Shawna Atteberry

I always mean to blog more and start posting regularly. It still hasn’t happened. I’m really really bad about procrastinating. From my adventure a couple of weeks ago with the Reading Deprivation Week of The Artist’s Way, I found out I am a Pathetic Procrastinator who needs accountability. To that end I’ve joined The SITS Girls on BlogFrog in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. I’ve owned 31DBBB for six months, and the furthest I’ve gotten is Day 5 on my own. My goal is at the end of the 31 days to complete the book and be posting regularly.

The Day 1 challenge is to write an elevator pitch for your blog. This is one or two sentences that describe what your blog is all about. I’ve had my pitch in the About Me box on the side column for awhile, but I’ve decided to tweak it. Here’s the new one:

I empower women to be the leaders Godde calls them to be at home, work and church by exploring the Divine Feminine and stories of the women in the Bible. I also use my experience and spiritual direction to help them discover new facets of Godde and their own leadership abilities.

I’ve been wanting to talk about the Divine Feminine more, but I hadn’t taken the time to work out how it would fit into the purpose I already had for this blog. It fits in so naturally, I wonder now why I procrastinated for so long. This also gives me a chance to explain the terms I use for Godde on this blog. First up: why Godde and not God? Godde is combination of God and Goddess to show that God transcends gender: Godde is neither male nor female and both male and female since Godde created both men and women in the image of Godde. I believe that  Godde is Mother as well as Father, and instead of using the standard Lord that’s used to translate Yahweh in the Hebrew Scriptures, I use Sophia-Yahweh. I will lean more towards feminine references to Godde on my blog as masculine references are just about all you hear in church and society to refer to Godde. I use exclusively feminine pronouns for Godde for this reason as well. You’ll be seeing Sophia and Mother a lot on this blog, and I hope it doesn’t offend you. I hope it will help you to see Godde in new ways and start to walk on new paths with this Godde who cries out like a woman in labor to bring forth her people and nurses them at her own breast (Deut. 32:18, Psalm 22:10; 131:2; Isaiah 42:14; 49:15; 66:13).

Pentecost by Nora Kelly

I have new post up on Examiner.com for Pentecost: Expanding our view of Pentecost. I talk about the painting to the right.

As always let me know what you think. I hope everyone has a happy, lively, vibrant and Spirit-filled Pentecost. May the Spirit surprise you in new and wonderful ways.

Hey all, I have new article up on Examiner.com. The Feast of the Ascension: Does it really have to be spiritual vs. physical.

That’s right. Yours truly. I am now writing for Chicago Examiner.com, and my first article is posted: When grace can’t be explained, Cathleen Falsani tells stories.

Let me know what you think.

Writing is brutal business. You think and you worry and you’re scared to death, but you still feel compelled to bare your soul to the world, wondering if you’re going to get back in one piece. Then you want to write but you’re frozen because you’re scared to death over what everyone is going to think . It really is a ridiculous process. You really have to be called to write. You have to know this is what you want to do. Otherwise it will tear you up and throw you to the side of the road. The Muses are not benevolent mistresses. It literally is gut wrenching work. Yet me and many others continue to do it. We continue to face the resistance or fear. Or we run away from it. There are days we let it distract us. We let it lull us into a protected web of TV watching and web surfing. I have done more TV watching and web surfing since I became a full time writer than any other point in my life (except when I had surgery). Of course it doesn’t help that I work at home.

Writing is not for wimps. It’s not for people who want to make an easy living or want to make money (fast or at all). It’s hard work. And most of the time no one notices. And yet millions of people in the past and present and millions in the future will bow to this brutal mistress and start putting words onto a page. Writing can be a relentless mistress who will make you grovel. But when you get it right… When the words flow… When you read back over a paragraph and wonder where the hell did that piece of art come from… It’s divine. When someone says that they read a piece of yours and liked it, loved it; it made them think; may be it will even change their lives, for awhile you forget the fear, self-doubt, and endless solitary hours. It must be like forgetting the pain of childbirth, once you hold the baby in your arms. Another divine moment.

So we writers keep plugging along. Sitting down everyday at the computer or the typewriter, or with a notebook and pen or pencil, and keep facing up to the doubt, the fears, the sheer resistance we feel at putting our very souls onto the page. When we finally get it right (after multiple drafts, breakdowns, and lots of chocolate), it can look so easy. But don’t fool yourself. It’s never easy. And it will never be easy.

Most of the time I have a love/hate relationship with my craft and its Muse. I’m not sure you can have any other relationship when you work in a creative field.

What about you? What creative work do you do? How do you feel about it? What kind of relationship do you have with your craft and your muse?

Divine Caroline has posted an article I wrote: What to Do When a Friendship Turns Abusive. Let me know what you think.