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Trust in God; She will provide. -- Emmeline Pankhurst

Dear God,

I wish you were a woman

Because since I was a girl

I’ve pictured you as a white man

With white hair

Dressed in a long white robe.

And I am not a man

And my skin is a shade of deep chocolate brown.

So how can I believe that I was created in your image?

"How do you do it all?"

I'm asked this question often despite the fact that I don't have kids and that this is a question usually asked of women juggling motherhood and a career.

But I do have a lot on my plate. I teach full-time at a local high school for gifted and artistic teens. I blog. I freelance for several local and national media outlets. I run See Jane Write, a network for women writers, bloggers and entrepreneurs. I exercise every day. I'm a wife, sister, daughter, and friend and I'm active in my community and my church. 

So how do I do it all? With little sleep and lots of prayer. 

This past week has been especially busy. It was my first week back at school. And this year, I'm not only teaching but also handling my school's social media. I've been blogging for Birmingham Restaurant Week. And I was on deadline for two freelance stories. Meanwhile, there's a laundry list of things I need to do regarding See Jane Write that I've been putting off for several days. 

So tonight I'm pulling an all-nighter. My husband's out of town and so I'm going to pretend I'm back in college and stay up all night working -- blogging, catching up on emails, handling paperwork, and working on revamping the See Jane Write websites. I'm even going to order pizza and listen to Sade like I used to do during my days at the University of Alabama (although, I'll probably throw some Beyonce in the mix, too, when I start feeling sleepy). 

Now, I know that not getting enough sleep is really bad for me. And I'm really trying to work on this. But until I figure out a solution, my "late night, early morning" lifestyle will have to remain.

My secret to success -- little sleep, lots of prayer, and lots of pizza

Despite how busy I've been this week, I've been sure to start every morning with God. Before I do anything, I spend time writing in my prayer journal and reading Scripture, searching for the verse that's going to give me the encouragement I need for the day. When I started to feel stressed and overwhelmed a few days ago I turned to Psalm 16:8, which reads, "I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken." Most days I share these verses on Facebook in hopes that they'll give my pals some encouragement too. 

I suppose I should add planning to my list of secrets too. I keep detailed to-do lists and plan nearly every minute of every day. 

At the heart of the question of how I do it all, however, is something deeper. I think what people really want to know is how on earth I find the energy to do all that I do, especially since I suffer from a connective tissue disease that makes every move I make a little tougher than it would be for the average 33-year-old. My strength comes from my God and my goals. I have a dream that I'm pushing toward, a dream that I am confident God placed in my heart. And I decided a few months ago that I'm either going to make that dream come true or die trying. It's just that simple. 

Image by Mike Licht via Flickr/Creative Commons

Who do you want to be in the blogosphere?

The answer to this question can help determine your website's content, the tone of your writing, and even what you do and don't share on social media.

But answering this question can be much harder than you might think.

I've grappled with this question for months, maybe years. Do I want to be the go-to girl for all things related to writing, blogging and social media? Or do I want to the face of southern feminism?

Then one day I felt God whispering to me in the voice my Granny used in church when I was a little girl and she needed to tell me my slip was too long for my dress. I felt God saying, "Honey, your arrogance is showing."

I'm a church-going gal and so I see this little blog of mine as a ministry, which means it's not supposed to be about me. It's supposed to be about helping other people and giving God glory in the process. But there I was trying to figure out how I could be exalted, how I could be lifted up from the earth and draw all feminist writers unto me.

But even if you're not a Jesus lover, there's a lesson here for you too.

To have true online success you must know your purpose in the world (wide web). Why are you blogging?

My answer to that question is simple: I want to empower women and girls, especially those who write and blog.  But somehow I lost sight of the women in the blogosphere and became too focused on the woman in the mirror.

A couple weeks ago I gave a talk on blogging to high school journalism advisers, taking them through simple steps toward building a blogging plan. I now realize I need to practice what I preach.

I told them to answer several questions before launching or relaunching their blogs:

• Why are you blogging? Write a mission statement for your site. 
• Who are you writing for? Identify your target audience. 
• What will you write about? Develop content related to your purpose and relevant to your audience. 
• When will you post new content? Create an editorial calendar. 
• Where will your blog live? Decide on a domain name and choose the best platform and hosting service for your site. 
• How will you spread the word? Develop a promotion plan for your blog. 

Looking over these questions you can see that most of them are in someway tied to the initial query: Why are you blogging? What is your purpose in the world (wide web)? 

Can you answer these questions? Can you tell me, can you tell your readers, why you're here in the blogosphere? 

Back in April I attempted to host a virtual book club here at The Writeous Babe Project and it was an EPIC FAIL. 

My pal Mariam warned me. When I asked readers if I should host the book club online or IRL she said that "Online is too easy to back out of...I just think your participation will be much richer...if you do it in person." And boy was she right. Even I backed out of my virtual book club once I was buried beneath all the papers I have to grade at the end of the school year. 

So let's try this again. Sort of. 

This summer I'm co-leading a Church of the Highlands small group with my friend Jamie Golden of Jamie's Rabbits. For six weeks we'll be reading and discussing Restless by Jennie Allen. 

Are you feeling restless these days? I am.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bored. I have way too much going on in my life to ever be bored. But I am in a state of longing for what's next. I'm wondering what all the many things I'm doing right now are leading to and sometimes I wonder if they're leading to anything at all. 

Sometimes I feel as if I'm unraveling. And that's why I need to dig into this book and I need to dig deep. 

Restless is described as "a practical plan to identify the threads of your life and how to intentionally weave them together for God's glory and purposes." 

Yes to all of that. 

This book doesn't suggest that we add more things to our to-do list (thank God) but invites us to be still and see how God is already moving in our lives. Through this group we'll dig into five areas: gifts, suffering, places, people, and passions. 

This study promises to help me, to help us, untangle the thread of our lives and assemble them together in one place to reveal a beautiful plan designed by the Creator: God's Agenda + my threads + the need + the Holy Spirit = my purpose. 

So this isn't technically the Writeous Babe Book Club. It's a Church of the Highlands small group. But it's kind of like a book club only we'll meet weekly and there will be some praying and lots of Jesus talk. 

If you're a woman in the Birmingham area and would like to be part of this small group, email me at javacia@gmail.com for details. 

The group begins June 1 and we'll meet every Sunday from 4-6 p.m. 

In the back of of the book Jesus Feminist you will find discussion questions meant to facilitate small group discussion or to be used as journal prompts. This week guest contributors will tackle some of these questions in guest posts to the blog of Sarah Bessey, author of the book. 

Bessey is calling April 21-27 Jesus Feminist Book Club Week. I recommend that those of you reading the book or even those of you considering reading the book check out these posts this week. I'll be back at the end of the month to share my thoughts on the book as a whole. 

Jesus Feminist Book Club Week kicks off today with Sarah Schwartz responding to this question: 

Does it seem radical to you that God thinks women are people too? 

Later this week we'll hear from Osheta Moore, Tamara Rice, Zach Hoag, Jerusalem Greer, and Amena Brown.

Let's support these writers and Sarah Bessey by reading and commenting on these posts. 

In the first chapter of her book Jesus Feminist, Sarah Bessey declares, "Jesus made a feminist out of me." 

Later she defines Jesus feminist for anyone left perplexed by the term: "I call myself a Jesus feminist because to me, the qualifier meant I am a feminist precisely because of my life-long commitment to Jesus and his Way." 

I am not a Jesus feminist, but I want to be. 

I am a Christian and I am a feminist, but I am not a Jesus feminist, at least not according to this definition. I am not a feminist because I am a Christian. In fact, I've spent the past decade declaring that I am a feminist despite the fact that I am a Christian, or vice versa. I've spent the past decade wrestling like Jacob with the angel trying to reconcile these two belief systems that are at the center of almost all that I do. 

But I am tired of the battle. 

And this battle is a silly one. 

Jesus is my favorite feminist. Reading the Gospels, it's clear that Christ saw women as people. He didn't treat us differently from men. As Bessey writes:

We weren't too precious for words, dainty like fine china. We received no free pass or delicate worries about our ability to understand or contribute or work. Women were not too sweet or weak for the conviction of the Holy Spirit, or too manipulative and prone to jealousy, insecurity, and deception to push back the kingdom of darkness. Jesus did not patronize, and he did not condescend. 

Bessey, a Canadian, didn't grow up with many of the ideas about gender roles that prevail in America, especially in the Southeast where I live. She didn't face these issues until later in her Christian life.

Ironically, even though I'm a Southern girl I didn't grow up with gender stereotypes either. My parents always taught me I could be whatever I wanted to be. Period. But I'll never forget the day when, excited by a sermon I'd just heard, I remarked that the preacher got me so interested in the Bible that it made me want to go to Bible college and be a preacher one day myself. I was quickly corrected by a well-meaning elder: "Now, you know women can't be preachers." 

Disillusion and disappointment have marked much of my church life due to attitudes regarding gender, race, sexuality, class and more. I've even gone through periods where I've stopped going to church altogether. 

But as Bessey writes, quoting Sara Miles, "You can't be a Christian by yourself." 

So as I continue to re-read Jesus Feminist I will continue to deal with my doubts, my questions, and my hurts. I will continue to, as Bessey suggests, lean into the pain, trusting that there is a balm in Gilead. 

If you are reading Jesus Feminist along with me, please leave your thoughts on chapters 1-3 in the comments section. 

At the launch party for my online magazine -- with my man by my side

"Can you be a feminist wife?"

Apparently this is a question some people were discussing one night last week on Twitter. I believe this conversation was taking place in the wee hours of the morning, but I'm a 30-something English teacher which means I am in the bed (not on Twitter) in the wee hours of the morning. But I awoke Wednesday to find that a male friend of mine (who knows I'm a feminist and a wife) had tweeted me about this topic, wanting me to comment.

My response was simple. It had to be. This is Twitter we're talking about. I simply replied: "Yes, you can be a feminist wife. Anyone who says you can't doesn't understand what feminism really is."

But here's what I would have said if I had had more than 140 characters with which to respond…

Yes, a woman can be a feminist and a wife and, quite frankly, husbands should want their wives to be feminists.

Just so we're all on the same page, feminism is not a movement about hating men, marriage, motherhood and makeup. Feminism is the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Period. Now, things get complicated when we start discussing how women (and men) go about living out feminism in their everyday lives. But if we always come back to that notion of equality, we feminists can always find common ground.

According to feminism a woman is equal to her husband. I realize some men may have a problem with this notion but, fortunately, I didn't marry a man with such issues. I married a man who doesn't want me to shrink myself down so he can puff himself up. We build up each other.

In my marriage, my husband and I are partners. We make decisions and plans together. We respect each others' gifts and goals.  We support one another always. And our marriage and our lives are better for it. I could not be the strong and supportive partner that my husband needs, wants, and deserves if I didn't view myself as his equal, if I didn't view myself as a full and complete person worthy of freedom of love.

As British suffragist and journalist Rebecca West famously said, "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."

As a Christian, I know that the implication that we women are not, in fact, people -- the implication that the wife is somehow beneath the husband --  is loudest, unfortunately, in the church. Men and women alike love to trot out Bible verses about women being submissive to their husbands and the need for women to basically sit down and shut up. People who use (abuse?) these verses tend to ignore the cultural context of these verses and, in some cases, even ignore the other verses that follow.

Yes, Ephesians 5:22 says "wives submit to your husbands," but just a few lines down in verse 25 the Scripture reads, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." When you put these verses together they do not produce an image of a tyrannical husband lording over his weak doormat of a wife. These verses paint a beautiful picture of two people -- both created in the image of God -- living a life of love and mutual submission.

I put my husband's needs before my own. My husband puts my needs before his. And God is the spiritual head of our household. Our relationship isn't perfect. Sometimes we get selfish, mess up, and step on each other's toes. And then we forgive, forget, and keep dancing through life, hand in hand.

When reading Sarah Bessey's book Jesus Feminist I was brought to tears as she described her feelings for her husband because her words perfectly described my feelings for the magnificent man in my life:

I trust my husband completely -- with every bit of our life and with myself. My trust is not because I must, not because I believe God commands me to submit without question to his leadership because I am easily deceived or weak. I submit because I am walking in the Way of Jesus. As a man of God, [my husband] serves me, too. 

Men, don't you want your wives writing words of such beauty and grace about you? Or do you want your woman to simply shrug her shoulders and say, "Well, I just let the man be the man."

My hope is that one day conversations about feminism and marriage would not focus on who's in charge and instead shift to a discussion of how a husband and wife can uplift each other and use their talents and strengths for the benefit of their relationship, their family and the world around them.

Bessey, of course, explains this best when she writes:

If a woman is held back, minimized, pushed down, or downplayed, she is not walking in the fullness God intended for her as his image bearer… If we minimize our gifts, hush our voice, and stay small in a misguided attempt to fit a weak and culturally conditioned standard of femininity, we cannot give our brothers the partner they require in God's mission for the world. 

What are your thoughts on feminism and marriage? 

Ani DiFranco

“We need to stop turning people into icons” – that’s a statement a friend of mine made on Facebook recently with regard to the outrage and disbelief experienced by many Ani DiFranco fans after the feminist folk singer announced that she’d be hosting her upcoming feminist songwriting retreat in Louisiana on the grounds of what was once a cotton plantation.

DiFranco has since canceled the retreat.

My friend didn’t elaborate much on her statement about icons, but her words reminded me of the importance of not elevating a person to an idol-like status.  Humans are imperfect. They will screw up and when they do you could become disillusioned with everything they represent.  This happens in churches all the time when parishioners begin to idolize their pastors. The pastor cheats on his wife and then young members of the congregation turn their backs on Christianity.

I am a huge Ani DiFranco fan. She's even part of the inspiration for the name of this blog. I started calling myself “Writeous Babe” not only as a play on the old phrase “That’s one righteous babe” but also as a nod to DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. Ani’s lyrics have helped me define my feminism. But I can honestly say I've never elevated her to any sort of idol status. I disagree with her on plenty of issues ranging from makeup to religion. But I've mastered the art of being able to accept and even admire something or someone in spite of disagreements. I had to -- I'm a black liberal Christian feminist who lives in (and loves) the South. 

Nonetheless, I was one of those people disappointed by Ani. I initially gave her the benefit of doubt. I live in the South and I know that down here it's pretty difficult to find a building that wasn't built on the backs of black folks. Also, I've visited plantations as a teenager and the groups with which I took these trips managed to transform the visits into an opportunity to honor the slaves who had once lived there. We did research on the black people who worked those very grounds and paid homage to them. I remember one moment standing in silence in a wooded area surrounding a plantation and thinking about how terrifying it would be to run away into the unknown and how brave the men and women who did that had to have been. These experiences brought me to tears and made me appreciate my freedom in a way that no history class ever could. 

Unfortunately, Ani's released statement revealed that there were no formal plans to acknowledge the history of Nottoway Plantation. She just hoped the conversations would "emerge organically."

So, yes, as an Ani fan, I am very disappointed. But I'm not disillusioned with feminism because while I admire Ani she's not my feminist icon. 

Thinking about this I began to wonder -- do I have a feminist icon? 

I realized I do not. At least not yet. 

I'm currently in the process of making Jesus my feminist icon. Let me explain. 

I’ve identified as a Christian nearly all my life and for the past decade I’ve identified as a feminist as well. And for the past ten years reconciling these two parts of myself has been a constant struggle. And I’m tired. Sarah Bessey, author of the book Jesus Feminist, says Jesus made a feminist out of her. I can make no such claims, but I wish I could. No longer do I want to be a feminist in spite of my Christianity, I want to be a feminist because of my faith.

I said that Ani was part of the inspiration for the name of this blog. But I also decided to play on the word righteous because of the dictionary definition of the term – “morally good; following religious or moral laws.”

I don’t just want to be “writeous,” I want to be righteous too. I want my actions and my words to be pleasing in God’s sight.

I want to be a Jesus feminist.

No, we shouldn’t make people our icons because they will mess up. But we can put our trust in God.

And if you’re not sure why Jesus should be a feminist icon, I leave you with these words by Dorothy Day:

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man – there has never been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronies; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature.

Sarah Bessey

I have a new girl crush, y'all.

Meet Sarah Bessey. She's the author of the new book Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women. The book is all about the process of reconciling one's Christian faith with feminist ideals -- something I've wrestled with for a decade since I started identifying as a feminist in my early 20s. 







I haven't had a chance to read the book yet, but you can be sure this is how I'll be spending most of my weekend. 

So how am I crushing so hard on this Jesus Feminist when I haven't even read her book? Well, it's all thanks to Bessey's interview with The Hairpin. In her interview she had this to say: 

For me, I was in my early 20s when I began to self-identify as a feminist. I loved having women pastors, seeing women on church boards, seeing women pursuing any life they wanted. So it became a natural thing for me to say I'm a feminist. But then, in the church, when I said it, people would be surprised, and ask these questions—“Do you not want to be a wife and a mom? Do you hate men?”—and they’d ask me what “kind” of feminist I was. I just sort of cheekily started saying that I was a Jesus feminist, a feminist because I love Jesus. It's from my faith that I treat people with equal value, not the other way around.

Amen! 

So if you're wondering how to be a Jesus Feminist or wondering how a woman can be both Christian and feminist, I believe Bessey has summed it up quite nicely and flipped the question: How you can a woman be Christian and not be a feminist? Jesus teaches us to treat people with equal value and that's what feminism, at its core, is all about. Period. 

And this notion of equality applies to marriage too. In the interview Bessey remarked:

With marriage, of course, everyone does it differently, and finds what works for them. But we believe in something called mutual submission, where we submit to each other, and Jesus is the head of our household. 

That statement by Bessey made me want to cry and do a praise dance and kiss my sweet husband who yesterday wrote an article for AL.com about our "nontraditional" marriage, a marriage in which my goals and dreams are just as important as his, a marriage in which I'm not considered a bad wife because I don't have dinner waiting for him as soon as he walks in from work.

So I'm thinking of doing something crazy. I'm thinking of coming out as a Jesus Feminist at church. If you read this blog regularly or know me IRL you're probably well aware that my feminism practically oozing from my pores. But my feminism isn't something I talk about much around my church community, especially since feminists had been criticized in sermons on more than one occasion.

But I have this idea: Next year I want to lead a church-based small group for women during which we will read and discuss Bessey's book. I'll need to read the book before deciding if this is something I really want to do, but leading a Christian feminist small group would be a dream come true!


Are you a Jesus Feminist?

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.

-- Helen Keller

On Tuesday morning I'll be a guest on the morning lifestyles show known as Talk of Alabama. I'm excited and nervous and I've tried on about 10 outfits trying to figure out what to wear. I'll be on the show discussing See Jane Write Magazine and our upcoming launch party. 

I'm sure during the interview I'll tell the story of how See Jane Write Birmingham began. 

What I probably won't have time to talk about is the fact that when I started See Jane Write Birmingham in 2011 I had no plans for it to grow into what it has become. Back then I was instead focused on becoming a blogging superstar. I spent hours each day blogging and doing research on blogging.

I wanted my personal blog to be my ticket to all the conferences and festivals I longed to attend but couldn't afford. I wanted to win blogging awards and be featured in best blogs and "Bloggers You Should Know" lists. I wanted my blog to help me land a book deal.

But none of that happened. 

So I decided that I'd just take all the things I'd learned from all those years of writing, reading, and studying blogs and pass them on to other women. Though I continued to blog I decided to stop worrying about my blog's success. I decided instead to focus on helping other women create and expand their blogs. 

That's when See Jane Write started to get media attention. That's when I started to get invitations to speak at conferences. That's when people started to introduce me as "Blogging Superstar Javacia Harris Bowser." 

I'm still far from a true blogging star, but I can say with confidence that See Jane Write has been a successful venture thus far and it's been successful because I didn't make it about me. See Jane Write is all about serving others. 

We may have been told that the key to success is to "look out for number one" but I disagree. The key to success is to have a servant's heart.

To whom much is given, much is required. 

We are blessed so that we can be a blessing. 

This is how I begin each day. 

Oftentimes when things are difficult, when things don't work out the way we had hoped or planned we
Christians tend to believe that this is God punishing us or giving us a sign we should just give up on our goal. Or maybe it's just me and you never have this problem. Either way, hear me out.

When life led me away from my career in journalism and back to my hometown to a new career in education, I thought this meant God wanted me to give up writing. When the print media industry tanked I thought this meant God wanted me to abandon my dream of starting a magazine. And when my blog didn't become the overnight success I just I knew it would be, I thought this was God's way of saying, "Javacia, blogging just isn't for you."

But I was wrong.

And I began to realize how wrong I was when I discovered SheReadsTruth.com.

Not only did I grow closer to God and begin to understand his will more from the devotionals that I read on this site, but through She Reads Truth I saw a perfect example of how blogging could be used to serve God. I saw that blogging was about people, not pageviews.

Then, after I began to focus my writing more and more on serving others instead of serving myself, I was blessed with opportunities to write exciting stories and compelling essays for a number of publications. And these were opportunities I wouldn't have been able to pursue or take advantage of had I still been working as a full-time reporter.

Furthermore, my blogging helped me build an amazing community of women writers that have given me the support and encouragement to start an online magazine. And I truly believe this couldn't have happened the way it did in any city other than my hometown of Birmingham, Ala.

God has truly shown me that his ways are not my ways and that's a good thing.

I now know that challenges and obstacles aren't a stop sign; they're simply a speed bump.

And I know that when God takes me down a road that seems to be leading to the middle of nowhere I need to just trust him. He will always lead me right where I belong.

I didn't own a cast iron skillet
until a friend bought me this one for my 32nd birthday.
Does this make me a poor excuse for a Southern woman?

"You are not a real Southern woman!" my mother-in-law said when she learned that I'm not a fan of collard greens. How could a girl born and raised in Alabama not like collard greens, she asked. 

Though my mother-in-law was joking, this wasn't the first time I was accused of not being a true Southern woman and it certainly was not the last. I'm a liberal feminist who doesn't want children and who hates to cook. By the stereotypical notion of what it means to be a Southern lady, the only thing Southern about me is my drawl. And some folks even claim not to notice that, which is crazy because I can add extra syllables to words with the best of them.

Though I did feel quite at home when I lived on the West Coast and in the Mid West, I am glad to be back in Alabama, back in the Deep South -- my true home. And I love being from the South. I am proud of my roots. I am proud to be a Southern woman, and, yes, I am a real Southern lady, at least by my own definition. 

I am the woman who understands the value of family, food, fashion, and faith. And this is what makes me a true Southern woman.

I may not want children, but I still value family. I believe in honoring my parents and my husband with all that I do. My brother is one of my very best friends. And, as I've mentioned before, I get really annoyed when people say to my husband and me, "Don't you two want to start a family?" We have traditions, great memories, and unconditional love for each other. We are a family.

And I keep my family fed, even though I don't like to cook. And if you come to my house, I'll feed you too because I believe in Southern hospitality. And I believe that people bond best over food, which is why if you want to hang out with me I'm going to always suggest we go out for brunch, lunch, dinner, or any other meal I can think of.

And when we do go out, my outfit will be cute. In the South dressing inappropriately for an occasion is considered just downright rude. Thus, down here fashion isn't about vanity, it's about good manners. So if you've invited me to an event in July, you better believe I've already started thinking about what I'm going to wear.

Though I am liberal on several social issues, I am a woman of faith. I'm a church-going gal and proud of it. My relationship with God directs my decisions and colors my worldview. Albert Einstein once said "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." I believe everything is a miracle and I believe that because of my faith in my God. 

And in case you're thinking I should have added football to my list, I have that covered too: Roll Tide!

Proud Southern Lady!

This post was also published on my new blog on The Southern Coterie, "the social network of the SOUTH." This online community is for Southerners and all those who love the South. 

I missed church on Sunday morning but on Monday night I left Birmingham's Bartow Arena feeling like I'd heard one of the best sermons of my life.

Yesterday hip-hop star Common gave a lecture to several hundred students, faculty and Birmingham residents at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Bartow Arena. Common's visit was part of a UAB's Black History Month celebrations.

People who know me know that I love Common! I love him so much my husband has been joking for weeks about me trying to run off with the king of conscious hip-hop during his visit. I love him so much that I went to last night's talk despite the fact I've been fighting an illness since late Friday night. (I've coughed so much that I can't speak above a whisper right now.) But Common's talk was so worth braving last night's rainy weather.

The focus of his topic was simple: greatness. Com said that for him greatness is not only about using your gifts to take yourself to a higher level, but also about inspiring others to reach their highest potential as well. Jesus, Common said, was an ultimate symbol of greatness because one could be healed by simply being in his presence. If God sent Jesus to be an example for us, then we must aspire to be great as well. But how do we get there? How do we achieve greatness?

The Chicago-born rapper, actor and author broke it down saying you must 1) find your path 2) believe in your path and 3) live it!

First, find your path. Find your passion and pursue it wholeheartedly, even if those you love don't share your vision. Common said when he decided he wanted to be a rapper his mother wasn't a fan of the idea and wanted him to focus on education instead.  Even though he knew his mother only wanted what was best for him, he also knew he had to follow his heart. And we conscious hip-hop fans sure are glad he did.

Second, believe in your path. During his talk Common admitted that even after the success of songs like "I Used to Love H.E.R." and "The Light" he still didn't quite believe in himself. Com spoke with honesty and talked about the heartache he felt after his break up with songstress Erykah Badu. But during his healing process he learned something valuable about himself: he was always playing second fiddle to other people, be it in relationships or to other artists. "I was willing to dim my light," he confessed. But the light we have is not meant to be dimmed. After Common stopped dimming his light for others he released Be, an album considered by music journalists as an instant classic and an album that garnered five Grammy nominations.

Our light is not meant to be hidden, but meant to shine on others, he said, calling to mind Matthew 5:14-16, which reads:

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way. let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. 

See, I told you this man took us to church. And it didn't stop there.

Thirdly, living your path is about holding on to your dream even in the face of adversity. "Everything you believe and everything you want won't come exactly when you want it," he said.  "You will be challenged." Common has had his share such as the disappointment he felt when he didn't win any of those Grammys for which Be was nominated or the grief he endured after losing a close family member a few years ago. But the challenges we face, even those that cause us to question God, are meant to help us grow. And this time Common actually did pull out Scripture to bring home this point, quoting from James 1:2-4, which reads:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers (and Common added "my sisters," making my feminist heart swoon a bit), whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

By this point I was ready for an altar call. And I had made a decision that I believed in my heart and was ready to confess with my mouth, except for the fact that I've lost my voice and can't speak. So I'm confessing here on my blog instead:

I believe that it is my path to start a magazine because this has been my dream for nearly two decades. And I believe it is my path to grow See Jane Write into a mighty organization that can help other women make their dreams come true too. I believe I can and will do these things and I'm moving forward whether you're with me or not.

Thanks to Common I've seen the light and I know it's time to be great.

Image by Kristin Nador via Flickr/Creative Commons

I was late for church yesterday. So God decided to teach me a lesson, but not about tardiness.

I was late because I missed my exit. I've been driving to this church nearly every Sunday morning for over three years and I missed my freaking exit. I missed my exit because I was lost in thought. Usually on Sunday mornings I change my radio dial from my local NPR station and tune into the local contemporary Christian station so that I can prepare my heart and mind for worship. Yesterday, though my radio was tuned to God music, my mind was not tuned to God thoughts. I was busy thinking about my latest writing project, so much so that I missed my exit.

As I was yelling "Are you kidding me?!" at my dashboard as if it were going to somehow give me back those lost minutes a voice inside me calmly said, "If you aren't focused on me you're going to go the wrong way."




And with that God basically punched me in the gut. I fought back tears because I obviously would have no time to reapply my mascara in the parking lot. I yelled (to the dashboard again): "OK, God. I get it. We'll discuss this more later."

For those of you who don't know, my church is ginormous. We have four Sunday services and additional campuses all across the state to accommodate about 23,000 weekly attendees.  In other words, if you arrive late the chances you're going to find a seat up front are about as good as God speaking to you via a burning bush. But I guess I need to be on the lookout for flaming foliage because as I was searching around for a spot an usher came to me and said, "There's room for one up front." I landed a spot on the second row.

I'd never sat up front before because I never wanted to bother with the hunt such a seat requires and I never understood why some of my pals made such a big deal over it. But yesterday both worship and the message seemed better than ever! And I think I know why. The service wasn't necessarily any more awesome than it usually is; I was just paying better attention. I admit that I am very easily distracted ALL THE TIME, even at church. I'll be in the middle of singing about God's holy name when someone walks in with a gorgeous bag and I'm suddenly praising the name of Kate Spade instead of Jesus Christ.

At the end of the service that little voice that nearly ruined my makeup in the car had something else to say: "The closer you are to me, the less distracted you will be."

I thought we agreed to talk about this later.

OK. OK. I really, really get it. I've been so focused on my goals that I've been ignoring my God, even though I fooled myself into thinking I was putting God first because I was constantly praying about my dreams.

But at the end of the day, I have to love God more than I love my dream.

Image by Steve Snodgrass via Flickr/Creative Commons

Reset. I entered February with plans of blogging each weekday about regional and national feminist issues. Just one week into the month I've already realized that goal was a bit too lofty. So today I reset and revamp my plans. Beginning Feb. 11 I will post new content each Monday, Wednesday and Friday and my focus will be writing, wellness, and women's empowerment.

Rejoice. At first I felt a bit discouraged when I forced myself to accept that I can't blog as often as I had hoped. But when I began to think about why I can't blog daily, I wanted to do a little happy dance. OK, maybe I did do a little happy dance. I don't have time to blog daily because so many wonderful things are happening right now -- I'm the new race and diversity blogger for my city's NPR station, I'm freelancing for USA Today and several other publications, and See Jane Write is growing like crazy. Furthermore, I want to start guest blogging more to help get the word out about this little site of mine. Thus, my decision to blog less is not one that saddens me because the fact that I need to scale back is just proof that my prayers are being answered and my cup runneth over.

Do you need to change your plans for your blog? What should you be celebrating today?

If you've been cruising down Lakeshore Parkway lately there's a chance you've pulled up next to a black Mazda 3 and caught a chick with big curly hair singing her heart out to the Alicia Keys song "Brand New Me."  That chick was me.

We're at the start of a new year and this is a time when many people start trying to make changes in their lives. As writers, we resolve to write a certain number of words each day, to read more, to blog more, and to be more aggressive in our efforts to get published. Then December rolls around and we haven't accomplished half as much as we had hoped. And this is usually the case with goals in other areas of life -- such as fitness and finances -- as well.

Where did we go wrong? Yesterday, my pastor had a pretty poignant message on this topic. He said that we ought to just start wishing one another a "Happy Improved Year!" instead of a happy new year because what we're trying do to with all our resolutions is change ourselves from the outside in instead of changing from the inside out. We're tying to do something different when we need to be someone different. Instead of improving the old you, become a new you. We need a New Year's revolution, not a New Year's resolution.

How do we do this? We must get centered. This will mean different things for different people, but it's imperative nonetheless. We must get focused on whatever is the cornerstone of our lives. Once we've done that we will want to do the things that must be done to accomplish our goals. It will no longer be a matter of wrestling with our wills to keep our resolutions to write daily or exercise five times a week. Once we're centered we will jump out of bed ready to write; we'll actually look forward to going to the gym.

For me getting centered means drawing near to God. It means praying constantly, reading Scripture daily, using my writing to encourage others, and forging meaningful connections with other women of faith. When I do these things I can feel myself transforming into the woman I'm meant be and I know that I will accomplish all this woman was meant to do.

This is all Jen Hatmaker's fault. 

I can't even remember how I stumbled up her book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, but it was around the holidays, a time of year when I always feel disgusted with consumerism and our society's (and my own) obsession with stuff. 

The book details Jen's attempt to fight greed, materialism, and overindulgence in hopes of living a more Christ-like existence. The idea was to choose seven areas -- food, clothes, spending, media, possessions, waste, and stress -- and spend 30 days on each topic boiling it down to the number seven. Only eat seven foods, only wear seven articles of clothing, and spend money in only seven places. Her plan also called for her to eliminate use of seven media types, give away seven things each day for one month, adopt seven green habits, and observe “seven sacred pauses.”




Am I doing Jen's experiment completely and to the letter? Hell to the no. 

But I am inspired to do some altered version of it in hopes that it will help me streamline my life so that I can spend more time, energy, and resources on things that really matter. And my prayer is that I will begin to look more like Jesus along the way. 

Hubster and I went out for Mexican food last night. I kept referring to this meal as
The Last Supper!

Just as Jen did, I'm starting with food. Jen's experiment was inspired by one of her friends who did a "Pick 5" fast. So since Jen added two items to her list, I'm going to add two to mine. (See, this is my problem. I'm such an American. Always trying to have more.) 

Also, I'm doing this for 21 days, not 30. Every January my church has what it calls 21 Days of Prayer -- a special time of prayer and fasting to kick off the new year. This year my plan was to fast sweets for 21 Days of Prayer, which began today. Then Jen Hatmaker came along and turned my world upside down and I've now decided to fast nearly all of the foods I love. 

For the next 21 Days I will only eat the following: 

• lean white meat and fish 
• green vegetables
• sweet potatoes
• apples
• eggs
• Greek yogurt
• peanut butter
• wheat bread
• almonds

This list is similar to Jen's but for meat she only allowed herself chicken and for vegetables she only ate spinach. Her list included avocado, which I replaced with almonds. I added Greek yogurt because one of my doctors has been encouraging me to eat this for breakfast for nearly a year. Peanut butter is here because a nutritionist in my favorite magazine recommended PB on wheat bread as a mid-morning snack. 

Jen only allowed herself to use salt, pepper, and olive oil to flavor to her food. She's a better woman than I am. I will allow myself to use some low fat, low calorie condiments, but in moderation and I won't be frying up any of meats on my list. 

As for beverages, Jen only drank water. I'm allowing myself green tea as well simply because I spend a lot of time in coffee shops meeting with fellow writers and working on my blog and I need to buy something in order to not feel guilty for taking up space and Wi-Fi. 

Looking at my plan you're probably thinking this won't be so bad because I have plenty of variety. If you're thinking that, you clearly don't know me well. My friends know that I believe the human body needs cheese more than it needs water and that I think most of life's problems can be solved with a cupcake. I could beat a 16-year-old boy in a pizza eating contest and I'm convinced the manna from heaven God sent down to the Israelites was some form of Mexican food. (Look out! It's raining chimichangas!) 

And for the next 21 days I can't have pizza, Mexican food, or sweets. Lord, help me. 

But, seriously, my prayer throughout my entire streamline project will be the same as Jen's:

"Dear Lord, may there be less of me and my junk and more of You and your kingdom."

And when I say less of me I mean that figuratively and literally. If I happen to streamline my waistline over the next 21 days I will be a very happy girl. 


This was cross-posted at Streamlined Birmingham, a new blogging project by myself and some other women in Birmingham who are also looking to streamline their lives in 2013. 

"By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command..." 

~ Hebrews 11:3

Image via Flickr/Creative Commons

I believe in the power of words. Since I'm a writer, you probably already knew that.

But the Jesus freak in me also drives my belief that words are important. With words the Creator spoke the world into being and with the written words of sacred texts, that same Creator communicates with us humans. John 1:1 says that Jesus is actually the living Word of God. Thus, it seems like words are a pretty big deal to God, so they should be a pretty big deal to me too.

Last week Sheree Martin of The Ben Franklin Follies asked such an intriguing question about words:

Can three words inspire, motivate — even define you for an entire year? A lifetime? If words shape our thoughts, our emotions, our actions, it would seem so.

And I completely agree with Sheree, who chose zoom, vivace, and jazz for her words. I was eager to come up with three words of my own to guide my year. Then I remembered my vow to let direct my plans for 2013 and I started pouted saying, "But God, I wanna play too!" 

Right after I read Sheree's post a tweet by Jamie Golden led me to her blog Jamie's Rabbits. Jamie confessed that she'd had a "Bah humbug" attitude toward the gratitude posts everyone was sharing on Facebook during the month of December.  "Then," she said, "God found Himself in my face for the upteenth time. He started with scripture. HE ALWAYS STARTS WITH THE DANG BIBLE." 

That scripture was I Thessalonians 5:16-18 -- Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances...

And just like that God told me I could play along too and showed me what my three words should be. 

Image by Ruben Vique via Flickr/Creative Commons

 Joy. 

I've struggled with depression most of my life and since anti-depressants turn me into a zombie I've been searching for other ways to cope. 

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon the quote "Joy is a choice" and added it to my vision board hoping it would serve as daily encouragement. Instead it became a daily annoyance. Choosing joy is hard! And that cute little quote scribbled on a yellow index card was not making it any easier. (I confess to throwing a shoe or two at my vision board thanks to this quote.)

I shared this story with someone who was praying with me this weekend at a church retreat. She looked at me and said, "God wants you to know that joy is a Person. And that person lives within you." And with that I felt the weight 10,000 vision boards lift from my shoulders. Instead of working to be happy I need to simply bask in God's presence, which leads me to my second word...

Prayer Booth
Image by Zach Alexander via Flickr/Creative Commons

Communion. 

Merriam-Webster defines communion as an act or instance of sharing or intimate fellowship or rapport. In 2013 my hope is to have intimate fellowship with God through prayer, worship, and study of the Bible, and by serving other people. The word communion not only makes me think of God, but also the people I love. In 2013, I want to spend more quality time with my friends and family and find more ways to inspire women writers.

Image via Flickr/Creative Commons

Gratitude. 

In 2013 I want to "give thanks in all circumstances." When things are great at work, when See Jane Write is being celebrated, when more and more people start reading my blog, and when freelance gigs come pouring in I want to give thanks to God and be careful not to take credit for these blessings. And when my students are driving me crazy, when I'm frustrated with See Jane Write, when I feel like no one cares about anything I write, and when the freelance jobs are scarce I want to still give thanks because I know that bad days only make good days sweeter and challenges only make me stronger. And I will give thanks because I believe the words found in Romans 8:28 --  "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

What three words will guide you in the year 2013?