And hello. I'm Sharon and know some of you from "real life" - and am very much forward to meeting the rest. (Over the interwebs for now, but in the future, who knows? [I sometimes like to shock people by telling them that I have been meeting people from the Internet since I was 18 and that no one has attempted to axe murder me... yet.])
Who I currently am has a great deal to do with what brings me here and why I find this community so vital. My husband and I moved as very new newlyweds to the Bay Area from the East Coast, leaving nearly the entirety of our close friends and support system behind. Besides mourning the sudden loss of opportunities to wear heels in a hilly city that requires daily walking, I also desperately missed the wisdom and presence of close friends when it came to embarking on this new adventure of marriage. Also, living in this area of California and being in academia means I rub elbows with people of a very liberal bent a great deal. While I consider myself both left-of-middle in many viewpoints and most definitely a feminist, I often find myself uneasy at the kinds of conversation that go on about marriage-as-gender-struggle that occur in these circles and feeling desirous of a more Biblically-based perspective.
So that's the somewhat selfish part of my motivation for creating this space. The greater part, however, comes from five years of deep involvement in church/women's ministry, during which time I heard again and again the longing of young women for an ethic of how to be a young Christian woman in a world where the Church is often silent on such matters. My hope with this community is that it can be one answer to this longing.
hello and hello
Who I currently am has a great deal to do with what brings me here and why I find this community so vital. My husband and I moved as very new newlyweds to the Bay Area from the East Coast, leaving nearly the entirety of our close friends and support system behind. Besides mourning the sudden loss of opportunities to wear heels in a hilly city that requires daily walking, I also desperately missed the wisdom and presence of close friends when it came to embarking on this new adventure of marriage. Also, living in this area of California and being in academia means I rub elbows with people of a very liberal bent a great deal. While I consider myself both left-of-middle in many viewpoints and most definitely a feminist, I often find myself uneasy at the kinds of conversation that go on about marriage-as-gender-struggle that occur in these circles and feeling desirous of a more Biblically-based perspective.
So that's the somewhat selfish part of my motivation for creating this space. The greater part, however, comes from five years of deep involvement in church/women's ministry, during which time I heard again and again the longing of young women for an ethic of how to be a young Christian woman in a world where the Church is often silent on such matters. My hope with this community is that it can be one answer to this longing.