for kinship?

Second: to still do the work. She may have gone first, but that doesn’t mean she did it best. It doesn’t mean the work is no longer mine to do. The topic matters too much. The people I want to serve are too precious. And I, even in this bruised moment, am not done.

What does it mean, as a feminist theologian, to extend hospitality in a system that may not always reciprocate? What does it mean to believe that my voice still matters, even when someone else reached the mic first – not with malice, perhaps, but without acknowledgement?

There is no way to prove this story to those who might ask for evidence. No citation trail can capture the ache of being overwritten in silence. But as Katie Cannon insisted, ‘Even when they call your truth a lie, tell it anyway! Tell it anyway!’ ⁸

To write from this place is not merely to explain an event – it is to claim it as theological witness. It is to say: this happened, and it matters. It is to believe that my lived experience, my ache and my discernment are not less valid because they resist quantification. They are, in fact, the very stuff of theology:

To those who have trusted and been met with silence,

who have shared the seeds of their calling and watched them bloom elsewhere without their name –

this is for you.

To those who wonder if they were too open, too soft, too believing in the goodness of collegiality –

your vulnerability was not weakness. It was generosity.

And generosity is never wasted.

To those walking the scholar’s path outside of structures,

who labour in the in-between, writing without corridors of power or departmental protections –

you belong.

Your voice matters, even when no institution names it.

If your ache still pulses, if you are still searching for your people,

if you are still unsure whether telling the truth will cost too much –

tell it anyway.

Tell it not for vindication, but for liberation.

Tell it as testimony, as theology, as prayer.

Disorientation is not the end of faith. It is one of its most honest rooms.

And grace – slow, unhurried grace – meets us even here.

May you write the next sentence,

not in certainty, but in faith.

Not to prove, but to witness.

Still writing. Still here. Still yours.

And if you are, too –

Writing quietly, loving boldly, trusting slowly –

Know this: your work matters.

Even if it isn’t acknowledged, even if it is misunderstood.

May your words rise like small lights in uncertain rooms.

May you find, scattered across this wide and weary world, companions in the shadows.

We are not alone as we fear.

This is not the end of the story.

It is part of it.

And I intend to write the next chapter – fully, faithfully, in my own voice.

To witness is not to watch from a distance. It is to stay close to the ache. To lend our presence to what might otherwise remain unseen. Witness does not require solution. It asks only that we remain. To write from the ache. To speak what was silenced, to offer our words as shelter – this, too, is faithfulness.

So if your work is quiet, if your call is slow, if your name is not yet known – do not turn away. The path of faithfulness is rarely loud. But it is real. It is the patient tending of words that may never go viral, the unseen scaffolding of lives being changed. The ache of longing does not disqualify you from this work; it connects you to it. And even now – in the hush between recognition and response – the Spirit breathes. So write. Speak. Stay. Breathe. You are not alone.