I want to introduce you to Thelma. She comes to me via Jan Richardson (and if you don’t know who Jan Richardson is, it’s time to find out - - her book, Night Visions, is freakin’ fantastic!).
Thelma is an angel. I know - you might have missed that because she doesn’t have on angel-y clothes and her wings are blackish. That’s because Thelma is no ordinary angel. She’s an uppity, spitting kinda angel – the kind of angel I need by my side right now. Here is how Jan describes her:
Someone who can breathe fire. Who will remind me that being nice won’t sustain me through the labor. Who will cry out with me in the birth pangs. Who will dispatch the dragon who waits to devour what is struggling to be born (or in my case, what would stand in my way!)
Oh yeah – I definitely want Thelma on my side! She gives me strength and courage just thinking about her.
I don’t want to be an uppity, spitting, wanna-be angel type – at least not at this time in my life. There was time for being uppity and spitting, but this isn’t it. This is a time for truth, bravery, and courage – and having Thelma with me helps me walk into the wilderness, the unknown, the uncharted land.
In addition to Thelma, I have other brave women and men by my side. Some of them I see every day. Some of them live in different places around the world…and some of them walk with me through the pages of books and online. I have come to call them my “tribe”….my community.
So why this blog and why now? This will be the story about me leaving….leaving Evangelicalism, leaving a patriarchal spirituality, leaving people-pleasing, leaving fear, leaving those things that have kept me from being me.
It will also be about me entering – entering more fully into being who God created me to be, entering into more freedom, entering into a place of courage, entering into a new tribe.
But like any journey, it’s not neat and tidy. It is a wild, winding, twisty labyrinth that necessitates putting one foot in front of the other and requires trust. It is often not pretty and my intention is to share both the pretty and the not-so-pretty.
If any of these themes resonate with you or if you want to look in on my journey either because you think you might see yourself in my words or you resonate with what I am saying or even if you think I’ve gone off the deep end and are curious to see what will become of me, I welcome you to come along.
So, if you’re game, let’s embark on this honest, vulnerable, scary, exhilarating experience – you, me, God…and Thelma…. :)
