"Just A Sister Away "
by Renita Weems
Author Testimony
The opportunity to revise my first book Just A Sister
Away, which I wrote on a dare some eighteen years
ago, is a chance to return to a first love. That love is
of talking to ordinary women about the ordinary acts of
triumph and defeat that women of faith endure, that after
time turn into the biography of a life lived, of lessons
learned, and of a faith in one’s spiritual path that
waxes and wanes a thousand times.
I was a student at Princeton working on Ph.D. in biblical
studies at the time, just a few months short of landing my
first teaching job, when the book finally found its way to
light. I never imagined the response Just A Sister Away would
meet from women (and men) from across the country. Although
I’d long ago given up on the idea of parish ministry
as a vocation for myself, as an ordained clergy and also
a budding biblical scholar I wrote Just A Sister Away searching
for way to color outside the lines when interpreting traditional
sacred stories, while hoping to stay on speaking terms with
the sort of everyday, ordinary women who’d nurtured
me spiritually as a girl and later as a young adult. At that
time I knew of precious few books that offered any modeling
to ordinary readers for how to read against the grain, peer
behind what’s there on the pages, to uncover the biographical
bits and pieces about silenced and forgotten women who are
generally ignored by male preachers and commentators alike.
Studies of women in the Bible by African American women writers
were virtually non-existent. I was excited eighteen yeas
ago about applying some of the insights I was gaining in
my studies there in
graduate school to some of my favorite stories about women
in the Bible. Literary criticism, women’s biographies,
the perimeters of my own autobiography, and womanist and
feminist criticism emboldened me to pay attention as much
to what’s not said as to what is said
I describe writing Just A Sister Away as a dare
because I’d never considered writing a book prior to
my then publisher’s invitation to do so. Upon hearing
me speak at a convocation of evangelical women’ about
Jephthah’s senseless sacrifice of his only daughter,
Lura Jane Geiger of LuraMedia Publishers cornered me about
bringing my "radical" interpretations to print..
At first hesitant, I eventually relented under the pressure
of friends and others who called and wrote pestering me for
copies of the lectures they’d heard me give on this
or that woman in the Bible. Thus, the task of putting into
print my reflections on nine of my favorite stories about
women in the Bible back in 1987 was a deeply personal experience.
For me it was an experiment with combining autobiography
and biblical interpretation, the personal and the public,
the scholar with the believer who wished to remain faithful. "Faithful
to what?" some may ask. I don’t know if I had
an answer back then. All I knew was that it was important
to me to do scholarship that was intelligible and transformative
to the sort of women who’d nurtured me when I was new
to the spiritual journey. Telling the story of a woman’s
life was important to this community of women. No matter
how far I strayed as a critical thinker and biblical scholar,
I was, and remain at heart, a southern, black (ex-)Pentecostal
girl from Georgia who couldn’t shake her love for the
African-American storytelling tradition. That combined with
my seminary education which prompted me to pay attention
to to the counterimpulses in the biblical narrative stirred
me to see familiar stories about women in the Bible with
new eyes. Writing gave voice to my vision. What I did not
foresee the disapproval Just A Sister Away would
meet from some who would complain that I was somehow violating
the text by bringing new questions to bear upon these sacred
stories . But neither could I have imagined the depths of
inspiration (and liberation) other readers, both female and
male, would find in my critical, yet what I hope loving reimaginings
of women’s lives.
I am grateful to my friend and current publisher, Denise
Stinson of Walk Worthy Press, for bringing up the idea of
revising Just A Sister Away and offering me the
chance to revisit my first love. (A special thanks to Frances
Jalet-Miller at Warner Books for her deft editorial skills.)
I am happy to report that I am as smitten today by the women
here in Just A Sister Away and the telling of their
stories as I was eighteen years ago when I first set out
to write these women’s lives. That readers continue
to write thanking me for inspiration they’ve gained
from the book attests to the ongoing fascination with the
life stories of ancient biblical women which contemporary
readers continue to have. Indeed, it’s not presumptuous
on my part to suggest that the groundswell of books on women
in the Bible that have been published over the past eighteen
years aimed at thinking women of faith who are not specialists
in biblical studies, books about women in the Bible which
attempt to combine critical reflection with devotional affection,
owe some of their inspiration, at least in part, to the publication
of Just A Sister Away in 1987.
Here you will find that four new chapters have been to
this new and revised edition of Just A Sister Away.
The biblical women themselves demanded a fresh new interpretation
in light of recent discussions in the larger culture about
women and biblical heritage and wouldn’t let me go
to print without including their stories in this new edition
(Mary Magdalene, the Queen of Sheba, Achsah, and Zelophehad’s
daughters). I’ve contented myself to go over the original
chapters of Just A Sister Away and add new insights
here and there where needed, but have resisted the temptation
to completely rewrite the book. The translations of the Hebrew
and Greek texts continue to be largely my own, although I
must admit that there are some places where the King James’s
translation of the story (though often archaic and idiosyncatic)
are irresistibly more poetic. And although I thought long
about deleting the questions after each chapter, I want to
honor the fact that Just A Sister Away has been
a staple in the many women’s Bible study and reading
circles that have sprung up over the last two decades. Readers
have made clear to me that the questions after each chapter
are what have made the book a popular text in their reading
circles. Readers appreciate the guidance that questions offer
them to sit back and reflect not only on what they read,
but also on how their own autobiographies as women intersect
(or collide) with that of other women’s lives.
Finally, writing continues to be a form of prayer for me.
Writing and revising Just A Sister Away is my way
of hailing God and saying " See, I’m still here
, albeit treading water and screaming at the top of my lungs,.
Although I continue to flail madly against the banal and
tyrannical, you can still find me grasping for dear life
to the things sacred and liberating in grandmother’s
faith. Don’t give up on me. I’m still here, still
believing in believing." I offer Just A Sister Away in
new and revised form to those of you, like me, who just can’t
shake our love for stories, especially ones in the Bible,
even those that raise more questions than they answer.
Renita Weems
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GLORY GIRLS™
September 2007
Book Selection
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