But for those of you over on Facebook I have one itty bitty favor to ask of you, other than to stop poking me that is!  When I post a link to a new post here on my wall over there and you go to add a comment I’d ask that you consider making the long journey from Facebook to SisterFriends to post it on the blog.

Don’t get me wrong. I read and appreciate your comments wherever you plop them, and would juzf like as many others as possible to read them along with me but that’s not always possible when everything is kept over on Facebook. I frequently have women tell me they’d like to friend me but are unable to because they’re not out to their friends and family, many of whom are among their Facebook friends.  By posting your comments on the blog they’ll have the opportunity to find strength and hope in your words. You know how it is. When you’re in a hard place in your life it can seem at times like you’re the only one who knows what it’s like to go through what you’re going through and has felt what you feel and so this is one of those times when the old adage that there’s strength in numbers is absolutely and powerfully true. By sharing your spin on things through your comments or even the simple knowing nod you give to something I’ve posted can mean the difference in someone having a little more hope today than they had the day before. So unless you’re trying to keep a low profile because of your infamous celebrity status or you don’t want to risk violating the terms of the witness protection contract you signed, then it would be most awesome and appreciated if you would occasionally chime in on the blog.

And FYI, while I’ll be baking more than blogging this week due to a number of cookie orders I need to complete by the end of the week, I’ll be getting another post or two up later in the week.

So here we are. At the start of a brand new year and along with it comes a renewed commitment from me to you to continue blogging and keep the lights on and the door open to this place. Even more importantly than having a renewed commitment, these months have provided me with a renewed desire and enthusiasm to be here, to connect with you, and to offer whatever I can that might be of help or encouragement to those who are just beginning a journey that some of us have been walking for a long and longer time. Simply said, I’ve missed you and I’ve missed exploring the depths of God’s love and grace with you. Let’s get back to it, shall we?

I don’t know for the moment how my posts are going to be unfolding in the coming months but right now my plan is to go with the none too original concept of writing shorter posts while blogging more frequently. If you’ve followed this blog for any time now you know that less is more and leave them wanting are adages I’ve failed to integrate into my writing style but that’s what I’m shooting for in 2011. A new me.  A woman of few words. The abridged version. Short and sweet. Direct. Concise. Oh, who am I kidding? When pigs fly. Anyway, I love ya, I missed ya, and I’m looking forward to wherever our conversation and the mighty good God above leads us.

Wow. Just three paragraphs. Anyone noticed any airborne squealers lately?

And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming…

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I’m sharing this bit from our personal lives with you to invite your prayers for my mother-in-law, my beloved wife, and all those fortunate enough to stand in the wide circle of relationships with this good woman, as well as to ask your understanding in what has been and will continue to be some rather sporadic posting on my part in the coming weeks. My intention nearly every day for the past few weeks has been to set aside time to blog but by the time night comes I find the hours have slip away without getting to what I had intended to do upon waking, either because there were too many things that needed to get done or because my concentration on anything beyond the immediate moment in our extended family is as productive as burnt toast.

While new posts may temporarily be infrequent in coming, my blog stats and the comments being left show that new (and no doubt incredibly cool to the point of being off the hook) readers continue to drop in here for a look around and so for that reason I’m going to be occasionally posting an encore post at the top of the blog. That’s right. I’m going to be a good little lesbian and do my part in reducing my digital footprint by going green and re-cycling a few posts from the past.  I hope that in re-posting them it could stir up some fresh insights from you that you would then take the time to share with the rest of us in the comments section.

But before I raise the curtain for an encore, I’m thinking it’s time for a very special giveaway but first I need to put the giveaway post together so go busy yourselves for a few minutes. Update your status on Facebook, twitter your tweets, empty out your spam, or watch this and learn. Then come back and see what what’s under Box Number 1.

This week I unveiled my personal blog,  The Passionate Plate: Savoring Life in Small Bites, which focuses on three areas of interest to me: Food and Health (Savoring), Spirituality and Faith (Saviouring), and Our Adventures at Home and on the Road (Savouring). I hope you stop by sometime. Oh, who am I kidding?! I want you come by all the time! Bookmark me. Tag me in your RSS feed. Plan your days around my posts. Add your comments. Pass the word to your friends. Come and see me. I need you. I’m co-dependent.

But seriously, one of the reasons I’ve gone ahead and created a personal blog where I can yammer away is because I’ve been concerned that I’ve muddied the original purpose of SisterFriends with posting a few too many things from my life that have little to nothing to do with being gay and Christian. The intention of SisterFriends-Together is to provide a place where queer folks can be encouraged in their faith and where those who are struggling with their sexuality can find a place of safety to ask the questions, share their fears or hopes, and have the chance to consider a different voice in the conversation on the Bible and homosexuality than what’s often held up as the only true Christian understanding. SisterFriends is here to witness through the lives of countless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people (I’m only one of them) that yes, you can be GLBTQ and a Christian and you can be assured that God’s love for you is unchanging and unending no matter what your race, gender, sexual orientation, past mistakes,  present circumstances, or whatever. On the day you were born God entered into a full-blown love relationship with you and that relationship will continue on beyond your final breath on this earth. Please take seriously the Word that, “Nothing will ever separate you from the love of God.” Take it seriously and take it to heart. Own it.

Whew. Okay. As I was saying….

Rather than jumping around on SisterFriends between the message of God’s love and reporting on the best bowl of pasta I’ve ever had in my life, my aim is to keep SisterFriends for those conversations that pertain specifically to being queer and being Christian and when I say “queer” I’m not limiting that word to folks of the rainbow persuasion but to anyone, whatever their orientation, who feels in some way different, outcast or on the edges of mainstream Christianity. Those who have been wounded by the church, judged harshly by other Christians, or had their personal faith development move them to reflect on God and what it means to be Christian in the world that doesn’t always square with the status quo.

This doesn’t mean I’m not going to be sharing stories from my life. I’ll continue to do so because just as I suspect it is for you, what happens in my day to day life and all that I encounter among people and experience in those moments when God shows up is what most informs my faith, my hope, and my convictions. I also believe that the best thing, and in the end maybe the only thing that any of us have to give one another is our lives, in hardships and in glory. Please know that you teach, strengthen and encourage me through the simple act of living your life and I only wish to return the same to you. So I’ll share my life as openly as ever but I just want to stay focused on why we’re here instead of holding you a captive audience to my vacation photos. You can come over to The Passionate Plate for that and I hope you will. I hope you will not only because of my desperate need for attention but because I want those of you who have lost so much in coming out or fear losing so much when you do come out, to see through the simple act of living my life that as life has gone on for me, life will go on for you.

You can survive the rough spots of coming out with all the losses and rejection and find incredible joy again. There are churches that will welcome you and your ministry. There are life-long friends who will return to you and new friendships that will come to you. A day may come when you and your family will forge a new relationship made possible by a God who specializes in reconciling hearts to one another. There’s every chance in the world for you to share your life and love with another human being who will cherish you as much as you cherish them. And if you open your heart and your eyes you will see God show up day in and day out in acts of such grace and goodness that your knees will go weak. You might not believe any of this now but let what God has done and is doing in my life and the lives of others witness to you that there is hope for you who are hopeless and joy for you whose joy has been lost or taken captive.

There I go again.

So SisterFriends will always be here and a-n-y-o-n-e looking for a place to explore their faith and how God is calling them to embody that faith in the world is welcome here and it is to their longing to embrace themselves in their wholeness, to experience God’s love in the center of their being, and to learn and grow into a Christian life of faith that is most true for them that SisterFriends is here and will continue to be here until Grace in it’s full glory is revealed and then some.

[My intention for the time being is to add one new post here per week though in time I hope to be posting twice a week once I get a rhythm back to my writing which was shattered this summer.]

• 4 point to where you are right now and that I plan to hold on to indefinitely (christianlesbians.com, christianlesbians.org, sisterfriends-together.org, sisterfriends-together.com).
• 2 point to Grace Unfolding Ministries (grace-unfolding.org, grace-unfolding.com) that I hope to one day develop into an active website but for the time-being contains a simple unchanging message.
• 4 point nowhere and were bought when I was trying to work out a name for this site a couple years ago and that I’ll probably put back out on the market when they expire in 2012 (for-such-a-time-as-this.org, forsuchatimeasthisministries.org, micahministry.org, micahsmandate.org).
• And then there’s my personal and infrequently updated blog (anitasblog.com).

That leads to my latest acquisition. I just added 1ofthe18000.com to my collection. D and I were one of the 18,000 couples legally married in California and so my thoughts are to create a blog snapshot of our regular lives and ordinary marriage with the hope that our story might impact someone who voted yes on prop 8 enough that come the next election they would consider voting in favor of marriage equality. It’s all about changing one heart at a time. Anyway, it will probably be a couple months before the 1ofthe18000.com goes live and you’ll be among the first to know so you can spread the word to any California voters you know personally.

Now that I think about it, there’s another domain name that might fit quite well in my collection…

get-off-the-internet-and-get-some-work-done-around-the-house.org

What say ye?

So trust me, the forum will be back up and running as soon as possible and I’ll update this post as I get more information.

UPDATE: Seven hours later and we’re still a big no-go on the forum.  I don’t know why this kind of stuff ends up always being more complicated than you think it’s going to be but you know how it is, if it’s not one thing it’s your mother.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: As of Wednesday at 11:15 p.m. the forum is nearly ready but not quite. Hopefully by the morning we’ll be back up and running. One thing for sure…I’ll have a new post up tomorrow.

THE TRIFECTA OF UPDATES: It’s Thursday morning, 7:50 a.m. Pacific Coast Time and still we’re in a holding pattern on the forum. All the forum furniture is back in place, the heat is on, and the lights are shining bright. The only problem remaining is that the door seems to be locked and we’re having a hard time locating the key.

FINAL UPDATE OH DON’T WE HOPE?: Dare I announce it but at 1:30 p.m. Pacfic Coast Time, it appears the forum is back up and running. Oh joy, oh bliss, oh keep your fingers crossed!

While I’ve been tending to my scratchy throat my web designer has unleashed her super high-tech powers on the SisterFriends Forum with a much needed update to the software. As of Tuesday evening this is still a work in progress but I expect the forum to be restored to its original grandeur and content sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, please refrain your chatty little selves from posting anything on the forum while we insure that all the security settings are in place and the original database with all the existing posts are re-installed.

And now I must wander off in search of another box of tissue…