Yesterday The day before yesterday (this will post at 12:16 a.m. argggg) I posted the first five books in my 10 favorite books that empowered me to be the woman Godde created me to be, and that I think will help other women become all Godde has called them to be. Here are the final five books.

Theology

The books in this list are scholarly and use a lot theological jargon, but I think they are worth the time it takes to read.

She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth Johnson

This is the book that showed me I could explore the Divine Feminine and remain a Christian and true to my biblical roots. Johnson is the one who introduced Sophia into my religious life: Spirit-Sophia, Jesus-Sophia, and Mother-Sophia. This book showed me that women’s experience of the divine was just as valid as men’s (i. e. normative) experience. After reading this book I started seeing how women’s experience of Godde was marginalized and neglected.

In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza

For me Schüssler Fiorenza picked up where Johnson left off. Schüssler Fiorenza dives into how women’s roles and experiences were marginalized, suppressed, and lost to history. Her reconstruction of early Christianity focusing on female disciples and apostles, and the roles that the Bible and sacred history hint at, flesh out a “theological reconstruction of Christian origins.” This book continued to show me how much of Christian history is that: his. It made me realize how desperately we need to balance out our religious experiences, traditions, worship, and Godde-talk with women’s words, women’s experience, and re-discovering the Divine Feminine.

Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories by Tikva Frymer-Kensky

If you only have one scholarly, wordy book about the women of the Bible on your shelves, this is the one. Technically the Bible we’re talking about here is the Hebrew Scriptures. Frymer-Kensky was a Jewish scholar and Middle East Historian par excellence. As far as I’m concerned no one could pick apart of piece of Scripture in the Hebrew, put it back into English, then add the historical, sociological and cultural background and make me wonder what I can learn from this woman and how can I apply this to my life. In fact, the last chapter is “Mirror and Voices: Reading These Stories Today” helps us start thinking about how these women’s stories can possibly change our own lives and culture.

Unfortunately Dr. Frymer-Kensky passed away in 2006 after a four year battle with breast cancer. Her first book In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth would be #11 on this list. After reading her two books, I was devastated to find out that would be all I would read. I would love for her passion for Scripture, helping us see the hard truths we don’t want to acknowledge, and the hope of change her work still gives people to live on in a few more books. If you light candles to honor those who have passed on, please light a candle for Tikva.

Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context by Carol Meyers

As In Memory of Her reconstructed early Christian origins, Meyers book seeks to reconstruct the ancient Israelite culture the creation stories in Genesis spring from. Discovering Eve, published in 1998 seeks to show what women’s lives in ancient Israel were like as a result of recent archeological finds at the time. Rural villages had been unearthed, and with them, glimpses of women’s lives. Meyers sees Eve as an archetype: Everywoman in the Bible. She shows us what the typical woman’s life would have been like when the Genesis creation stories were being told orally from one family to the next, one tribe to the next. Starting with the typical life and working backwards to show how Adam and Eve as the ideal Everyman and Everywoman came to be and why the Israelites were living in a dry, arid land where eeking out enough crops to live on was so hard instead of living in the water rich Eden.

Meyers also gives an incredible translation of Genesis 3:16 that would revolutionize how we think about women and their roles in the home and society if anyone was interested in an accurate translation of the verse:

I will greatly increase your toil [work/labor] and your pregnancies;
(Along) with travail [physical work] shall you beget children
For to your man is your desire,
And he shall predominate over you.

Meyer’s theory is that not only will the women’s pregnancies increase, but the physical work she does will also increase. Meyers also makes the observation, that in context, the husband only predominates over the women, so that she will have children. Large families were needed to farm the dry, arid land, but with the large infant mortality rate (half of all children born did not live to their second birthday), and mother mortality, the woman would be hesitant to have sex. The husband could rule over her in this for the work that needed to be done to survive. Meyers points out that we no longer need large families to survive, and with modern birth control, the husband predominating over the woman is now a moot point. I think it’s a moot point since Jesus: Jesus came to reverse the curse, including this one. But Meyer’s additional reading of this verse, strictly in the verse’s context is absolutely brilliant.

Worship

The Saint Helena Breviary: Personal Edition

I will always be grateful to the Episcopalian nuns in the Order of St. Helena for this gender inclusive prayer book. The nuns chant the Daily Office: four services of prayer through the day that include Psalms, readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament, and prayers. The nuns grew tired of the masculine-only language for Godde. Over a number of years they wrote liturgy and chanted; this breviary is the result. It’s imaginative language and poetic meter help me to see Godde in new ways.

Hopefully in the future there will be more resources for fairly orthodox Christian women using Divine Feminine language for Godde. A good friend of mine is creating a Sophia Daily Office (which I hope a publisher will have the guts to pick up), and I am working on The Christian Godde Project. We are translating the New Testament using Diving Feminine names and pronouns for Godde to begin to balance out the male language only versions (Heaven help us).

If you know of prayer, worship resources, or liturgies using Divine Feminine language, please leave them in the comments.

All book links are affiliate links.

This is for the Day 2 Challenge, Write a List Post, for 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge at The SITS Girls on BlogFrog.

For my list post(s) I have decided to give the 10 books that empowered me to be the woman and leader that Godde called me to be. This is the first post of two. I will post the second part including theology and worship books tomorrow.

Practical Books

All We’re Meant to Be by Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty

This book was instrumental in helping me claim my life as my own as a leader in the church and as a single woman who didn’t know if she wanted to get married and have kids. I did get married, but I chose not to have children for the simple reason I am not called to be a mother (and The Hubby is just fine with being Uncle Tracy, thank Godde). This book gave me that option as a Christian woman. Scanzoni and Hardesty systematically take the reader through the Bible pointing out where mistranslations, mis-interpretations, and neglect have been used to caricature the women of the Bible as wives and mothers and nothing else. They lay solid biblical and theological groundwork for why women were created to be more than wives and mothers (without diminishing those roles: they are important!), and they illustrate how women were merchants, business women, spiritual and political leaders in The Hebrew Scriptures and The New Testament.

10 Lies the Church Tells Women by J. Lee Grady

Grady, the former editor and now contributing editor for Charisma Magazine, systematically goes through the lies that most women grew up with in church:

• • • • God created women as inferior beings destined to serve their husbands.
      • A woman should view her husband as the “priest of the home.”
      • Women who exhibit strong leadership qualities pose a serious danger to the church.
      • Women can’t be fulfilled or spiritually effective without a husband and children.
      • Women shouldn’t work outside the home.

Grady goes through each lie telling how he has seen it effect women in many churches through the years, and giving women solid, conservative, biblical positions to stand on if and when Godde calls them to be leaders in their church or calls them to a secular vocation outside of the home. If you’re on the conservative side this is the book I recommend you start with. Grady has a high regard for the inerrancy of the Bible, and conservative women won’t feel like he is manipulating Scripture or putting traditions and world cultures ahead of the Bible.

The Harlot by the Side of the Road by Jonathan Kirsch

This is one of my all-time favorite books, period. This book began when Kirsch, a Jew, decided to start reading The Hebrew Scriptures to his son at bedtime. He was amazed at the stories they hit not too far into Genesis: a drunk and naked Noah. He went on to discover adultery, gang rape, incest, and war. He didn’t remember any of this from when he learned the stories as a child, so he began investigating the forbidden tales of the Bible and out came this wonderful book. These are the stories that all of us who claim The First Testament as our holy scriptures want to leave out. Here are a few of the chapter titles to give you an idea of the forbidden tales he uncovers:

• Life Against Death: The Sacred Incest of Lot’s Daughters
• The Woman Who Willed Herself into History: Tamar as the Harlot by the Side of the Road
• The Bridegroom of Blood: Zipporah as the Goddess-Rescuer of Moses
• God and Gyno-sadism: Heroines and Martyrs in the Book of Judges

This well researched book is very accessible to readers who are not scholars and theologians. Kirsch helps us see some of the women in the Bible who have been considered as sexually loose or whores in a new light. He also helps us to see how we, as people of The Book, can start navigate the abuse and violence of our world in a biblical context.

History

Women’s Work: The first 20,000 years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

Here’s what people don’t realize about women working and financially supporting their families: women’s work drove the ancient economy. Women’s work, weaving and textiles, fueled the ancient economy of trading. The money women made from their looms was their own to manage how they saw fit. Women have always worked to support their families. It’s just in the first 20,000 years almost everyone worked from home (with the exceptions of soldiers and traders). Men used to work from home to support families too up until Industrial Age divided work and home into two separate spheres. Wayland Barber shows how women’s work made trade and ancient economy go round. I found the history and her research fascinating. It is also a very accessible book: you don’t have to have a specialized vocabulary or a degree in history to read this book. Here are two of my favorite excerpts.

We also have many letters that the traders’ wives wrote to them from far away in Ashur, the capital of Assyria [Syria]–letters not just about how the family was getting along, but also about business matters. For at least some of the wives, daughters, and sisters were in business for themselves, acting as textile suppliers to their menfolk six hundred miles away in Anatolia [Turkey] and taking considerable profit therefrom to use for their own purposes (p. 169).

In the early layers of the Late Bronze Age sites in Israel…we suddenly begin to find locally made clay imitations of Egyptian fiber-wetting bowls, developed for just this purpose [splicing and twining linen]. The appearance of these humble textile tools, used only by women, alerts us that this is a time when women had just arrived in Palestine from Egypt in considerable numbers and settled there–and there is no other such time that we have found. Thus out of the several points in Egyptian history that scholars gave suggested for the date of the Exodus, the women’s artifacts tell us that this one (around 1500 to 1450 B. C.) is the archaelologically (sic) most probable layer to equate with their Exodus from Egypt (p. 254).

A Woman’s Place: House churches in earliest Christianity by Carolyn Osiek, Margaret Y. MacDonald with Janet H. Tulloch

This is a more scholarly book but well worth the time it takes to read. Osiek, et. al. unearth the structures of ancient households and the churches meeting within them during the first 300 years of Chrisitianity before the Christian religion was legalized and churches began to be built. One of the reasons given that women should not be pastors and bishops is that a woman’s sphere of influence should be the home. But the early churches met in homes where the matriarch of the family ruled. The authors show how much responsibility women had within in their homes and how much power they wielded within their homes, which translates into women having power within the churches that met in their homes.

All book links are affliate links.

Thank you to Elizabeth Ferree at The Life of a Home Mom for giving me the idea for this list post! (She’s @homemom3 on Twitter.) Actually I took two of her ideas for a list post and crunched them together, and it got me excited to write this post. This is a first time in a long time I’ve been excited about writing a post. Thank you Elizabeth! And thank you to The SITS Girls for putting together the blog challenge, so we can encourage and inspire each other!

If one grew up Evangelical and/or Fundamentalist in the 1980s and 90s then one knew about why Dayton, TN was so important. It was there in a court of law that creationists who believed that Godde created the earth in six literal days beat the atheist evolutionists in a court of law. In her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions* Rachel Held Evans recounts growing up as a fundamental evangelical in Dayton, the home of the Scopes Monkey Trial, which is how Dayton got its nickname: Monkey Town. As Held Evans explains in her book this was the start of Evangelicals coming into the modern era determined to be able to give a scientific and rational answer to any question atheists could raise against the Bible because of William Jennings Bryan’s weak answers on why he believed everything in the Bible was absolute truth. Evangelicals determined that in the future they would have the answers.

Like many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists (myself included) Held Evans grew up learning how to answer any question an atheist could pose that would question Godde’s existence and the veracity of the Bible. They also learned how to turn the questions on atheists and agnostics that basically backed them into a semantic corner. Since the atheists couldn’t empirically prove there was not a God that left room Godde’s existence. All the questions were answered except the questions young Americans were asking, and for that matter questions young Evangelical and Fundamentalists were asking about their faith. Questions such as “Why would a loving Godde send his or her own creation to hell when they never had a chance to hear the Gospel?” Questions like “If Godde has predestined who will go to heaven and who will go to hell why evangelize at all?” Which leads to the question: “Do I really want to serve a Godde who predestines most of her own creation (made in Godde’s own image) to hell?” Like Held Evans I never bought the “We all should go to hell because we’re such awful sinners” line. If humanity were so depraved and so far gone why would Jesus even want to die for us?

Evoloving in Monkey Town is the book that several Evangelicals (including me) could have written about questioning the Christian faith and Godde, and the painful process it is to be broken down to nothing and starting the slow and tedious process of rebuilding faith in this Godde. It is not easy to hold one’s life-long beliefs to the light then start walking down the rocky path in deciding which beliefs are biblical and godly and which beliefs are  something that have been added on. Held Evans is brutally honest in how hard the process is, and how hard it will continue to be. There are no easy answers in this book.

It is refreshing to see more books coming from Evangelicals and evangelical publishing houses that deal with questioning faith, and that faith has its roots in doubt. It is also nice to see Evangelicals picking up N. T. Wright’s points that works are a vital part of faith. Not because works save, but because obedience to Godde is formed and shaped by works of love, compassion, and service. All Christians need to remember James’ words to the churches he wrote to in the first century: “Faith without works is dead.” Christians can harp about faith all they want, but it is only through works that faith is clearly seen.

I would recommend this book to Evangelicals and other Christians who doubt what they were taught about Godde and faith. I would also recommend it to non-Christians who don’t understand why Evangelicals and Fundamentalists get so upset about pluralism, creationism, abortion, and homosexuality. Held Evans gives an excellent history of Evangelical/Fundamentalist thought and how it’s gotten to where it is today. This book is a good read for anyone questioning their faith or wondering why some Christians cling so tightly to their beliefs.

I received a copy of this book Zondervan Publishing Company agreeing to review it on my blog.

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Radical feminist theologian Mary Daly famously said that “If man is God then God is man.” What Daly said in her terse statement Matt Mikalatos illustrates in his first book, Imaginary Jesus*, except Mikalatos isn’t limiting his statement to the male sex. His point is that all of us make Jesus in our image. We see the Jesus we want to see: the one that challenges us some, but not too much. The Jesus who doesn’t ask too much of us, and is always there being whatever we need at that time. He writes about the Jesuses we imagine up to replace the radical figure in the New Testament, that makes all of us more than a bit uncomfortable.

The book begins with Matt hanging out with his Jesus in a vegan place in Portland when the Apostle Peter walks in and gets into a fight with Jesus, and Jesus runs away. Peter informs Matt that he’s been hanging out with an imaginary Jesus and not the real one. This begins Matt’s wild journey through modern day Portland and first century Palestine for find the real Jesus. In the course of hunting down the real Jesus, Matt finds out there is a whole slew of Imaginary Jesuses including Testosterone Jesus, King James Jesus, Portland Jesus, Magic 8 Ball Jesus and Political Power Jesus. They are all members of The Secret Society of Imaginary Jesuses. From the SSIJ to an atheist Bible study at Portland State to Powells, the largest bookstore in the world, Matt searches for the real Jesus but keeps finding more and more Imaginary Jesuses. Along the way Matt finds the strangest friends: Daisy the talking donkey, Sandy–a reformed prostitute, two Mormon elders: Elder Laurel and Elder Hardy, and Shane the leader of the atheist Bible study. Matt also has to face his own grief and personal issues that he keeps inventing the Imaginary Jesuses to fill, only to find out they can’t take the place of the real thing. It is only in hunting down the Imaginary Jesuses and seeing through their lies can he finally find the real Jesus.

Mikalatos does a great job of making readers take a look at the Jesuses they believe in and how those imaginary Jesuses stack up to the real Jesus. This is a book that could have been campy or just schlock, but Mikalatos’ storytelling ability along with his wit and sarcasm keep this lively “not-quite true story” moving along. To be honest, I never thought I’d live to see a good, well written, Christian urban fantasy published. I agree with Aldenswan, my fellow reviewer’s assessment of Mikalatos: “what Terry Pratchett would be like if Pratchett were a Christian.” (I did have a few flashes of Good Omens* while reading this book.) I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to be honest about how most American Christians make Jesus in their own image, but don’t want to be preached at. Mikalatos uses the story and characters to make his points, but this book is not a thinly veiled sermon. He leaves us to examine our own lives and see how our imaginary Jesuses match up to the real thing. I wouldn’t recommend this book to readers who are easily offended. Mikalatos has a healthy dose of irreverent sarcasm running through the book that some more conservative readers might consider over the line.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from The Ooze Viral Bloggers agreeing to post a review on my site.

* Affiliate links

As Is: Unearthing Commonplace Glory is Krista Finch’s first book published through the publishing press she owns with her husband, Swerve Press. As Is is a memoir of finding places of glory in the everyday messiness of life. Finch sets out to see heaven on earth:

Life is noisy, dirty, dangerous–and that is with its best foot forward. But there is more than only chaos, commotion, and calamity. We catch glimpses of the glory when we look in the impossible and preposterous places.

I really wanted to like this book, but the alliteration and lists that have a nice lilt to them in the beginning get old quick. There are several chapters, or sketches (the Table of Contents is called Sketches in this book), that get overwhelmed with her lists. It’s almost like Finch wants to write poetry throughout the book, but then changes to prose. Each section of the book begins with a poem then is followed by short vignettes on different topics. Most of the sketches are just over a page long and skim the surface of the topic she’s talking about. The book is loosely structured, which makes it hard to follow as it’s not in chronological order and doesn’t have a strong narrative structure. Finch jumps around her life without giving a lot of surrounding detail or connecting narrative to help us transition from one sketch to the other. Although we see glimpses into Finch’s life, the reader doesn’t feel like you get to know her. For example in “This Lounge Chair Thing” she mentions three miscarriages and a cancer scare in another long list, and that’s it. She never elaborates on either the rest of the book. We don’t know what happened. It’s mentioned and then she goes on.

There are nice sections in the book where Finch gets away from lists and adjectives and gives a little more narrative and detail that make that story shine like this paragraph where she describes why we are “hesitant hopers”:

Because hope is an odd cat. That’s probably why we don’t entertain her very often. Everything around us tells us not to invite her in. Hospitals can’t heal, wars don’t end, bonds won’t mend. We’ve asked hope to come, and she has left us high and dry. Why would we summon that kind of company…? …Hope just doesn’t look like we think she will look. She changes her hair color and gets a new wardrobe just when we start to recognize her (p. 116).

I look forward to seeing how her writing develops, but I don’t recommend this book. It would be best for those who like to read in short spells. It might be an easier book to read slowly, taking your time. It’s not a good book to read straight through. If you’re interested in short blog-style chapters that are easy to read in five minutes here and there, you  might enjoy this book. If you expect a memoir to have more narrative where you feel like you get to know the author, then this book isn’t for you.

I received a copy of this book from The Ooze Viral Bloggers agreeing to post a copy of the review on my website.

I’ve always lived in other worlds. As soon as I learned to read, I began devouring books. If I could understand most of the words, I read it. I was always asking Mom what this word and that word meant, and as a result, Mom soon taught me how to use a dictionary. I was in glasses by the time I was ten. There is no proof, but I think because I read so much, my eyes didn’t think there was anything beyond the length of my arm (or the tip of my nose for that matter). By the time I finished sixth grade, I had read the Little House on the Prairie books, A Wrinkle in Time trilogy (back then it was a trilogy), The Chronicles of Narnia, every Judy Blume book, and too many Nancy Drew books to count. In fact, I would sit down after breakfast on Saturdays with a Nancy Drew mystery and have it finished by supper. Of course, writing stories did not lag far behind learning how to read them.

Role Models

The first time I saw the power and potential of a girl, and later a woman, was in Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time books. Meg was strong and held her own ground. She did not have special powers and she was not a super-hero, but she did what was right. Her love for her family always compelled her to do the right thing, no matter what it cost her personally. Meg showed me that regardless of your age, you could change the world for the better.

I lived in books filled with girls and women with whom I could relate. I grew up with a complementarian model of who a woman was supposed to be, but I never fit in that mold. I was neither quiet nor submissive, and I was not very proper. I was competitive, opinionated, aggressive, and willing to defend my beliefs. In books I found woman like me, women I wanted to be like.

I will never forget meeting Eowyn in The Two Towers and journeying with her through Return of the King. She was the first woman I met who was also a warrior. She defied the customs of her time, went into battle, and fought for what she believed in. She was the one who destroyed the King of the Nazguls. In Eowyn, I found a sister.

Seeing Humanity in Others

But fiction has done more than just show me what women can do. The genres of science fiction and fantasy also help me to understand what it means to be human. There is a great potential for truth-telling in these genres. I think that is because the worlds in science fiction and fantasy are not “our” world. Because it’s not “us,” “our” culture, “our” world, we can say things that are not readily received in other forums. Over the years, these genres have confronted the prejudices of our world, battling discrimination based on sex, religion, and ethnicity, and going even further to ask, “What does it mean to be human?”

In Children of God, Mary Doria Russell weaves the stories of human and alien through religion. On the world of Rakhat, there are two species: the Jana’ata and the Runa. The Jana’ata will eat the Runa for survival and to maintain the population. Two of the human characters in the book are a Jewish woman, Sofia Mendes, and her autistic son, Isaac. Joining them is Ha’anala, a member of the Jana’ata. Sofia teaches them the Jewish faith. The biblical views begin to change the way Ha’anala looks at her world, and the way she sees the Runa. She realizes all of them are created by Godde. When she is older, she forms a group where the Runa are treated as equals, which becomes a catalyst for starting change in her world. Meanwhile, Isaac has limited speech and dislikes noise. He wants silence and clarity. He works continually on a hand-held computer, looking for what he calls clarity. At the end of the book we find out what he was working on: a symphony. John Clute noted that Isaac “understands the world solely through song, memorizes the genetic codes of the three races into three intercalating tone-rows, and harmonizes them” (Excessive Candour, issue 63, which is no longer online thanks to SyFy’s name change). He calls his composition “The Children of God.” The humans, the Runa, and the Jana’ata are all Godde’s children. The book ends with a question: Where will these three races—all children of Godde—go from here? Children of God makes us think: what does it mean to be made in the image of Godde? To be Godde’s children? Do we really consider those who are “other” (different races, cultures, religions, or ethnicities) as Godde’s children? Would we use and exploit other people if we saw them as children of Godde, or would we radically change the way live as Jana’ata did?

Neil Gaiman creates London Below in Neverwhere: A Novel. A whole world lives beneath the streets of London in old tunnels long forgotten. London Below is populated by those who considered misfits by the inhabitants of London Above. The residents of London Below are seen as homeless, dirty, and destitute. The people of London Above do not even see them; they look right past them. The dwellers of London Below have to talk to them to be seen, but once the conversation is over, the London Abovers forget all about it. Those who reside in London Below are unseen and forgotten people. This challenges the reader to examine how we see people. How do we view those who are considered “misfits”? Do we look past them? Do we see them at all?

Both of these books remind me of the core church doctrine that every single human being on the face of this planet is made in Godde’s image. What do we do with this doctrine, once it is truly realized? Are we able to handle the responsibility this places upon us? What about those we take advantage of, simply because we can? Are there certain people who are invisible to us, who we look through on the street? Fiction has challenged me, throughout my life, to encounter these hard questions, and ask what it means to be human. Godde not only created every human being, but Godde created them in Godde’s own image. I must constantly remind myself to remember this, to live out what I believe.

Male and Female in the Image of Godde

Lately these questions about humanity have morphed into an examination of what it means to be made in the image of Godde as males and females. What does it mean to be a woman created in the image of Godde? What does this look like in our everyday lives?

I’m not sure I’ve found the answer in fiction. But I do know one image from a book that points me in the right direction: Eowyn and Merry in The Return of the King. They ride into battle together, fight together, and defend each other until they are both down. Eowyn does kill the King of the Nazgul, but she could never have done it without the help of Merry. When I think of men and women, made in the image of Godde, this is what I see. Brothers and sisters standing side by side, fighting the evil in our world that would belittle or ignore any person made in Godde’s image, and building Godde’s kingdom together.

All book links are affliate links.

This article was originally published in Christians for Biblical Equality’s E-Quality Newsletter, Winter 2008.

In stories, the subconscious mind gives voice to some of its most deeply cherished longings. In myths and legends, men and women make desperate attempts to tell one another who they are, why they are here, where they are going, and what they are meant to do. –Jim Ware, God of the Fairy Tale: Finding Truth in the Land of Make-Believe*

I was frightened, and I tried to heal my fear with stories, stories which gave me courage, stories which affirmed that utlimately love is stronger than hate. If love is stronger than hate, then war is not all there is. I wrote, and I illustrated my stories. At bedtime, my mother told me more stories. And so story helped me to learn to live. Story was in no way an evasion of life, but a way of living life creatively instead of fearfully. –Madeline L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (Wheaton Literary Series)*

Stories have always been important to me, to who I am. I have read stories since I learned to read, and before that my mother told me stories. One of the first stories I remember writing was in the second grade. The only thing I remember is that it was set on Venus–we were studying the solar system in science.

I think the reason I prefer fiction to nonfiction is you can say things in a story that is harder to say in an article. You can challenge the status quo and confront issues from the side instead of head on. I think story carries more power and truth than an article based on fact. We have confused fact and truth: they are not the same thing, and they cannot always be equated. Facts and datum are just one part of truth–one facet. Not everything can be quantified and qualified by scientific method. I think that is the main reason that literalist Christians who have to prove the Bible as fact irritate me. Godde and her acts in this world cannot be reduced to mere facts and datum. And that does not make Godde or her actions any less true.

Story has the power to make you admit you are not the person you want to be. In story we can admit to what we really want and what we’re really looking for. It’s a safe haven, a sanctuary. There we can admit what our wildest longings and passions are, and it’s okay. I have learned more about God and life through story than I ever have through facts thrown at me about how God exists, and here’s the time line (or insert another chart) to prove it. I have learned more about who I am and who I want to be through story than through any other means. There is a reason why 60% of the Bible is narrative or story. We live in our stories. Life does not happen in one set of equations to another set of facts to another set of definitions. Life happens in living with each other, our stories overlapping, and growing into new and different stories.

I like to write nonfiction, but there is a reason why I write creative nonfiction: I need a story. But truth be told, I will always be  more at home in fiction than nonfiction, and fiction will always be my first choice when it comes to writing. (Hmmm may be I really do need to balance working on fiction and nonfiction more. May be I would write more of both if I wrote my first love along with the second. Is it possible to work on both a novel and nonfiction book at the same time?)

Here’s the last of my storytelling rambling: Nothing beats a good story…except for writing a good story.

(Originally posted on July 22, 2006. Sometimes you need to read back over old blog posts to remind yourself what you’re really supposed be to doing.)

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My dear neglected blog:

I know you don’t feel dear or loved or even somewhat liked. Because I’m so rarely here. I so rarely write and post. I procrastinate. I neglect you. I even ignore you. I’m so sorry. You see…I’m not just a flake–I am a huge, bigger than life FLAKE. I had to admit it after reading Sonia Simone’s post: The Complete Flake’s Guide to Getting Things Done. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Are you smart and motivated and passionate, and have lots of cool things you’d like to get done, but somehow when it comes to doing them, you just . . . don’t?

Are you great at ideas but lousy at execution? Talk a good game but don’t get any results? Spend a lot of time thinking about where you want to go, but not much time actually moving your ass down the road that would take you there?

You, my friend, are a flake. Congratulations. We are a worldwide force. If we could all get ourselves moving in the same direction, we would change the world. However, that will never happen.

I’m sure you’re recognizing several behaviors. I have grand plans for you, but I never quite get around to writing and posting. I am so passionate about how you could change how we think about the women and the Bible and tell the real story of women working outside the home, but then I hesitate; I doubt; I procrastinate; and then I find something else to do (yes, yes, I know Twitter is an addiction, and I don’t blame you for being jealous of all the time I spend there). Yes, I talk a good game but I don’t get any results, and you my dear friend remain neglected.

But don’t worry. Sonia has words of advice and help for flakes like me:

The Plan in 7 Reasonably Painless Steps

1. When you’ve got something to do, figure out what you really want to get out of it.

2. Do the pivotal technique. Think about what you want, then get clear about where you are right this minute. Notice the difference.

3. Figure out the next action.

4. Do what you feel like.

5. Rinse, lather, repeat.

6. Start a compost pile for ideas, notes, plans and insights.

7. Stick to three or four primary areas of focus.

So dear blog, I want you to know I am taking Sonia’s steps, and that you are one of my primary area of focus. I am going to find ways to be a flake and still get things done. I am going to find ways to be a flake, show my love for you, and write regular posts to show my love. Because I know you are tired of empty words and broken promises. But I’ve taken my first step. I’ve admitted that I have a problem: I’m a total and hopeless flake. And instead of changing that, I need to learn how to work with it. So dearest blog, I promise to stop turning away and use Sonia’s 7 Reasonable Painless Steps to show the attention and love that you deserve. You deserve to be updated regularly and marketed to shine as the gem I know you are.

Thank you for giving another chance (again).

Your humble flake,
Shawna R. B. Atteberry

This week I realized how important and vital self-care is. So Important! I did not realize this until Wednesday. After last month’s bout of depression, My Fantabulous Hubby decided I needed some pampering. So he bought me a spa day. Oh. My Goodness. I have never felt so relaxed or in body ever. And I feel so much better even two days later. I’m still relaxed and at peace. My mind is not racing like it normally does. I really have to prioritize taking care of myself. It makes such a huge difference.

My major epiphany is that I HAVE to take care better care of myself. Self-care has to be a priority, a top priority, and not something I do if I have time. Major, major revelations on how badly I treat my body, and that has to change.

I love how my friend Hiro put this on another friend, Havi’s, blog:

When the care and cultivation of your life is your first priority, your kingdom flourishes, far from the clash and clamor of marching bands, armies or shoes hurled in any direction. Flourishing kingdoms nourish the world around them, the way a river nourishes the land through which it flows–and are nourished by it in turn.

(If you’re wondering “Sovereignty? What the heck is she talking about?” Havi had two marvelous posts up on handling people who throw shoes at us, Destuckifying When the Shoes Are Flying and Sovereignty Casserole. And More About Shoes. If you’re not following both of these wonderful women, you really should be.

I’m preaching Sunday, and the sermon is going well. I’ve really enjoyed researching the Proverbs 31 Woman, and now I need to make some decisions and write the sermon. I’m not totally freaking out, which is the normal Friday procedure. So that’s good. Some of my musings on the Proverbs 31 Woman can be find here and here. After coffee hour Sunday, two psychologists in our church are going to be talking about spirituality and mental health (this is Mental Health Awareness month). I’m really looking forward to it.

I also said no to something I could have went to tomorrow, and I wanted to go to, but it was just going to crunch things up too much. So I said no, so I wouldn’t be freaking out about the sermon and how much I’m behind. Very glad I did that.

I started Charles de Lint’s new book last night, The Mystery of Grace. Charles is one of my favorite writers, and I am so happy for a new book. The man can weave worlds and characters like no one else.

I had a really good week, and I am thankful for it. How was your week?

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I am working through Problogger’s 31 Day to a Better Blog, which I am hoping will make me a more consistent blogger as well as a better blogger. Today’s assignment is a list blog, so I decided to share with you what I am reading.

Books I Just Finished

• Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor. This book really helped get a handle on leaving ordained life and getting a grasp on my own vocation.
• Anglican Vision (The New Church’s Teaching Series, V. 1) by James E. Griffiss. Learning more about the Church I joined last year.
• Made from Scratch: Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American Hearth by Jean Zimmerman. This is a great book on the history of homemaking and how it was slowly taken away from us by consumerism.
• Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) by Jim Butcher. Because everyone needs a little Bob in their life.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J. K. Rowling Re-reading the series. My original goal was to have the first six books read by the time Half-Blood Prince came out. Not going to make that goal, but I’m still enjoying the ride.

Books I’m in Various Stages of Reading

• Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and Feminism by Christopher Lasch
• My Life in France by Julia Child.
• Five Books Of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah by Ellen Frankel
• The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp

On the four books I’m reading, so far so good. Well, Julia’s book rocks, but that doesn’t surprise anyone does it?

What are you reading? Any books you suggest I put on my “To Read” list?