Meet Travis Helms, a local priest in Jackson whom I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know. We talk about just about everything in this conversation, including his mom’s mysticism, her early death, and what she taught him about faith.
We also dive deep into an extremely polarizing topic: religion. Travis shares what he thinks the church gets wrong, the universal struggles people face today, and the importance of storytelling in faith. You’re going to love this profound conversation.
Travis’s Mom: The Mystic Academic
Sally Griffiths Helms, Travis’s mom, was born in the wilds of West Texas in 1952. Throughout his life, people commented on her joyful yet mystical disposition.
His mom planted the seeds that eventually led to Travis’s priesthood. She introduced him to practices like contemplative prayer and Christian meditation, encouraging him to have real experiences of the divine beyond the intellectual.
Sally was also an academic. She was a marriage and family therapist who later earned a PhD in counselor training when Travis was young.
The End of Her Life: Seeing Heaven
Travis lost his mom to pancreatic cancer when she was only 63. He describes her loss as both the most difficult and the most beautiful thing he’s ever experienced. Her diagnosis and illness coincided with his time in seminary, and he and his mom had wonderful theological conversations at the end of her life.
Sally wondered whether something she’d done had caused her cancer, such as smoking cigarettes in college, eating TV dinners, or sinning. She kept attending church and praying for healing.
Eventually, Sally came to a place of peace with her cancer and surrendered to whatever outcome was in store for her.
She was extremely sick during the last year of her life and decided it was time for hospice care. Travis, his father, and his brother stayed with her for three days in hospice before she passed.
When they first got her settled in her bedroom, Sally got up and grabbed Travis for a dance. She also looked up at the ceiling and said, “Daddy, it’s playtime.” Travis believes she was speaking to her father, his grandfather, who passed away before Travis was born.
On the last day of her life, Sally was lying on her side in the hospice bed, facing the fireplace, when her breathing stopped. Travis and his family thought she was gone, but then they saw her pupils widen and a smile spread across her face. After that, she was really gone.
Travis, his father, and his brother rejoiced in that moment because they knew she had crossed into heaven. It gave their family deep comfort in their grief.
The Importance of Storytelling in Faith
Travis is an excellent storyteller; he believes stories are how humans have always made sense of the world. Jesus used parables in his ministry, and Travis uses stories in his weekly sermons. Stories help us connect with one another and find answers to life’s big questions.
Travis shares autobiographical stories from the pulpit to model vulnerability and curiosity. He doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. His goal is to help church members feel comfortable asking tough questions and sitting in ambiguity rather than feeling they have to have everything figured out.
What Are We Getting Wrong About Religion?
Religion has become an incredibly divisive topic, and Travis believes there are many things we get wrong about it. If you trace the word “religion” back to its Latin root, you get ligare, which means “to bind” or “to connect.” Ligare is also the root of “ligament,” the connective tissue that holds our joints together.
Travis believes that, at its best, religion is meant to reconnect people to one another and to the divine (or a “deeper reality”).
What too many religious communities get wrong is focusing on dogma rather than people. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus built deep relationships with marginalized people; he didn’t care about party lines or doing things the “correct” way.
Travis lives by a mantra his former priest gave him: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”
From a Priest’s POV: What Are People Struggling With?
As an Episcopal priest, Travis sees people’s pain deeply. His faith community includes both people who consider themselves religious and those who consider themselves spiritual, and he sees two common struggles: isolation and a lack of self-love.
Isolation has driven up rates of anxiety and depression around the world, and the church is not immune. Many people in the church are also used to doing for others but not for themselves. They’re the first to volunteer to bring a meal when someone gets sick, but when they’re sick, they won’t accept the same support.
The sad irony is that Christians emphasize loving others, but you can’t authentically love others if you don’t love yourself. That means accepting your imperfections and confronting the trauma that’s holding you back.
Seeing Your Life as a Story
Travis suggests that a helpful way to show yourself grace and grow in self-love is to see your life as a story arc. A hero always has to go through the belly of the whale before reaching victory. If you’re in a difficult season, remind yourself that it’s not the end, but an important part of your story.
