I am now peeking out from under the major chocolate coma The Hubby put me in over the weekend. On my birthday I got Canady’s chocolates, Milano cookies, Ben & Jerry’s Fudge Brownie Ice Cream, and flowers. Does My Man know how to treat his woman on her birthday or what? The sugar rush came in handy for preaching both services Sunday, which went amazingly great (the sermon is posted here).

Now it’s back to business.

First I am part of an amazing group of people, Customer Love, and we are having a 72 hour sale for the people of Japan. All money we receive from this incredible bundle will go to aid in Japan and all of the products and services have been donated.

I, along with many other incredible people, have donated a product towards this worthy fundraiser.

For just a $97 donation to the relief efforts in Japan, you’ll receive a product bundle worth well over $1,200 that is overflowing with everything you need to grow your business online.

This was our way of helping out. Offering you this amazing deal in the hopes that you’d take this opportunity to donate for a worthy cause.

So please click here to learn more about how you can make a difference…both for Japan and for your business: Customer Love for Japan.

Update: So far Customer Love Japan has raised $3,650! Every penny of it goes to Direct Relief International. If you’re wanting to get your business up and going with some of the best, and most generous, people online, go get this bundle. It is a steal for everything you will get. Help for your business, help for people who desperately need it. What more can you ask for?

Update 2: As of 2:00 p.m. 3/30/11, Customer Love Japan has raised over $4,000 for Direct Relief International, and our donation will be matched! There is only a little over a day to get $1200 worth of goodies to get your business off the ground for a $97 donation.

P. S. Yes I bought the bundle, and I donated 10 spiritual direction sessions to it. Just wanted to let you know I am walking my talk. 🙂

Believe it or not this is the last week in March, which means this is our last giveaway (can you believe it? Where did the month go?)

For this final giveaway I reserved one of my favorite books on the women in the Bible: Sharon S. Forth’s Eve’s Bible: A Woman’s Guide to the Old Testament. I fell in love with this book earlier this year. This is one of those rare books that combine the best scholarship in a book anyone can pick up and read. Sharon is an incredible storyteller who weaves all the information you need to know into beautiful prose instead boring and dry text. What will you find in Eve’s Bible? I’ll let her tell you:

• 

  My much marked copy of Eve's Bible

  Provides step-by-step guidance for reading the Bible’s stories.
• Helps readers appreciate the many forms of biblical poetry.
• Explains what the Hebrew prophets were up to.
• Clarifies why the Bible has so many commandments.
• Introduces readers to Woman Wisdom.
• Answers the question, “Is the Bible historical?”
• Explores how women were living when the Bible was written.
• Provides insight into why the biblical Deity is such a complex and unpredictable character.
• Investigates how ancient religions of gods and goddesses influenced biblical scribes.
• Shows readers how to put what they learn to good use.

Taking different passages about women in the Bible she teaches you how to study the Bible on your own. Appendix 1, “How to Read the Bible: A Travel Guide” is a great summary of her Bible study technique. If you do nothing else, go to the library, find the book, read the book then copy this appendix. It’s a must have for anyone studying the Bible.

In order to get a chance to win Eve’s Bible, tell me who your favorite woman in the Bible is. Mine is Deborah. She was a fierce warrior who took care of her people and did what was needed to build Godde’s kingdom. You have until midnight, Thursday to let me know who your favorite woman in the Bible is, and I will pick the winner Friday.

This is also the last week to take advantage of a free 30 minute session of spiritual direction. Offer ends March 31. Email me for an appointment.

Congratulations Sarah! You won Wild Women! Email me your postal address, and I will get it air mailed to you! How long before you are officially Dr. Coleson Derck?

The next and last giveaway will be posted Monday!

You have six more days to take advantage of a free 30 minute spiritual direction session with me! Email me for an appointment.

If you’re in the Chicago area, I will be preaching on the Samaritan Women Jesus met at Jacob’s Well at Grace Episcopal Church tomorrow morning at both the 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. services. Grace is at 637 S. Dearborn.

Hope everyone has a good weekend! Try to get some fun and relaxing in there OK?

I will have a good and fun weekend because today is my birthday! My Hubby will be taken me out for a nice Italian dinner this evening. And there may also be wonderful chocolate from Canady’s Chocolatier (which is conveniently in our building).

Good stuff I read this week

photo © 2007 Kjunstorm | more info (via: Wylio)
First up you have to stop by Roxanne Krystalli’s incredible blog, Stories of Conflict and Love. Roxanne works at development projects for women in conflict and post-conflict areas around the world. She not only blogs about it, but takes incredible pictures of her work and adventures as well. Here’s how she describes her site:

“Stories of Conflict and Love” is part commentary on international development, conflict and gender issues, part travelogue, part the mind’s meanderings that the road triggers. I find myself shaken by the shoulders every day. Moved by the world. Inspired, appalled, scared, excited, optimistic – in equal parts.  I am currently in the Middle East, thinking, writing about and working in the field of post-conflict development, and always seeking to be moved.

Stop by and visit her. Find out the incredible work she is doing. You can also follow her on Twitter at @rkrystalli.

For years I’ve been saying that jumping to the conclusion that the Samaritan Woman Jesus meets at the well of Jacob is a prostitute is nothing but male fantasy (which is why it’s been wrong for 2,000 years. The male interpreters and writers want to see a prostitute, so that’s what they write about. For the record Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute either). I’ve written about this in my thesis, on this blog, and preached about it (I will be preaching about her again this Sunday at Grace Episcopal Church). This week I was delighted to discover that David Lose had written from this same viewpoint on a mainstream and much read blog: The Huffington Post. In “Misogyny, Moralism and the Woman at the Well” David points out there are other explanations for why the Samaritan Woman had five husbands that do not make her a whore or a loose woman. Here’s an excerpt:

Yet there is nothing in the passage that makes this an obvious interpretation. Neither John as narrator nor Jesus as the central character supply that information. Jesus at no point invites repentance or, for that matter, speaks of sin at all. She very easily could have been widowed or have been abandoned or divorced (which in the ancient world was pretty much the same thing for a woman). Five times would be heartbreaking, but not impossible. Further, she could now be living with someone that she was dependent on, or be in what’s called a Levirate marriage (where a childless woman is married to her deceased husband’s brother in order to produce an heir yet is not always technically considered the brother’s wife). There are any number of ways, in fact, that one might imagine this woman’s story as tragic rather than scandalous, yet most preacher’s assume the latter.

And this:

Why do so many preachers assume the worst of her? I would suggest two reasons. First, there is a long history of misogyny in Christian theology that stands in sharp contrast to the important role women play in the gospels themselves. Women, the four evangelists testify, supported Jesus’ ministry. They were present at the tomb when their male companions fled. And they were the first witnesses to the resurrection. Yet from asserting that Eve was the one who succumbed to temptation (conveniently ignoring that the author of Genesis says Adam was right there with her — Gen. 3:6) to assuming this Samaritan woman must be a prostitute, there is the ugly taint of chauvinism present in too much Christian preaching….

I also love the fact he nails Dan Brown: for all the celebration of the Feminine Divine and Mary Magdalene’s expanded role, there are only two female characters in The Da Vinci Code.

Dan is the Marbury E. Anderson Chair of Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary and a contributor at WorkingPreacher.org.

My own March Madness specials

Here’s the reminder for the freebies and special going on during the month of March:

I’m doing free 30 minute spiritual direction sessions through March 31. Email me for an appointment. Don’t know what spiritual direction is? Watch this video. One more thing to add to the video: I found I have a knack for helping artists on the spiritual path. Sometimes we artists have a tough time figuring out how to be spiritual, creative, and build a business. Sometimes we have trouble figuring out how Godde wants to use our talents and business for the greater good. If you’re having trouble:

1. Connecting your spirituality with your business
2. Wondering how you can serve the greater good…

I’d love to talk to you.

Don’t forget about his week’s giveaway: Wild Women: Crusaders, Curmudgeons, and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era. We aren’t the only ones living life by our rules and changing the world as we go. Get one of my favorite books to learn about the fierce foremothers who blazed the trail for us. All you have to do to enter the drawing is telling me in the comments if you’d like to see of newsletter from this site. The drawing is open until midnight, Friday, March 25.

To keep up with all the giveaways this month, you can subscribe to my blog via email or RSS. Both of those options can be found on the right bar menu.

This week’s giveaway is one of my favorite books ever: Wild Women: Crusaders, Curmudgeons, and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era. I bought this book for the title and have not been disappointed. It’s hard not to love a book that has chapter titles like this:

• Brazen Brides and Wicked Wives
• Twisted Sisters and Mortifying Mothers
• Shocking Scholars and Wanton Wordsmiths
• Holy Terrors and Pope Perturbers

Each chapter is filled with vignettes of women who “gave Queen Victoria the fits!” (back cover). These women refused to live in the narrow boundaries their society set for them and lived their lives by their own rules. Along with notable names like Carrie Nation, Annie Oakley, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, you’ll also learn about women like Belva Lockwood who battled Congress for five years for her right to become a lawyer and practice law. She was “the first woman sworn in by both the Supreme Court and the Court of Claims” (p. 168). She opened a mother-daughter law firm and went on to win “a $5 million settlement against the government for the Cherokee Nation.” She ran for president with VP candidate, Marietta Stow, in 1884, winning 4,149 votes along with the “entire electoral vote of Indiana” (p. 169).

For a chance to win Wild Women let me know in the comments if you would like to see me do a newsletter (saying no is just fine, don’t worry about it if that’s your answer). I’ve played with the idea, but have yet to act on it. If you would like to see a newsletter, what would you like to see in it?

• How to study the women of the Bible and bring them out of the shadows?
• Feminist theology?
• What women are doing in the church and in biblical studies and theology?
• Women and leadership roles in the church?
• How you can help promote equality in your own church?

Any ideas you have for a newsletter would be greatly appreciated!

This drawing will be open until midnight Thursday, March 24. I’ll draw the winner on Friday morning.

Remember that I am offering a free 30 minute session of spiritual direction through March 31. Email me for an appointment. Don’t know what spiritual direction is? Watch this video.

To keep up with all the giveaways this month, you can subscribe to my blog via email or RSS. Both of those options can be found on the right bar menu.

Congratulations Viviane! You are now the proud owner of Serenity! Email me your snail mail address, and I will get it in the mail.

The next giveaway will begin Monday!

Remember that I am offering a free 30 minute session of spiritual direction through March 31. Email me for an appointment. Don’t know what spiritual direction is? Watch this video.

To keep up with all the giveaways this month, you can subscribe to my blog via email or RSS. Both of those options can be found on the right bar menu.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

For St. Patrick’s Day I am giving away my favorite Kick-Ass Feminist Movie, which also has my Favorite Hollywood Couple ever: Serenity.

First my favorite Hollywood couple ever: Wash and Zoë. This has to be the best husbands and wives are equal, can do and support each other in anything they want and still have time for sex, couple ever. In my opinion this is also one of the most biblical marriages you’ll see on TV or the big screen. Wait, biblical? Yes biblical. You see there is this little mistranslation in most Bibles where Genesis 2 is concerned. Most English translations translate a certain Hebrew phrase to mean helpmate. That is not what ezer cenegdo means. Ezer cenegdo means “a power equal to” (The King James Version comes the closest to translating this phrase right: help meet–a help equal to; help and power are from the same Hebrew root). In the beginning woman was created to be a power equal to man. A wife is a power equal to her husband. Zoë is a power equal to Wash.

I also believe Godde created men and women to build her kingdom on earth. We are supposed to stand side-by-side, arm-in-arm and fight the injustices and evil of this world and help further Goddes’ reign of love and peace. In Serenity Zoë and Wash stand side-by-side and arm-in-arm to to stay out of the Alliance’s reach. They each use their own gifts and talents to do this: Zoë as a kick ass warrior and fighter, and Wash as the brainy pilot who can literally make the poor Firefly go through paces she was not meant to go through and still hold her all together. (As a warrior woman married to a brainy nerd, you have no idea how much I love this couple!) Wash is not intimidated by his warrior wife, and Zoë does not think she has to pretend to be weaker than she is to bolster her husband’s masculinity. They accept one another as the other is, and encourage each other to do best what they do best. They fight for justice together and somewhere in their mercenary/subvert the Alliance life, they even find time for romance and sex (you’ll have to catch the series Firefly to see that side of them). Best Hollywood Couple Ever.

This movie is filled with women who know who they are, know what they want, and don’t apologize for it. Zoë is just one of them. Inara and Kaylee are two more, but the other woman I want to focus on in this post is River. I had absolutely no idea where this character was going when Firefly started. River is a traumatized young woman who doesn’t seem to be able to tell reality from fantasy. We know the Alliance did something to her, and her brother rescued her, but we don’t find out what happened to her. Towards the end of the series we find out River is one hell of a fighter, but we don’t know why or how this happened. In Serenity we find out: the Alliance was brainwashing and training her to be an assassin. An assassin they controlled and who could never betray them. River is also a psychic who picked up on some extremely classified information that the Alliance doesn’t want anyone to know about, which is why they are so anxious to get her back. This secret is what warped River’s brain.

The crew find out what the deep, dark secret is, and finally we see River at peace. She finds her sanity when she finds out what the memories in her head are about (memories that aren’t hers). There is a final stand between the Alliance and the crew of the Firefly. They are trying to get the truth of what the Alliance did out. Two different enemies are gunning for them: the Alliance and a cannibalistic human race called the Reavers. Of course they’re outnumbered and outgunned in an area they chose to bottleneck the enemy.  They have to fall back, but someone has to lock the doors from the outside and be stuck with a bunch of murderous, cannibalistic Reavers. That’s when River makes her choice. The Alliance might have tried to make her an assassin, but in the end she chooses her fight. She chooses to use the training she’s had to save her brother. She chooses to be a warrior and fight on her terms, for her own reasons, and not for anyone else. And that is why this one of my favorite, kick-ass feminist movies ever.

All you have to do for a chance to win Serenity is this: leave a comment telling me what your favorite kick-ass feminist movie is or which TV/movie couple exemplifies what you think marriage should look like. I’ll take answers through midnight Friday. I’ll draw a name and announce the winner Saturday.

Remember that I am offering a free 30 minute session of spiritual direction through March 31. Email me for an appointment. Don’t know what spiritual direction is? Watch this video.

To keep up with all the giveaways this month, you can subscribe to my blog via email or RSS. Both of those options can be found on the right bar menu.

I can’t wait to see what some of your favorite movies and couples are!

Congratulations Joanna Asperger: you won Jan Richardson’s The Garden of Hollows! Email your snail mail address to shawna (at) shawnaatteberry (dot) com and I will get it in the mail.

The next giveaway will be this afternoon, so make sure you check back to see what my favorite, kick ass feminist movie is and how you can win it!