What About Sex?

I’m excited to share this essay from my good friend & fellow-gentle parent, Alanna. She is someone for whom I have deep respect & love. Having known each other for the last 5 years or so, we’ve seen each other through a lot of things, both joyful & sorrow-filled. She is also a book author, a teacher, & an associate pastor. And she wants you to have more sex! ;-)

Please enjoy, & leave comments & questions for Alanna below. If you want to see more posts from her, be sure to mention it! Maybe she will consider writing for us again.

Alyssa

Why I Nurse in Church (Without a Cover)

I’ve been working on this essay, off & on, for several weeks. I’m pretty proud of it, although I’m still tweaking it. I think that, despite needing further detail edits, my voice is pretty strong here. I’m satisfied enough to post it.

I realize that someone my read this who could choose to be offended by it, either the subject or my attitude regarding it. However, I feel strongly that breastfeeding in church is a pertinent issue affecting moms today, and that it is relevant to my personal life, to the breastfeeding world at large, and to the strangely oversensitive Christian church & culture, in general. I won’t apologize for these personal beliefs.

So if breastfeeding offends you and you have nothing nice to say about it, please disregard this post and seek your mental nourishment elsewhere.

I’m sad that I even have to say that. :-(

For those who will, enjoy my recent essay. :-)

I’ve Not Made Time

So I’ve not been active with blog posts in quite a while. Life keeps me busy as I’m learning new skills, raising my children, and doing some hard self- & life-evaluation. I still occasionally post stuff on the Facebook page, and I’ve been surprisingly active on Pinterest the last several days, but the time to write anything has not been made.

Writing is one form of catharsis for me, but it’s not something I’ve been allowing myself. I never seem to find myself alone with my computer. I’m too busy. By the time I’m alone and not busy, I’m too tired.

(I’ve been regularly falling sleep before 11, & often much earlier, for the past several weeks, which is so not my usual sleep pattern.)

I think the real reason I’ve not made the time, though, is fear. I’m not sure I can explain it, but I think I’ve been afraid to write because I’ve been avoiding going too deep into myself lately. It seems like everything in there is dark & messy & could so easily drag me down. Most days I feel like I’m barely hanging onto my own shadow.

Also I fear putting myself “out there,” where all the cyber psychos and clever critics can assess my words & what they mean, draw conclusions about my intelligence or sanity levels, judge my mad writing skills, or ultimately see my lack of confidence & vast array of illogical fears. And then I fear being true to myself.

But maybe it’s time, yes?

Time to just write because I like to write. Time to write about anything that catches my attention. Time to write my thoughts & stop worrying about all the people who will definitely not agree with me. Time to write because it’s cathartic.

I know I don’t have a great following or fans or whatever blog junkies are called (b/c I’m not one, which makes me wonder why the hell I started a blog), and I know that I don’t write anything too hard hitting or powerful here, but I’m going to try to publish at least one new post a week. I’m doing this for me in my attempt to remain true to the person I’m learning I am.

Chances are, I’ll miss weeks, maybe more. But the evaluation process I mentioned earlier is making me more and more aware of the person I am and the person I want to be. And the person I want to be also happens to be a writer. So I’m gonna write.

Gonna write crap. Gonna write sap. Gonna write gems. Gonna write stories and thoughts and dreams and fears and all about me and my life  with my beautiful children and my husband and my marriage boulders and my life boulders and my slightly neurotic dog.

I want to write. So every week, I promise myself that I will write and publish a post, and I’ll just see where it takes me.

Until next week…