{"id":970,"date":"2018-07-30T10:12:49","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T14:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=970"},"modified":"2018-07-30T10:12:49","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T14:12:49","slug":"why-i-wrote-the-book-and-a-sneak-peek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/why-i-wrote-the-book-and-a-sneak-peek\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Wrote the Book (and a sneak peek)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

People often ask me why I wanted to write a book – that was during the years I put my head down and trashed a thousand drafts. I always said it was because I had a story to tell. Now that my book (A Gracious Heresy: the Queer Calling of an Unlikely Prophet)<\/em>\u00a0is published I need to think about the answer to that question in different ways.<\/p>\n

It’s still true that I \u00a0wanted to write a book because I have stories to tell.
\nBut there are lots of reasons.
\nI wrote a book because my life is unusual – or as some have said, ‘interesting’.
\nI wrote a book because I love words and language.
\nI wrote a book – and will probably \u00a0write more – because the creative process gives me juice.
\nI wrote this book because it is insight into a small part of the history of change in the church and the nation.
\nI wrote this book because I wanted to confront myself and share the humanity of struggle.
\nI \u00a0also wrote this book because I have a big ole’ creative gene begging for expression.<\/p>\n

Here is a preview, a snippet, a snapshot from the book. It is from the time my mom and I visited Dachau when I was ten:<\/p>\n

“I leaned into my mother\u2019s warmth, hungry for the security she offered as I took in the pain and horror. Questions I would struggle with the rest of my life were forged in those moments. Forever, my questions about the Sacred and the human, history and theology, politics and prayer seek answers in those grim, gray rooms filled with the remains of the innocent and the stench of intolerance.
\nThat day I left the camp in the safety of my mother\u2019s embrace. It did not occur to me that she was like other mothers and that there were things from which she could not protect me. We passed through the gates of the camp returning to a world filled with magic and color and sunlight. I did not know then but Dachau will be a part of me until the day I die.
\nWe returned home and over the next weeks and months, my fear and outrage receded to tolerable levels. Back in school, I turned to my studies and friendships.<\/p>\n

As a woman and a lesbian I wear the first hand scars of the injury done to my soul by sexism, heterosexism, and the not so subtle message that I am \u201cless than.\u201d I also carry within me secondary scars of evil. As a white person, I the carry the secondary scars of racism, as a non-Jew, the secondary scars of Nazism. As a citizen, the secondary scars of violence. As a human being, the secondary scars of intolerance.
\nI guess I made that up, secondary scars, or maybe I heard in another context, but what I mean is that I and we carry in our persons not only the consequences of evil that has been done to us but also the evil that is done to others. We are not separate from that which is perpetrated on others. We are injured either by our complicity or our compassion, whether conscious or not. It is those scars that make it impossible for me to remain silent.”<\/p>\n

A final plug: it can be ordered from Amazon or directly from the publisher:\u00a0https:\/\/wipfandstock.com\/a-gracious-heresy.html<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People often ask me why I wanted to write a book – that was during the years I put my head down and trashed a thousand drafts. I always said it was because I had a story to tell. Now that my book (A Gracious Heresy: the Queer Calling of an Unlikely Prophet)\u00a0is published I … Continue reading Why I Wrote the Book (and a sneak peek)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,13,24,17,8,1,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}