Blazing a Trail?

Before getting to the heart of this post (which will be to say a bit more concerning our hopes and goals for BtheB), here's a little ditty I whipped up for ya'll yesterday during an entirely legitimate and not at all procrastination-abetting "work break":

L and I are aware that our niche is a tiny one, forming a small segment of the church entire (perhaps the cuticle on the pinky of the left hand, or an eyelash. I've always thought of myself as an eyelash). But as L has written, innumerable conversations between us and among others has left us feeling the need to voice our perspective more widely.

We do not consider ourselves among that peculiar class of angry feminist bloggers (although we reserve the right to have entirely justified rants now and again), nor do we want this blog to be an exercise in erudition. It is meant to be a conversation, soliciting thoughtful and loving contributions from people who consider themselves part of any regime depicted above: we want to hear from our feminist friends, from our non-Christian friends, from other academics, from our friends with babies or spouses or both, from our church leaders, from our peers and from different generations.

I read an article last year (possibly in The Atlantic? This is me being less-than-academic...) where the author quoted numerous statistics in order to establish that the current demographic of single, educated women in the U.S. was far greater than ever before in the history of (wo)mankind. Yet it would be trivially easy to demonstrate that the voice of this demographic has not grown proportionally; there is perhaps an even more egregious gap here with respect to Christianity. Not only is this demographic becoming a culturally significant one, but it is so for the first time. Thus in many instances members of this niche feel a bit like trail blazers in an evolving cultural milieu. In our particular case, the added dimension of faith exacerbates things: while the "single, educated women" demographic remains a minority in terms of voice, what little voice it has is almost exclusively a secular one.

We long to be heard and valued, and not primarily for who we might someday be (professors, wives, mothers, fighter pilots) but for who we are now. We are called to live fully in whatever space we occupy, whether we are there by choice or not. We must extend each other the right to claim this full life, and to encourage each other in this endeavor. We are called by Christ to build communities wherein every member is able to be poured out, and every member able to be filled up again, and where all things abound in grace.

So there you have it: we mean to blaze a trail. Well, maybe it will be more like a clumsy yet enthusiastic thrashing about in the undergrowth, but hopefully with a modicum of success such that a person could, if they squinted, see something resembling a path. But whatever it turns out to be, we'd like you to be a part of it. Giddy-up?