Kat Armas: Abuelita Faith

This week, Dr. Reyes talks to Kat Armas about growing up in the Cuban community in Miami, her lifelong passion for stories, and the foundational relationship with her abuela that helped form her as a writer seeking to center the stories of women of faith.  

Kat is a Cuban American writer and podcaster from Miami, FL. She holds a dual MDiv and MAT from Fuller Theological Seminary where she was awarded the Frederick Buechner Award for Excellence in Writing.

Her first book, Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us About Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength, sits at the intersection of women, decolonialism, the Bible, and Cuban identity. She also explores these topics and more on her podcast, The Protagonistas, which centers the voices of Black, Indigenous, and other women of color in theological spaces.

Kat is pursuing a ThM at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, where she lives with her spouse and new baby. She is also working on her second book, Sacred Belonging: A 40-day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture.

Instagram: @kat.armas
Twitter: @kat_armas

Vector Illustration by: ReAl_wpap
Music by: @siryalibeats

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Transcript

Patrick: Today I’m excited to welcome Kat Armas, who is the author of Abuelita Faith. She is one of the most inspiring theologians and writers today and I’m excited for you to hear our conversation. 

All right Kat, welcome to the Sound of the Genuine. I am so excited, but I mean not just because I've read your book and your story and have just loved journeying with you, but I have a lot of curiosities about what that was like growing up. So take me back to your beginning. Tell me about your family, where you grew up. Tell me a few stories about your genesis.

Kat: Yeah, well thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you and just be here with you. I am originally from Miami, Florida. I am Cuban American. Yeah, I always specifically say that I was born and raised in Miami, Florida, because that is very…there's a lot that goes into that, right? There's a lot that goes into my particular social location and the fact that my culture was the dominant culture growing up. You know, I think that that shaped a huge part of my story and how I understand the world and then how I came to, you know, learn and relearn everything once I left my sort of Cuban bubble, my little Haven of Miami. And then also all of the lived realities and lived experiences and all of the complicated political and also just social realities that go into being Cuban from Miami, right? It's so complicated. And I think my story is really shaped very much by exile. That's the way that many of the Cuban Americans from Miami sort of the lens through which they see, who they are, their reality, how they understand themselves.

Yeah, so growing up, I was raised in a Roman Catholic community, an exilic community. So many of the folks who had come from Cuba more recently and it was more of a popular Catholicism. And I specify that I was raised with a popular Catholicism because my abuela, my grandmother whom, you know, my book is about and who shaped so much of my story, you know, she lived in el campo, so she lived far from any ability to sort of get to Mass. And so she practiced religion in her home. And I think that that is something that also shaped how I understand faith - you know faith was communal, but it was personal, right. We understood God and how we understood our relationships with each other, but at the same time, we had altars in the home and we prayed the rosary and we prayed to the saints. Yeah, we were upheld by a community of people, both past and present. And so that was a big part of how I understood faith growing up.

I think for me, I didn't recognize the wisdom and so much that was there until I left, like I said, my little haven, you know, where my culture was the dominant culture. And I looked back at so many of the stories of my abuela. When I sort of found myself in evangelicalism later on, I looked back you know, and I was told that her faith wasn't legitimate because abuela wasn't educated or you know, she didn't lead a Bible study or preach a sermon or any of those things, but looking back, the stories that shaped me and my faith were the ones in front of the altar, right?

There were the stories of me sitting next to abuela as she sewed and that's how she provided for our family. You know, she was a widow. And so looking at so many parallels of her life and so many parallels in the Bible, you know, I realized that my grandmother, as I write in Abuelita Faith, is the greatest theologian that I have ever known yet no one would consider her a theologian. And so I have stories of walking with her to, you know, where she would buy all her telas, like all her stuff to make clothes. And I'd walk with her hand in hand and she'd put me up on the table and all the little abuelitas would come and try on all the fabric around my body.

You know, then we'd go back to her house and I would sit next to her while she put her foot down on the little sewing machine and made all the clothes for our community. And women were constantly coming into the house and trying on different clothes. And she loved lace and so she would, create lace and she made wedding dresses and all of these things. And I realized later on that that was theology. You know, she was using her hands to create the way that women like Tabitha did in scripture, right? So those are so many formative things in my life growing up. I saw God in things like the hands, cooking food. She would start making her frijoles negros in the morning. Right at 8:00 am she'd start making dinner. And then by 5:00 PM we'd have a house full of family members, you know, ready to eat. And it was her table and she set it, she set the rules. She was the one who set the menu. And so all of these sort of embodied ways of being are what shaped my spirituality and my understanding of God growing up.

Patrick: What a beautiful, just formation experience. I am curious about…so in the midst of all that, what were her hopes and dreams for you and what were your hopes and dreams as you're growing up and thinking about how all this is forming and shaping you?

Kat: Yeah. That's a great question. You know, looking back, a big culture shock that I think I experienced, uh, you know, my grandmother was a single mother cause her husband died - my grandfather - before I was born. My mom was a single mom. And so I was raised by two single women who provided for our family, who did all the things that, you know, a mother and a father or a mother and a partner would, do or a family would do.

Yeah. So I think that they had all sorts of expectations and hopes and dreams for me. There was nothing outside of the bounds of what they hoped that my life would become. My grandma has dementia now and, you know, there's a lot that her mind can't really process. And so of course, I've talked to her about a lot of her stories and when I talk to her about my book, she understands she's la protagonista, but she doesn't, you know, really fully grasp everything that I'm writing about. And someone asked like, well, you know, if you could sit and have a conversation about this, like what would she…really, what would she think about all this like feminist sort of leanings that you have and you know, it's funny cuz I don't think my grandma would even think about that.

You know, she wouldn't think that her life was subversive in any way. She wouldn't think that she was doing anything, yeah, that would make her some sort of model for whatever. I mean she was just surviving, right? And I think that's something that I talk a lot about in Abuelita Faith, it's just a theology of survival. I mean, so many of our grandmothers, so many marginalized folks around us are literally just trying to make it to the next day. I mean, we even see this in the Bible, right? So many women in scripture, like literally just trying to live. Like we over spiritualize their stories in many ways, and they're just like trying to get married so that they, you know, don't die, right? And I think that that was just abuela you know, she was just trying to live, trying to survive, you know, and so many, when we look back at our ancestors, you know, their stories are so meaningful to us and their stories. I mean, they've changed history and in the moment they didn't know they were doing that.

And so I think that's a lot of, you know, abuela's own story. She didn't know all that she was teaching me and, and forming, you know, forming in my life, all of the spiritual lessons, she was just trying to survive. But anyway, I think for me that survival is key. You know, it's that survival where I see God, where I see the divine, you know, moving and working most powerfully. And so I think in my everyday life now, you know, I look for those moments those every day lived experiences, you know, getting up in the morning and making your frijoles and sitting around la mesa and using your body to just be. And to survive and to thrive. And that's where I find sort of my spiritual, you know, formation nowadays.

Patrick: Take me back to your youth or young adulthood. I mean, was this the, was this the dream that you have for yourself - I'm gonna think and find wonder in the every day? I'm gonna write every day. I'm gonna be a writer. When do these types of vocations that you're living out now start really emerging for you?

Kat: Yeah. That's a good question. I don't think that I had these plans of being a writer, sharing abuela's story when I was younger. You know, I was listening to a podcast recently and it was so good because, you know, there's two types of people - This is what the person was saying. There's two types of people in the world, those who have like this passion, this dream that is just burning in them from when they're little, and then there's others that we have an interest here, and then we follow that and then that leads us to another interest. And then we follow that and that leads us to, you know, and so we're sort of just following this journey of life and it's leading us to our passion versus trying to follow whatever it is, our passion that we have as a kid.

And so I always did have a love for writing. I would write little short stories and I read so much. My sister and I would sit back to back, you know, every summer and we'd just flip through books. I remember reading like 12 one day, it was really funny, but yeah. And so I think for me, I always had a passion for stories and I would sit with abuela and she would tell me stories of Cuba. And I would always ask her, you know, to talk to me about Cuba. and I was so interested to hear about her life there because I never lived in Cuba, I always felt like Cuba lived in me, right? I always felt like the land was inside of my body. I felt like these stories were inside of my body, although, you know, I may not have been able to articulate them because I didn't know them in my mind, but I felt them. And so, yeah, I would always ask abuela to tell me stories, and my mom and, you know, as we sat and she would give me cosquillitas and we would, you know, talk about her life, and she sewed back in Cuba and how she met her husband, my grandfather, who I never met.

And so, yeah, I always had a passion for stories. And as I got older and once I left my Cuban haven of Miami, I was working as a teacher. I was actually working as a teacher in Miami. And then that's when I began getting into Protestantism. You know, I say that I was introduced to the world of white evangelicalism. Being raised Roman Catholic I knew nothing of, you know, Protestantism or all the different denominations that you can be a part of. So when I decided to go to seminary, I just ended up at a seminary in a very white evangelical context. I loved God and I loved reading about the Bible. I thought the Bible was fascinating, you know. And I think back then, I didn't have the words to articulate this, but I found it fascinating because so many of the stories, I felt, resonated with me, resonated with my life growing up, resonated with abuela, you know, like I mentioned, Tabitha she sewed and, you know, survival and exile.

I mean, all of these stories that shaped who I was, culturally, I felt like I really resonated with them spiritually. So I fell in love with the stories of the Bible. They were so complicated and they were so bizarre, but so interesting. I think that's when I began to want to really wrestle with what it means to write theologically and think theologically. And also it was very important because I was in a very white evangelical context, was fresh out of Miami, where everybody I knew was Cuban or, you know, Latino/Latina/Latinx in some way -from all of my teachers, to everybody who cut my hair to everyone I spoke to, you know. And so leaving that context and then finding myself in the subcultural of the subculture of white evangelicalism was very shocking for me.

And all of my professors who taught me about the Bible, which I was so excited to learn about, you know, they had a very specific context, right? And so it felt like everything they were teaching about the Bible had nothing to do with me. I could not resonate with any of it. You know, I'm having this sort of disconnect, like wait a minute, you know, what does this have to do with my life? And I felt like I could only learn from the “experts,” right? Those behind the pulpit and you know, obviously they were all white men. And so that's where I really started to develop this like, wait a minute, abuela was the greatest theologian I've ever known, and yet she would never be given even five minutes to stand up here and teach anything about God. And so that's why I really became passionate about digging deeper into my own history, how that intersects with just the history in general of Christianity. And that's where I began passionate to wait a minute, I wanna tell my story. I wanna tell abuela's story and I don't believe it's just my story and her story, but our story.

So many of our stories, those of us who were shaped by the faith of our elders, our ancestors. Those of us who were shaped by an embodied sort of spirituality, a theology of survival. So that's where, you know, that began to take shape. I won't say that me writing was something completely out of the blue. Like I said, I always felt passionate about it. And years before that, I had started a little blog, you know, and so I was like blogging and so yeah, I think it all kind of came together at the perfect time and it just sort of happened to me, chasing one passion after another or one interest after another and was led here.

Patrick: When you think about this writing that you do as a vocation, I'm curious because part of the Sound of the Genuine, why we do this podcast, is to have people tell their stories, cuz so many folks know that they want to tell their own story or they got a leadership story that they feel the world needs to hear. And making that move from knowing my story, my grandmother's story, my mother's story, those stories are important, they need to be recovered cuz I'm not seeing 'em in church making that move to saying, okay, I'm gonna take up this. This is gonna be mine. I'm gonna write.

That takes courage and I find you're writing so courageous. So tell me about how you move from, say the blog or just these interests in, you know, telling abuela story to, I'm gonna put this down on paper. I'm gonna write it. It's gonna be a book. Tell me about that process for you when you went through that.

Kat: Yeah. So I think for me it started, as I mentioned, I did have this little blog and so I just wanted to share about just how I was experiencing God, you know? So I would write just about my everyday sort of experiences with God. When I found myself in this white evangelical context, I felt really alone in that, right? I felt really alone because nothing of what I was learning about God, as I mentioned, felt like it had anything to do with me. And so I think to write was sort of my way of reclaiming, as you mentioned, my story, reclaiming my truth. And also, being in a very patriarchal context, you know, I said I was raised by a single mother and a single grandmother and so there was no man. I didn't have a grandfather, I didn't have a father to quote unquote “submit” to. Which is a message that I was hearing a lot, you know, in the context that I was in. So writing for me was a way to yeah, reclaim my truth was a way to, you know, again, tell my stories and I was doing it in the blog context.

You know, when I decided that I needed to leave that context, literally I need to get outta here, learning so much about women in the Bible and learning so much about Latino, Latinx history and theology I decided that I needed to leave the context I was in and head to the west coast.

And that sort of happened over the course of several conversations. I don't know why I confided in a professor, that based on the stuff that he was sharing, he didn't really fully agree with a lot of the theology that was being taught. So one day, you know, I kind of went up to him and I whispered, “I think I'm leaving.” Like I think I need to get out of here. This doesn't feel, you know, liberating for me, this space. And he kind of whispered back and he said, yes, you need to get out of here. He's like, you have so much potential and there's no room for you to grow here.

And that was so surprising for me, right? I mean, you wouldn't expect someone in a context that you're in, that you're trying to leave, to encourage you to do so. Looking back at that time, I always say, and something that I still say today, you know, we always find God in the most unexpected places and the most unexpected people.

And not to say that, you know, look for, you know, someone to, to encourage you to leave in an oppressive context. But really, I mean, I think if you're constantly seeking the divine and the divine voice, places that you weren't told to look or places that you weren't trained to look, I think that's where I found so much of my direction. You know, sort of my spiritual direction. I took that as like a sign and I was like, all right I'm out. My husband and I took like a 30 day trip across the country. We got to California and I said, I'm gonna write about my experiences and I'm just gonna write one blog post about why I left and how my theology has changed. And yeah, just the hurt that I experienced while I was there.

I wrote that and I was terrified. I didn't sleep for like three days. And I got all sorts of hate mail I mean, it was horrible. All the people, you know, in that context, I mean were just bashing me on the internet. But it was also really liberating, you know, three sleepless nights and just anxiety filled whatever, I still felt like it was the right thing I needed to do. And so, as you mentioned, yeah, I did take a lot of courage and maybe in the moment, I didn't feel courageous. Looking back now, yes I think that that was a courageous thing for me to do. I think it was just out of desperation, really. I just needed to tell my truth. I just needed to live into my truth and I needed to be honest with myself and I think that that's where that stems from.

And then from there, I just continued to write. I heard once that you know, you don't feel brave, you sort of do the brave thing. And then that comes afterwards. You know, that, that feeling of like, okay, I can do this. You just do it sometimes. And then afterwards, you're like, okay yeah, I, I could do that. And so I think that, that's how I felt. I didn't think that I would be able to step into this space, and then I just, I just needed to be honest with myself and I was able to do it afterwards. Like feel this way afterwards - courageous and brave and yeah, do all the other things that followed!

Patrick: I am curious, you get to the west coast now, you've published this blog. You're going through another education experience where you're learning about theology, history, Bible, all that kind of stuff. What does that stir in you for your own vocation? What you wanna do, you know, from that point forward, how you see yourself and how you're living into this call?

Kat: Yeah, I think, for me in that moment, I began to feel more liberated in who I was and really saw just a lot of what I was noodling with in my mind and wrestling with. I noticed that so many other people also felt similarly. As I shared more of my story, I realized that I wasn't alone, right? And as I shared about this abuelita faith and this abuelita theology and my experiences as a Cuban woman and as a woman and also as a Cuban American, and as I shared, you know, all of these experiences, so many people were like yes, I understand that. Your story resonates with me in so many ways. And I remember I was in a preaching class, my first preaching class. And I preached on sort of my wrestlings [with] this idea. Cause you know, I had thought of this abuelita theology/abuelita, faith, you know, I had read a little bit about it cuz a few people had written about it, like Robert Chao Romero and some people had written about it, but it wasn't like talked about a lot.

And so I read like a couple articles on it. So I decided to preach on this idea of an abuelita theology, mostly to see how it resonated with people. And so I'm in this preaching class and I connected that to first Timothy and I talked about how, you know, a grandmother, faith and how we're all formed by our ancestors and our grandmothers and our elders. My class was three women of color and then three white men and one by one literally everyone was like, me too. I, I can tell you this story about my grandmother and this story about my grandmother and this story about my grandmother and everyone had a story about their grandmother, you know?

And I think that it was in that moment where I was like, okay, this isn't just this sort of dream I have, or this passion I have to write about my grandmother, but this is something that a lot of people really resonate with. And so, yeah, I began to just really start doing a lot of research and writing about it and little blog posts, but also pitching to different magazines. And every single paper that I began to write for every class was on this topic. You know, every single paper. I really wanted to put my everything into it at this moment. And that's where, yeah, it just started to become sort of my life, you know? Because I realize this is my life, right? This is literally what shaped me and who I am, but also this is, yes, something I've become so passionate about, but also I feel like so many people are really moved by this. And so I put my all into it, you know.

I don't know if whoever listening, I know that enneagrams not really cool anymore, but I remember when I learned about the enneagram, I'm an enneagram 8 and you're just a steam roller and you just go all out on everything. And so anyways, that was really like my personality. And so as I was doing all of this research, I just put my everything into it.

Every paper I wrote, every sermon I preached, every thing I wrote was just me trying to dig deeper into what does this mean? What more can I draw from this? And then it just became everything - My life's work really at that point!

Patrick: And it turned into a book that has been translated as well. So you are living into this call and I know, just for listeners, I'm inspired by it - inspired by the writing that you're doing. I think your story is powerful and the gifts of leadership that you're bringing in the church is just, it’s incredible to watch.

I ask all the guests who come on this show, and this is my last question - as you're thinking about this writing and your new call and how you're doing this, how much of that call comes from a sense of personal vocation? You said enneagram eight. You know, like this is what I do. I'm gonna get down to the bottom of this and I'm gonna keep writing and figuring this out until it becomes something.

Or if this is what God's called or I've sought the divine, this is, this is who I am. And how much comes from abuela, your mom, your community, Miami, you know, how much of your vocation comes from those places?

Kat: Yeah, I think, all of it, right? Everything when it comes to my vocation, it is 100% shaped by my community. When I seek to write, when I seek to live into this calling, I'm doing so, you know, on the backs and shoulders of all of those who came before me. In Abuelita Faith, I talk about how we, we have a collective memory, right? It's not just my memory, but my memory is sort of shaped and mixed into the memories of my family and my community. So it's all of our memories. It's bodily memory. You know, I've talked about exile. It's how the notion of exile lives in my body and it's part of my memory, but I may not know it in my mind in the sense that, you know, I may not understand it, because I haven't physically lived it, but it's in my body, right? Generationally it's in, it's in my body. And so yeah, all of that shapes my vocation and you know, who I am, and shapes what I write and my passions for what I write. And also just generally my interests, right? My interests and how that intersects with the Bible. And as I mentioned earlier, I just became so fascinated with this book and so I wanted to dig into it. 

Really the reason was in that white evangelical context, I realized like how important the Bible is for a lot of white folks in white theology. And the Bible's not going anywhere, right? People are gonna continue to use it to you know, whether it's misuse and abuse or use it to liberate because I believe it's used in both ways.

And so, you know, what can I do? What role can I play to offer the Bible as a liberative tool and a tool for liberation? And so I became really passionate, you know, about that. You know, that's just my personal interest. You know, it's funny, I was talking about this yesterday, but this idea of, we are told in evangelicalism, many of us were trained to ignore our desires or ignore our wants, or you know, God's will above my own, whatever that means, but I think for me, it was really understanding my wants and desires that led me to, you know, my vocation, to my calling, to understand my calling. You know, there's a few times in the gospels that Jesus literally asks folks like, what do you want? You know, Jesus asks folks, you know, what are you looking for?

What are you seeking? What do you want me to do for you? What do you want? And I don't think those were rhetorical questions. Like I literally think Jesus was asking folks those questions. And I think that, you know, that's important because I think Jesus wanted folks to understand, to know what they wanted, you know, so that Jesus could meet those needs, you know. And I see that for us when it comes to calling and when it comes to vocation or when it comes to, you know, it's important for us to know what we want, to know what our needs are.

And speaking as a woman, I know many of us are not trained to know what our wants are. We're taught to be self-sacrificial and to, you know, not be in tune with what we want, but to just sacrifice ourselves for others. But when you understand your own wants and desires, I think that you can live into your calling, not just for yourself, but for others. You know, I can better serve, I can better write, I can better lead, I can do all those things when I am in tune, you know with what it is that I want and what it is that I desire. And I understand that, so I can live into my passion, my calling, my gifts, my skills for the sake of others. Right.

And so I think for me, you know, going back to the very beginning of my story, when I began to blog and when I began to, to wrestle with these ideas and when I was in seminary, a lot of it was like, as I mentioned, living into my truth, but what is it that I want out of this? What is it that I want out of my faith, the spirituality, seminary, what is it that I, you know, what am I looking for? As Jesus asks? Like, what are you seeking? And I think that that was a question that I've been wrestling with as I've been writing and as I've been working and as I've been, trying to use the Bible as a tool for liberation or, you know, all of that. Really, what are you seeking, what do you want - asking myself that question over and over again. And then, as I answer it, I'm learning as I go. If that makes any sense.

Patrick: It makes total sense. And I wanna thank you, not just for sharing your story here on the Sound of the Genuine, but reading through the book, Abuelita Faith, which everyone should go get after listening to this episode, to see so much love and reflection of how we might rethink what church is, where church happens, who is a pastor, a theologian? I'm just grateful for you living into your call and vocation, I know I'm better for it, for reading your story and for having this conversation. So thank you so much for everything that you do.

Kat: No, thank you. Yeah. I have been so moved by your work and I've learned so much from your work. For me it’s just this idea that calling can look in so many different ways and for our abuela's and for our grandmothers and for our ancestors, I don't know that they always had the privilege to think of calling. And so, I think that that really is something to wrestle with. You know, what does it mean to survive and what does it mean to do so in such a way that leads people and changes people like our grandparents did, you know? Like abuela was a leader and I don't think she ever even thought of it that way. And so I think that that is just such a cool thing to wrestle with.

Patrick: That's right. Oh, I'm so grateful. 

Thank you for listening to the Sound of the Genuine, FTE's podcast where leaders, writers, thinkers, find meaning and purpose. Thank you to Kat Armas, who spent some time with us to share her journey, her faith journey, her writing journey. I encourage you to go check out her book, Abuelita Faith - buy it anywhere books are sold and there'll be a link in the description. 

I want to thank my team, our producer, Elsie Barnhart and Heather Wallace for putting this show together. And as always, @siryalibeats for his incredible music. Thanks again and we hope you find the sound of the genuine in you.