Commence Blogging!

I have always had a love/hate relationship with writing. In first grade, my teacher gave us all journals, and we regularly had the assignment of writing in them. From the beginning, the question of what to write felt so overwhelming. My little six-year-old brain worried. And worried. Putting pen to paper is such a vulnerable act - especially when you know there will be an audience. I have never much liked that feeling of vulnerability. I've always been very self-conscious of what words would come out of me. I worried about how those words would portray me, and - eventually - whether they would do justice to the thoughts they sought to represent and the world they tried to portray.

And nevertheless, the words always come out eventually, if I give myself the space and time to let them. What hooked me about writing was the way that tying words together brought out thoughts, images and ideas that had been dormant somewhere. Writing has been a way for me not only to communicate my voice but to constitute it. That's just the way my brain works, I guess. And it is such an amazing feeling to birth that which has been inside me, waiting to take form and come out.

This birthing process is still agonizing, though. When I sit down to write I still worry whether anything will come out, and when it does, whether it will feel true or communicate something of value.

But writing is an important, even necessary practice, for me. It's time to do it more regularly. And - just as important - to let my voice out into the universe. The world is in such rough shape. So much is distorted, hidden, and drowned out. We need to find our voices and the courage to speak.

So here's mine. In weekly installments, I hope. Spirituality, social movements, church, Palestine, queer-ness, Bible, politics -- whatever strikes a chord. Here goes!