So Rachel Held Evans has this book coming out, and I think her ideas she puts on her blog are pretty bitchin', so when the opportunity came about to be part of her "launch team," I threw my name in the hat.
http://rachelheldevans.com/biblical-womanhood-launch-team
Before I started filling out the application, I figured it was a shot in the dark - I've only been following Rachel's blog recently - but as soon as I looked at the application, I knew it was a crapshoot. The whole point of a "launch team" is to help provide honest publicity. I've got the honest part down, but publicity? The application asked me my twitter name and my blog URL. My blog? My blog isn't something written for an audience anymore. My audience is myself. I am not a person who helps with publicity. I am the unintentional hipster of the blogosphere.
But, I was selected for the launch team. Out of 300 applicants, 75 were picked. The indication from the link I posted above suggests that more applications have come in ex post facto. But from the beginning, I have been an outlier for this text.
Then the facebook group. (Some of you are reading this now; welcome, and try not to stub your toe on the embarrassingly transparent shards of emotional turmoil littered in the corners and early posts here.) The majority of the others selected for the group are women (although there are quite a few men as well) who have their own blogs. Many are married, and many are mothers. Insofar as I can tell, they are all christians. They have written books. They have PhDs and are ministers. They do book reviews and have their own websites. I am not this audience. I post reviews of death metal albums by using the word "fuck" as often as possible and mocking Travis Barker. I have 46 twitter followers. I have five blog followers. I don't consider myself a christian.
My instinct was to complain to caroline. "Why did they pick me? I'm nothing like the group Rachel is trying to reach. I'm not her audience."
Yes you are, says my friend. She does not allow me wallow. I suppose I've earned that. Bit karmic.
"I am not a woman, a christian, a mom, a churchgoer, a blogger, a tweeter, or a promoter."
That's not what makes you her audience. I wish I could quote you here, caroline, but I can't find what you wrote. You are her audience because you choose to live and embrace a state of deconstruction.
Thanks, Rachel. Thanks for the opportunity. I don't mean for the blog traffic or the free book. It seems to be harder than I expected for me to accept people who value me for what I present myself as, rather than what others think I should be. It's hard to accept being accepted. How fuckin' weird is that?
I think we're not as different as I thought. I think my interpretation of myself is highly biased by a desire to distance myself from a group of people I've felt so wronged by. But we both read Half the Sky and cried. Apparently, we both throw books that frustrate us (you: Debi Pearl's Created to be His Help Meet, me, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Although I must confess that I was temped to buy a copy of Pearl's so I could throw it. I decided the money would be better spent buying porn or crystal meth). We both want, and try to maintain, egalitarian romantic relationships based on efficiency and communication - without what Dan called the hidden weapon.
We both are willing to watch what we knew be deconstructed. We both recognize the futility of our understanding, and seek knowledge as grace rather than a solution. I think you have a strong grasp on humility. That monster that I'm coming to know.
Do you know how empowering it is to be asked for your opinion by a representative of a group who has by and large rejected your opinion as invalid or worthless?
Oh wait. Yeah. You do. All you ladies do. That's what this goddamn book is about.
And I end up at the same place as before. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues,they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
We shall not know fully until we are fully known. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
2 comments:
I know I am a coward for hiding behind the mask of anonymity--it is more for the sake of social convention than anything. But you need to know these things, and I'm sure you can guess who's writing this anyways.
You need to know that this blog got me through college. I'm serious. As confusing and hurtful and shitty as APU was, I could come here and know someone was as hurt as I was. It was so, so unfortunate that we couldn't be proper friends while we attended the university, because you were the only person I could relate to. The only concept I felt certain of was that God wanted me to LOVE people--at the same time, I felt compelled to be some sort of moral barometer for other people. It tore me apart. Who was I to judge? But isn't love telling people what they NEED to hear, not what they want to hear? With all that bullshit about admonishing a brother or sister that was veering off the narrow path, I felt like I HAD to SAVE them. At the same time, didn't the very act of me "saving" them prove that I thought God was limited? That I thought He needed my help? Time and time again, conflicted and torn and confused, I came back to this blog. I knew it was a person's opinions, stories, and experiences, and for some reason I took comfort in that.
When I read your posts, it feels like those conversations we used to have. I would have some spiritual crisis and you always knew what to say, what to do. But when you needed me, I balked, too uncertain of my own world to help you cope with yours. And for that, I am deeply sorry.
This blog used to fill me with hope. And it continues to do so, with every new post. I've never been able to share that with you, but I pray you continue to write here. You acknowledge every screaming doubt and every nagging hurt, and you don't try to make it better. You just...acknowledge it. You get frustrated or intrigued or just plain pissed. It gives me the courage to speak out when I don't understand, or when I don't agree. It's taken me years and years to become almost as brave as you, and I still have so far to go. I think you always got the impression that I disapproved of the way you thought.
I never disapproved. I just didn't understand where you were going.
At any rate, now that I've rambled on...thank you for making this blog. Thanks for being you.
Also, I owe most of my musical taste to you so...double thanks. :)
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