Loving Boldly, Living Simply: The Franciscan Clarean Way for a New World
A Prophetic Guide to Faith, Justice, and Belonging in Troubled Times
Sister Abigail Hester, OFC
My Work is for the Greater Good of All
All works by Sister Abigail Hester, OFC are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
You are free to share, adapt, and build upon this material for any purpose — even commercially — provided that proper credit is given.
This work is offered freely for the benefit of humanity, in the spirit of compassion, justice, and the common good.
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Dedication
To every queer, trans, disabled, poor, grieving, and justice-hungry soul who has been told they don’t belong in the Church —
you are the Church.
This book is for you.
Introduction: Why We Need a New Way Now
We are living in apocalyptic times.
Not because the world is ending—but because truths once hidden are being revealed. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apokalypsis, meaning unveiling. What we see when the veil is lifted is both horrifying and holy. We see empires crumbling, seas rising, fascism swelling, and hatred wearing the robes of religion. But we also see queer prophets rising, mutual aid flourishing, and the sacred wild whispering, There is still time to return to love.
This book is a response to that unveiling.
The Franciscan Clarean Way is not a return to some idealized past. It is a revolutionary path forward, inspired by the lives of Saint Francis and Saint Clare but reborn in the bodies and struggles of today’s dreamers, rebels, misfits, and lovers of justice. It is a queer and trans-affirming, anti-capitalist, decolonial, ecologically rooted way of life. It is a refusal to be neutral in a world where neutrality is complicity.
As a transgender nun and the founder of the Order of Franciscan Clareans (OFC), I wrote this for every soul who’s ever been told they didn’t belong in the Church—or on this planet. I wrote it for the sacred freaks, the disabled mystics, the neurodivergent visionaries, the sex workers and street prophets, the exvangelicals and post-Catholics, the environmental activists and prison abolitionists, the herbalists and drag queens, the burnt-out and broken-hearted. You belong here.
Francis and Clare Were Not Safe
The sanitized versions of Francis and Clare—those meek, garden-statue saints of Hallmark spirituality—have done a disservice to the radical truth of their lives. Francis stripped naked in the town square to reject his father’s wealth and inheritance. Clare fled an arranged marriage and staged a revolution from a cloister. These were not docile saints. They were divine disrupters.
Francis embraced Lady Poverty, preached to lepers, and rebuked the Church for its alliance with wealth. Clare, from behind convent walls, defied popes and bishops to protect the integrity of her spiritual community. These saints weren’t neutral. They chose the margins. They chose resistance. And we are choosing it too.
The World as It Is—and the World That Could Be
We live in a world where:
Trans children are demonized by lawmakers claiming to protect morality.
Billionaires hoard while the earth burns and the poor starve.
Christianity has been hijacked by white nationalism and imperial nostalgia.
Black lives are still endangered, Indigenous sovereignty still denied, and disabled people still treated as disposable.
But we also live in a world where:
Queer and trans theologians are reclaiming scripture with fire and love.
Liberation theologians from Dalit, Palestinian, and Afro-Caribbean movements are teaching us how to resist.
Crip theorists, ecowomanists, and posthuman dreamers are reimagining what it means to be human.
Saints are rising again—not in marble or canon law, but in the embodied holiness of those who love justice, seek peace, and walk gently on the earth.
This is the sacred tension in which the Franciscan Clarean Way is born.
What This Book Is (and Isn’t)
This is not a manual for rule-following. It is not an invitation to purity culture repackaged in progressive clothing. This is a call to join a movement of the Spirit: a movement that embraces joy as resistance, simplicity as rebellion, community as healing, and love as the most dangerous force in the universe.
This is a political spirituality rooted in the teachings of Jesus, the practices of Francis and Clare, and the wisdom of Black, Indigenous, queer, trans, disabled, and feminist theologians—from Gustavo Gutiérrez to Audre Lorde, from Patrick Cheng to Ada María Isasi-Díaz, from Richard Rohr to bell hooks.
This is not about escaping the world. This is about transforming it.
Welcome to the Way
Whether you are a longtime activist, a seeker burned by organized religion, or simply someone wondering how to live with more integrity and heart—this book is for you.
It is structured in three parts:
- Roots of the Way introduces Francis, Clare, and our Rule.
- Living the Way Today explores how we resist empire and build beloved community.
- The Way Forward looks toward our collective future—prophetic, poetic, and deeply rooted in justice.
May this book ignite your imagination, feed your soul, and challenge you to live a bolder love in a broken world.
Welcome to the Franciscan Clarean Way.
Chapter One: The Fire of Assisi — Francis and Clare Reclaimed
“We must burn with love so intense that it enkindles others.”
— Clare of Assisi“Let us begin, for up till now we have done nothing.”
— Francis of Assisi
Saints Rewritten by Empire
Let’s start by burning down the false images.
The Church gave us a Francis with a birdbath and a pet wolf, a gentle animal whisperer too harmless to bother the rich. They gave us a Clare who was passive, obedient, locked in a convent like a medieval Rapunzel. But the real Francis and Clare were spiritual insurgents. They were dangerous. Their stories have been whitewashed, gender-washed, de-radicalized, and made safe for Sunday school. It’s time we reclaimed them.
Francis was not a peace-loving hippie. He was a class traitor, a prison escapee, a war survivor with trauma in his bones. He heard the call of Jesus not as a call to comfort, but to revolt: “Rebuild my church, for it is in ruins.” He took that literally and spiritually. He renounced his inheritance, stripped naked before the bishop, and lived among the poor—not as a charity project, but as a holy protest.
Clare was not a passive cloistered virgin. She was a holy rebel who smashed patriarchy with every breath. When her family tried to drag her back to the marriage market, she clung to the altar and cut off her hair. She wrote her own Rule, the first woman in Church history to do so, and fought off Church authorities who tried to dilute it. She lived not as a bride of Christ in the sentimental sense, but as a strategic disruptor of economic, ecclesial, and gendered power.
Francis the Dropout, Clare the Fugitive
Francis was the privileged son of a wealthy cloth merchant—a child of capitalism before the term existed. He was destined for success in the marketplace and war. But after being imprisoned and falling gravely ill, he woke up to the emptiness of the empire’s promises. His conversion was not just religious—it was political. He chose downward mobility. He embraced Lady Poverty, not because he romanticized suffering, but because he saw the rot of greed eating the soul of Christendom.
Clare was born into nobility and expected to marry well. But she fell in love with a vision of gospel living that required her to risk everything. She fled her home at night, took refuge with Francis, and publicly declared her allegiance to Christ and poverty. She became a fugitive nun, a spiritual anarchist who rejected wealth, hierarchy, and domestic roles.
These two holy insurgents lit a fire in the heart of medieval Europe—a fire that could not be contained.
Beyond Gender, Beyond Walls
In Francis and Clare, we see gender transgression cloaked in sainthood.
Francis called himself the little poor man—a diminutive identity that resisted masculine dominance. He identified with Lady Poverty, took on maternal language, and wept publicly with emotional abandon. He wore a robe that erased social markers of gender, status, and profession. His body bore the wounds of Christ—stigmatized in a way that queers and trans people might understand all too well.
Clare was “masculinized” in the hagiographies only to be respected—called “virile,” praised for rejecting “feminine weakness.” But her actual writings suggest a person who honored the sacred feminine and refused to be domesticated. She was not afraid of touch, of blood, of illness. Her mysticism was earthy, embodied, resistant.
For queer and trans followers of Christ, Francis and Clare are ancestral kin—not because they fit our modern categories, but because they broke the molds imposed on them. They queered the Church before queerness had a name.
The Franciscan Clarean Way: Rooted in Fire
We do not follow Francis and Clare because they were perfect. We follow them because they were real. They wept. They fought. They resisted. They failed. They rose again. They were not passive saints floating on clouds—they were grounded, gritty, wounded lovers of a Gospel that turned the world upside down.
As Order of Franciscan Clareans, we reclaim their radical legacy and bring it forward into our own time:
We reject wealth, hierarchy, and empire.
We affirm the sacredness of queer, trans, and disabled bodies.
We live simply—not as punishment, but as an act of joyful rebellion.
We choose community over consumption, communion over competition.
Their fire still burns. And now it burns in us.
Reflection: Who Are the Saints You’ve Been Denied?
What false images of saints, gender roles, or holiness did you inherit?
What parts of Francis and Clare’s story stir something dangerous and divine in you?
Where do you see the Church in ruins—and how are you called to rebuild it?
Chapter Two: Our Rule — Loving Boldly, Living Simply, Belonging Deeply
“A rule should not be a cage, but a trellis upon which the soul may grow.”
— Franciscan Clarean teaching“Where there is love and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”
— Saint Francis of Assisi
What Is a Rule of Life?
In the Christian tradition, a Rule of Life is not a list of laws or punishments. It is not about restriction. It is a rhythm, a spiritual compass, a chosen structure for a chosen life. Think of it not as a cage, but as a garden trellis—shaping our growth, offering direction, but leaving room for the wildness of grace.
Our Rule as Franciscan Clareans is different from monastic rules of the past. We do not seek to escape the world, nor to dominate it. Instead, we seek to dwell in it lovingly, lightly, truthfully, and prophetically. Our Rule is not a set of rules—it is a way of life.
Loving Boldly: The Heart of the Rule
To love boldly is to refuse apathy. In a world hardened by war, bigotry, and profit, to love at all is revolutionary. But we are not content with safe love. Our love is loud. Queer. Defiant. We love with our bodies and our boundaries, with our tenderness and our rage.
Loving boldly means:
Standing with the oppressed even when it costs us.
Affirming our queer and trans siblings without condition.
Choosing forgiveness without denying accountability.
Living as if love is stronger than empire, stronger than death.
This love is not saccharine. It is soaked in the sweat of protest, the tears of community, the blood of martyrs. This love builds barricades and gardens, both.
Living Simply: The Rebellion of Enough
Capitalism thrives on hunger—on making us feel we are never enough and never have enough. But simplicity isn’t about self-denial or guilt. It’s about freedom. It’s about saying: I am not for sale. My joy cannot be bought. My value cannot be measured by productivity.
Living simply means:
Rejecting consumerism in favor of sustainability.
Sharing resources in community and practicing mutual aid.
Honoring the Earth through ecological justice and repair.
Slowing down, resting, resisting the tyranny of hustle culture.
Francis and Clare chose voluntary poverty. In our time, that might look like ethical consumption, refusal to participate in exploitative systems, community land trusts, local agriculture, or simply living more with less.
Simplicity is not aesthetic. It is political.
Belonging Deeply: Communion, Not Control
The Church has too often mistaken control for community. But true belonging is not about uniformity. It is about being fully seen and still fully welcomed. It is radical hospitality extended to the leper, the sex worker, the addict, the disabled, the neurodivergent, the heretic, the undocumented, the outcast—and to ourselves.
Belonging deeply means:
Creating trauma-informed spiritual spaces.
Practicing consent and accountability.
Honoring boundaries while holding grace.
Celebrating difference without demanding assimilation.
We are building a new kind of community—one shaped not by hierarchy but by healing. A queer, Franciscan mutuality. An open table. A barefoot revolution.
Our Vows in Practice
In the Order of Franciscan Clareans, we take three core vows:
- Love without Exception
We vow to love God, ourselves, and all people—especially those marginalized by Church and society. - Live without Excess
We vow to walk gently on the earth, resisting greed and exploitation, embracing simplicity and sustainability. - Belong without Condition
We vow to create communities where everyone has a place—regardless of race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, or past.
These are not private devotions. These are public commitments.
A Rule for the Ruins
We are writing this Rule not from ivory towers but from the ruins of institutions that failed us—from pews emptied by betrayal, from forests felled for profit, from hospitals that let us die, from prisons that locked away our loved ones, from sacred books used to shame our bodies.
Our Rule is not born from nostalgia. It is born from necessity.
We are rebuilding, just as Francis was told to do. Not the old Church—but the true Church. The one that shelters the homeless. The one that affirms the trans girl on hormones and the disabled activist in a wheelchair. The one that hosts potlucks for queer elders and protests pipelines on stolen land.
This is what it means to love boldly, live simply, and belong deeply.
Reflection: Writing Your Rule
What rhythms or rituals help you resist empire and embody love?
Where do you feel called to simplicity—and what would you need to let go of?
What does belonging feel like in your body? Who has offered you that gift?
Chapter Three: Holy Resistance — Capitalism, Empire, and the Cross
“When you are arrested, do not worry about what you are to say. The Spirit will speak through you.”
— Jesus (Matthew 10:19)“When the Church becomes a chaplain to empire, it stops being the Body of Christ.”
— Modern Franciscan Clarean saying
The Cross Was Not a Necklace
Let’s be clear: Jesus wasn’t crucified for preaching love in an abstract sense. He was executed by the state as a threat to the status quo.
The cross was an instrument of imperial terror, used by Rome to silence resistance. Jesus died not because he was divine, but because he was dangerous—to the economy, to the elite, to the religious gatekeepers. His execution was political. His resurrection was a protest.
To follow Jesus is to follow a condemned criminal, a poor man without property, a wandering healer who called out both empire and religion for their complicity in oppression. To follow the Franciscan Clarean Way is to stand with him—not sentimentally, but politically.
Capitalism Is a False Gospel
We cannot serve both God and capitalism. Not because capitalism is spiritually neutral—but because it actively destroys the very things Jesus, Francis, and Clare held most dear: the poor, the land, the body, the community, the sacred.
Capitalism teaches:
You are only valuable if you produce.
The Earth is here to be used, not honored.
Hoarding is virtue, and poverty is moral failure.
Those who die in the margins die because they deserve it.
This is a death cult. And yet so many churches bless it every Sunday, dressing empire in pious language and praise songs. The prosperity gospel is nothing but imperial propaganda.
Francis rejected this gospel. He literally stripped naked to renounce his wealth and walked out of his father’s house. Clare refused the dowry economy and embraced poverty as freedom. We follow them into holy resistance.
Holy Resistance Looks Like…
We are not called to escape the world—we are called to transform it.
Holy resistance today looks like:
Refusing to be productive in a world that monetizes exhaustion.
Practicing Sabbath as a political act of rest in a culture of burnout.
Growing food instead of feeding capitalism.
Participating in strikes, protests, and civil disobedience.
Saying NO to gentrification, war, oil pipelines, and racist police.
Saying YES to mutual aid, reparations, public ritual, and joyful rebellion.
Resistance is not just rage. It is ritual. It is relationship. It is reimagining the world as if God actually meant it when they said, The last shall be first.
Francis and Clare Against Empire
Francis stood before popes and emperors in sackcloth. He kissed lepers while the Church hoarded relics. He tried to stop crusades with words of peace. He rebuilt a crumbling chapel with his own hands while bishops debated doctrine.
Clare outwitted every attempt by male clergy to control her convent. She refused to let her sisters be reduced to servants or breeding stock. She claimed the right to live without possession—a right the Church tried to deny her, because it was too dangerous an example.
They were thorns in the side of empire. So are we.
The Cross as Revolution
The cross is not an endorsement of suffering—it is a condemnation of injustice. Jesus didn’t die so we could accept the world as it is. He died because he refused to.
The cross invites us to:
Take sides with the crucified of our world—trans kids, migrants, prisoners, the unhoused, the poor.
Expose the lies of power, even if it costs us.
Trust that resurrection does not come through violence, but through solidarity and love.
To bear the cross today is to speak truth in dangerous places.
Prophetic Economics
Following the Way means rethinking money:
Tithing to your community, not to empire churches.
Participating in local economies.
Practicing reparations, redistribution, and debt forgiveness.
Building co-ops, land trusts, and barter networks.
It means embracing what the early Christians practiced: everything in common (Acts 2:44). Not out of coercion, but out of joy. Out of love. Out of holy resistance.
Reflection: Who Profits from Your Silence?
Where does your money go—and whom does it serve?
What systems do you participate in that exploit others?
What would it mean for your spirituality to be dangerous to empire?
Chapter Four: Queer Saints and Transfigured Bodies
“For you formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
— Psalm 139:13–14 (reclaimed)“God is the queerest one of all.”
— Marcella Althaus-Reid
God Is Not Straight, and Neither Are We
Let us be absolutely clear: God is not heterosexual. God is not cisgender. God is not bound by binary. The Divine is expansive, fluid, mysterious, and utterly uninterested in fitting into the gender boxes we’ve constructed.
And yet, Christian tradition has been weaponized to police bodies, to shame desire, and to erase lives. Churches have exiled the very people who reflect the image of God most radically—those whose existence defies empire’s control of the body.
But here in the Franciscan Clarean Way, we proclaim: our queer, trans, nonbinary, disabled, intersex, and sex-working bodies are holy ground.
The Body Is Not the Enemy
Much of the Western Church was built on body hatred. Influenced by Greek dualism, early Christian theologians divorced the soul from the body, treating flesh as sinful and the spirit as pure. This theology served empire well—it made docile workers, shamed sexuality, and encouraged obedience.
But Jesus touched lepers. Francis embraced wounds. Clare cared for the dying with her bare hands. The Incarnation says: God becomes flesh. Not theory. Not idea. Flesh.
We reclaim a bodily theology:
That honors the erotic, the disabled, the aging, the gender-expansive.
That delights in pleasure without shame.
That listens to trauma and honors healing.
That sees every scar as sacred.
We say with fierce love: there is no part of you that is too much for God.
Francis, Clare, and Queer Holiness
Francis’ love for Brother Leo, his identification with Lady Poverty, his rejection of patriarchal masculinity—all of these point to a queering of sanctity. He wore a robe that blurred gender, embraced tears and tenderness, and found God in the margins.
Clare rejected her prescribed role as wife and mother. She built an all-women’s community of mutual care and spiritual fire. Her leadership was radical, her theology embodied. She claimed power not through domination, but through deep love.
In both saints, we find echoes of queer resistance, of nonconforming beauty, of bodies that lived otherwise.
Trans Bodies as Sites of Revelation
Trans and nonbinary bodies are not problems to be solved. They are revelations.
They reveal:
That gender is not fixed, but dynamic.
That transformation is holy.
That embodiment is sacred, and naming yourself is divine.
In transitioning—whether socially, medically, spiritually—we participate in the work of resurrection. We die to what was imposed, and rise in truth.
The Church has long taught that only God can rename. But trans people know better. We know that God meets us in our becoming, not in our erasure.
Sexuality Is Not a Sin
Desire has been treated as dangerous. But it is not desire that destroys—it is domination.
We affirm:
Queer love is holy love.
Polyamorous families can be sacred kinship.
Celibates and asexual folks bear witness to radical intimacy beyond sexual norms.
Sex workers reflect Christ’s ministry—present with the outcast, intimate with pain, economically marginalized.
There is no “ideal” sexuality in the Reign of God—only love rooted in justice, consent, joy, and mutuality.
Indecent Theology and Transgressive Grace
Theology must be indecent, as Marcella Althaus-Reid taught. If it doesn’t make the powerful blush, it probably isn’t gospel. If it’s tidy, safe, and bourgeois, it probably isn’t Christ.
We worship a God born of a poor brown teenage girl. A God executed as a criminal. A God who returned with scars, not whiteness.
Our bodies—bleeding, transitioning, cripping, desiring—are not problems. They are sites of revelation. We are not simply made in God’s image—we remake that image every day, in every breath, with every act of love that defies empire.
Reflection: Holiness in Your Body
What have you been taught to hide about your body, your desire, your gender?
Where has your body carried trauma—and where has it found resurrection?
What does it mean to you that your body is not a barrier to God, but a dwelling place of Spirit?
Chapter Five: Prayer, Protest, and the Dirt Under Our Nails
“Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”
— (Attributed to Francis of Assisi, but probably apocryphal)“To pray is to breathe. To protest is to breathe fire.”
— Franciscan Clarean saying
Prayer Is More Than Words
Too many of us were taught that prayer is a formula: fold your hands, bow your head, ask for things. But for Francis and Clare, prayer was not performance. It was presence. It was practice. It was political.
Francis prayed with his body—kneeling on rocks, sleeping on the earth, weeping in public. Clare prayed with her silence and her courage, confronting popes and comforting the dying. Neither separated prayer from action. For them, prayer was protest. Protest was prayer.
In the Franciscan Clarean Way, we do not separate contemplation and justice. We see no contradiction between the rosary and the riot.
The Dirt Under Our Nails Is Sacred
We do not believe in “clean” spirituality. Ours is gritty. Tangled in the roots of the earth. Bloodied by the wounds of struggle. Smelling of garlic, sweat, incense, and compost.
We garden. We tend herbs. We care for bodies. We march. We grieve. We dance. And we do it all as prayer.
We believe that:
A protest sign is a kind of psalm.
A shared meal is a kind of liturgy.
A healing circle is a kind of mass.
A compost pile is a kind of altar.
Prayer is not what you escape into—it’s what you enter fully.
Daily Prayer for a Daily Struggle
We do not pray to escape the world—we pray to stay present in it.
Prayer in the Franciscan Clarean Way includes:
Breath prayer during trauma recovery.
Candle-lighting for victims of violence and war.
Journaling and art as sacred expression.
Liturgical protests at centers of power.
Reading queer psalms and liberationist scripture aloud.
Touching the soil, walking barefoot, blessing your food.
We follow a daily rhythm—not to earn holiness, but to stay awake. We live in a world built to numb us. Prayer is how we remember who we are.
Public Ritual as Resistance
Francis preached naked. Clare held up the Eucharist to repel soldiers. They understood that the body—and what we do with it—is spiritual. They didn’t separate sacrament from protest. Neither do we.
We reclaim public ritual:
Eucharist in the street after a police killing.
Litanies of trans lives lost, read on courthouse steps.
Blessing hormones, mobility aids, and protest gear.
Funeral processions for the earth, for the lost, for the brokenhearted.
These are not performances. These are sacraments of resistance.
Work, Rest, and the Sacred Cycle
Francis and Clare lived close to the rhythm of the land: sun and moon, harvest and hunger, Sabbath and work. Today, we are ruled by clocks and capital, not creation. So we reclaim Sabbath as a political act.
We rest:
Because the world tells us we are only as valuable as what we produce.
Because disabled, chronically ill, and burned-out people deserve time.
Because resistance requires rhythm. Burnout is not revolution.
Rest is sacred. So is doing the dishes. So is planting seeds. So is cleaning your altar. Our spirituality is rooted in the ordinary.
Contemplative Activism and Prophetic Stillness
We are contemplatives, yes. But not to escape. We sit in silence so we can hear the voices empire wants us to ignore. We breathe so we don’t lose ourselves to despair. We pray not for the strength to endure oppression, but the fire to end it.
Contemplation gives us:
The courage to keep showing up.
The discernment to know when to act.
The tenderness to keep loving in a loveless world.
Every protest must be followed by rest. Every action by stillness. Every fire by water. This is the sacred cycle.
Reflection: What Is Your Prayer Life Made Of?
What does your body need to pray?
What spaces or activities help you connect to the sacred?
What prayers have helped you survive? Which ones do you need to let go of?
Chapter Six: Community Without Chains — New Monasticism, Not New Control
“Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”
— Saint Francis of Assisi“We do not belong to one another to control each other. We belong to one another to become more free together.”
— Franciscan Clarean teaching
The Problem with Community
Everyone loves the idea of community. The actual thing? It’s messy. It triggers our trauma. It stretches our capacity. It puts our deepest wounds under a magnifying glass. And yet—there is no gospel without it.
The early Christians didn’t just believe in Jesus. They lived together, sharing everything in common (Acts 2:44). They called each other siblings. They built new economic and spiritual ecosystems.
But over time, the Church replaced communion with control. Community became about conformity. Belonging came with strings. Rules. Gatekeeping. Uniformity over diversity. That’s not community. That’s empire in drag.
The Franciscan Clarean Way is building something different: community without chains.
New Monasticism: The Spirit, Not the Structure
We are part of a movement called New Monasticism—but not the kind that just reinvents the monastery for hip millennials. We mean a return to the spirit of monasticism: shared life, deep prayer, prophetic action, mutual care. But with:
No hierarchy
No exclusion
No binary thinking
No spiritual abuse
We take inspiration from Francis and Clare, who built communities of radical love outside the control of bishops and barons. They formed cells of holy resistance—not just prayer clubs. They organized spiritual mutual aid long before the term existed.
And so do we.
Trauma-Informed Spirituality
Many of us come to community carrying wounds—religious trauma, family betrayal, abuse. We’ve learned that community often hurts. So we don’t build spaces and demand people conform. We build spaces that are safe enough to transform.
That means:
Practicing consent in spiritual life
Using nonviolent communication (NVC)
Embracing conflict transformation, not conflict avoidance
Valuing neurodivergence, emotional expression, and sensory access
Creating spaces where disabled and chronically ill members can fully belong
Community is not about fixing people. It’s about loving people into their wholeness.
Accountability Without Shame
Too many churches use “accountability” as code for shame, surveillance, and control. We refuse that model.
Our accountability looks like:
Covenants of shared purpose, not rigid rules
Apologies that name harm, not just “we all make mistakes”
Restoration, not punishment
Saying “no” as a holy word
Making room for complexity, ambiguity, and process
We affirm boundaries. We affirm calling people in—not out. We walk alongside, not above.
Disability Justice and Interdependence
The world idolizes independence. But the gospel teaches interdependence. We reject the lie that needing help makes us weak. Clare’s body became increasingly fragile, and she was revered for her strength. Francis died with wounds, illness, and blindness. Their holiness included their brokenness.
Our communities:
Make space for rest and slowness
Center disabled leadership and wisdom
Practice Crip theology and access intimacy
Create rituals that honor both ability and fragility
We say: No one left behind. No one seen as a burden. All gifts honored.
Queer Kinship and Chosen Family
Francis called his followers “brothers.” Clare called her sisters “the Poor Ladies.” We call each other siblings, comrades, beloveds, kin.
We embrace:
Chosen family as sacred
Non-nuclear family models
Communal parenting and support networks
Queer kinship that resists patriarchy and heteronormativity
We are not a cult. We are not a commune. We are a constellation of belonging, rooted in Christ, shaped by justice, held by love.
Community as Sacrament
Every shared meal, every circle of care, every late-night conversation, every protest we show up to together—it is all sacrament. It is all holy.
Community isn’t easy. But it is where we meet Christ again and again—in the hungry, the weeping, the joyous, the annoying, the glorious.
Reflection: Your Beloved Community
What wounds do you carry from past communities?
What would a trauma-informed, joy-centered, justice-rooted community look like for you?
How can you help build that kind of space—even if it starts with two or three?
Chapter Seven: Building the Beloved Earth — Decolonial and Ecological Practice
“What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves.”
— Chief Seattle (attributed)“Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us and produces varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.”
— Saint Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures
The Earth Is Not a Resource. She Is Our Relative.
We do not own the Earth. She is not our possession, not our commodity, not our backdrop. She is our ancestor and partner, our first communion and our final resting place. To live Franciscan Clarean spirituality is to treat the Earth not as dirt beneath our feet, but as the body of God beneath our skin.
Colonialism taught us to extract, exploit, and dominate. Capitalism taught us to package and profit. Christianity, corrupted by empire, taught us to escape the Earth, not embrace her.
But Francis kissed lepers and the ground. Clare planted roots in a cloister and in the soil of communal care. They were ecologists before it was a word. We follow them not into escape—but into sacred reconnection.
Decolonizing Our Faith and Our Soil
We cannot talk about ecology without talking about colonialism.
Decolonial theology teaches us that:
The land was stolen, not discovered.
Indigenous peoples are not “mission fields”—they are wisdom keepers.
Christianity was weaponized to justify genocide, enslavement, and ecological ruin.
The gospel must be reclaimed through solidarity, reparations, and deep listening.
We honor the sacred traditions of Indigenous nations and resist Christian supremacy. We follow the lead of those whose ancestors knew the land before colonizers named it.
Ecowomanism, Crip Ecotheology, and Queer Ecology
Our ecological practice is not colorblind, bodiless, or sanitized.
We draw from:
Ecowomanism (Rev. Dr. Melanie Harris), which uplifts Black women’s wisdom in ecological justice.
Crip ecotheology, which rejects ableist narratives of “purity” and “productivity” in the natural world.
Queer ecology, which reveals that nature is not binary, not straight, and not obedient to control.
The natural world is full of transitions, transformations, nonconformity, mutual aid, and wild holiness. Just like us.
Rituals of Reconnection
To be Franciscan Clarean is to return to right relationship with land, water, and nonhuman kin. We engage in sacred practices that remind us we are part of—not above—creation.
Our rituals include:
Land acknowledgment that leads to action.
Seasonal celebrations tied to solstices, equinoxes, and saints.
Gardening and herbalism as acts of prayer.
Water blessings for rivers, oceans, and tears.
Grief rituals for species extinction, forest loss, and ecological violence.
These rituals are not aesthetic—they are ethical. They help us remember that climate grief is holy grief, and that healing must be both spiritual and material.
Climate Justice Is Gospel Work
The climate crisis is not a future problem. It is here. And it is not neutral. It is colonial. Racial. Capitalist. Global South communities, Black and Indigenous nations, and poor people bear the brunt of the violence—despite causing the least harm.
The gospel calls us to resist this injustice:
We fight pipelines, mines, and corporate theft.
We advocate for food sovereignty and water rights.
We partner with Indigenous land protectors.
We divest from extractive economies and invest in regenerative ones.
This is not optional. This is orthodoxy. This is what it means to say, “The Earth is the Lord’s” (Psalm 24:1).
Simplicity as Ecological Revolution
When we live simply, we:
Refuse fast fashion and exploitative industries.
Grow food, share meals, and compost.
Reuse, repair, and repurpose.
Say no to disposability culture—of things and people.
Francis lived without owning. Clare rejected inheritance. We do not have to be perfect—but we do need to be faithful. Even one garden, one act of protection, one refusal to participate in ecological harm, is holy.
Building the Beloved Earth Together
Our vision is not just individual—it is communal and collective. We dream of:
Franciscan Clarean eco-villages
Mutual aid seed banks and herbal apothecaries
Contemplative gardens open to the unhoused
Decolonial sacred groves
Sanctuaries for people, plants, animals, and prayers
This is not fantasy. This is the kin-dom of God on Earth.
Reflection: What Is the Land Asking of You?
How has colonialism shaped your relationship to land and ecology?
What local land, plant, or animal holds sacred meaning for you?
What is one concrete ecological practice you can adopt—or deepen—today?
Chapter Eight: What Would Francis and Clare Do? A Manifesto for Now
“Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
— Saint Francis of Assisi“We are called to be the revolution we pray for.”
— Franciscan Clarean affirmation
Francis and Clare Weren’t Saints—They Were Threats
It’s time to stop using saints as decorations. It’s time to start using them as disruptions.
Francis disrupted wealth, war, patriarchy, and church power. Clare disrupted gender roles, inheritance systems, and religious hierarchy. They did not ask permission to live the gospel—they embodied it with fire, poverty, tears, and love.
What would they do in our world of mass extinction, surveillance capitalism, anti-trans legislation, and racialized police violence?
They’d flip tables.
They’d plant food.
They’d protect drag queens and bless hormone therapy.
They’d pray at pipeline sites and weep for Gaza.
They’d denounce billionaires and walk barefoot into the protest.
They’d live dangerously, joyfully, and tenderly—because that’s what real holiness looks like.
What Would Francis and Clare Do About…
Transphobia and Christian Nationalism?
They would hold space for trans liturgies, name trans martyrs, confront hate preachers, and side with those cast out by empire religion. They would reclaim churches for queer and trans bodies as sacred temples.
Climate Collapse and Earth Betrayal?
They would grieve with the forests. Francis would preach to bees and mourn melting glaciers. Clare would call for radical simplicity and land reparations. They would see ecocide as blasphemy.
Capitalism and Consumerism?
They would reject billionaires, refuse Amazon, and live in voluntary poverty. They would form cooperative economies. They would say that joy cannot be bought—and community cannot be monetized.
White Supremacy and Colonialism?
They would side with Black liberation, Indigenous land back movements, Palestinian freedom, and the dismantling of settler theology. They would declare: The gospel is anti-imperial.
Ableism and Exploitation?
They would lift up the disabled as sacred. Clare, who lived in frailty, and Francis, who bore bodily wounds, would declare: Healing does not mean erasure. Wholeness does not mean productivity.
Loneliness and Despair?
They would throw open the doors of their communities to the unhoused, the mentally ill, the grieving, and the burned-out. They would say: You belong before you believe. You are loved before you perform.
What the Franciscan Clarean Way Offers
We are not perfect. We are not pure. But we are committed.
We offer:
A Rule that centers love, not legalism.
A rhythm of life that is both mystical and messy.
A community that welcomes misfits, martyrs, heretics, and healers.
A movement that refuses to serve Caesar—and dares to believe another world is possible.
We do not wait for the Church to affirm us. We are the Church.
What You Can Do Now
This is a manifesto—but it is also a call to action. Wherever you are, start small and start now.
You can:
Plant something sacred. A seed. A relationship. A dream.
Show up for queer and trans youth under attack.
Organize a prayer protest.
Divest from empire economics.
Create a Franciscan Clarean Circle with your friends.
Offer mutual aid. Offer sanctuary. Offer rest.
Write your own beatitude.
(Blessed are the burned-out activists, for they will be rekindled…)
We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For
There is no messiah coming to fix this for us. But the Spirit is already moving—in your breath, in your body, in your burning questions.
Francis and Clare answered their time with radical love and embodied resistance.
Now it’s our time.
Let us love boldly. Let us live simply. Let us belong deeply. Let us burn with the same fire.
Reflection: Your Rule, Your Revolution
What is one act of holy resistance you can take this week?
How might your daily life become a sacrament of justice?
What is your answer to the question: What would Francis and Clare do?
Closing Chapter: Go Boldly, Go Simply, Go Together
“May the Lord give you peace.”
— Traditional Franciscan blessing“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
— Arundhati Roy
You have walked with me through the fire of Assisi, the fierce tenderness of Clare, the defiant joy of the margins, and the sacred dirt under our nails. You’ve read about love that disrupts, simplicity that liberates, and community that heals. You’ve seen that the gospel is not neutral, and that the Spirit is always choosing sides—with the poor, the queer, the grieving, the dreaming, the outcast, and the wild.
Now it’s your turn.
This book is not the end. It is the door. And the door swings open onto The Way—a way walked by barefoot saints, burned-out prophets, trans mystics, neurodivergent healers, and every soul brave enough to say:
“I will not serve empire. I will serve Love.”
You Are Not Alone
If you’ve ever felt like you don’t belong in the Church, this book is your sanctuary.
If you’ve ever been told your body is too much, your queerness too loud, your politics too radical, your tears too frequent—this book is your affirmation.
If you’ve ever longed for a faith that actually feels like Jesus, this book is your altar.
And now: take what you’ve found and build something beautiful with it. Build community. Build gardens. Build protest liturgies. Build altars in the wilderness. Build homes for the unhoused. Build theology with your body.
Build the kin-dom of God—right here, right now, among the ruins.
The Fire Is Already in You
You don’t need permission. You don’t need a degree. You don’t need a bishop’s blessing.
You have the Spirit.
You have the scars.
You have the sacred longing for something better.
And that is enough.
A Final Blessing
May you love so boldly that empires tremble.
May you live so simply that your joy becomes contagious.
May you belong so deeply that no one around you is left outside.
May the Franciscan fire ignite in your bones.
May Clare’s clarity sharpen your vision.
May Christ walk beside you, as friend and rebel and risen Love.
Go now—not to escape the world, but to remake it.
In the name of the poor, the queer, and the risen Christ:
Amen. Ashé. And so it is.
Appendices
Appendix A: Daily Practices for the Franciscan Clarean Way
These are suggested daily rhythms to embody the Way. Adapt them to your life, needs, and capacities.
Morning
Light a candle. Speak aloud: “I choose love today.”
Read a reflection, scripture, or quote from a queer, liberationist, or ecological source.
Breathe deeply. Stretch. Bless your body.
Midday
Eat mindfully, even if it’s a single bite.
Offer a moment of silence for the suffering of the world.
Reach out to someone in your community.
Evening
Reflect on where you saw the Divine: in joy, in resistance, in failure.
Release shame. Practice gratitude without ignoring grief.
End with this prayer: “May I love boldly, live simply, and belong deeply. Amen.”
Appendix B: Glossary of Sacred Terms
Beloved Community – A term coined by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to describe a community rooted in justice, love, and radical belonging.
Crip Theology – A theological lens that centers disabled bodies and challenges ableism as a spiritual issue.
Decolonial Spirituality – A practice of resisting the colonial roots of Christianity and returning to Indigenous, land-honoring, and justice-centered ways of faith.
Ecowomanism – A theological framework centering Black women’s wisdom in addressing ecological, racial, and gender injustice.
Kin-dom of God – A queer and feminist reimagining of the “Kingdom of God,” emphasizing relationship and mutuality rather than domination.
Mutual Aid – The radical sharing of resources outside systems of control; gospel economics in action.
Queer Theology – A theological movement that affirms LGBTQ+ identities and challenges cis-heteronormativity as a distortion of the gospel.
Rule of Life – A spiritual structure or rhythm to guide daily living, not as law, but as liberation.
Trauma-Informed Spirituality – A practice that honors the nervous system, consent, and safety in sacred community.
Appendix C: Suggested Reading and Study
Foundational Theology
The Heart of Christianity – Marcus Borg
The Sins of Scripture – John Shelby Spong
A Theology of Liberation – Gustavo Gutiérrez
Take Back the Word – Robert Goss & Mona West
Indecent Theology – Marcella Althaus-Reid
Queer & Trans Spirituality
Radically Inclusive – Bishop Yvette Flunder
Transgender, Theology, and the Bible – Chris Paige et al.
Rainbow Theology – Patrick Cheng
Black Trans Feminism – Marquis Bey
Liberating Sexuality – Miguel A. De La Torre
Ecology & Justice
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
This Sacred Earth – Roger S. Gottlieb
All About Love – bell hooks
The Next American Revolution – Grace Lee Boggs
Franciscan Wisdom
The Essential Writings of St. Francis – ed. Jon M. Sweeney
Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love – Ilia Delio
The Way of St. Francis – Murray Bodo
Eager to Love – Richard Rohr
Appendix D: Entry Ritual for the Order of Franciscan Clareans
Purpose: To formally mark your commitment to the Franciscan Clarean Way, either individually or in community.
What You’ll Need:
A bowl of soil or herbs
A candle
A copy of your Rule or personal vow
Optional: community presence, singing bowl, incense, or icon of Francis/Clare
Suggested Ritual Structure:
- Grounding Prayer
“Holy One, You meet us in the soil, in our scars, and in our longings. May this moment be sacred.” - Reading
Read aloud part of this book or your chosen vow. - Anointing or Touching the Earth
Touch the soil or herbs. Say: “I root myself in the way of love, simplicity, and belonging.” - Lighting the Flame
Light a candle. Say: “I will burn with love until justice comes.” - Blessing
Recite:
“I belong to a different kind of order—one that serves not empire, but the Kin-dom of God. I walk with Francis and Clare. I am not alone.”
About the Author
Sister Abigail Hester, OFC is a transgender Christian nun, writer, healer, and the founder of the Order of Franciscan Clareans, a radical new monastic movement rooted in love, simplicity, and justice. Drawing inspiration from St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi—as well as queer theology, liberation theology, feminist spirituality, and decolonial thought—she works to reclaim Christianity as a path of prophetic resistance and embodied belonging.
Sister Abigail is a passionate advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion, trans liberation, disability justice, ecological healing, and spiritual reformation. Her writings combine theological depth with grassroots activism and pastoral tenderness, always aiming to center the voices of the marginalized and the sacredness of lived experience.
She lives simply, prays deeply, laughs loudly, and believes fiercely in the transformative power of community, joy, and holy troublemaking.
Sister Abigail Hester 