Happy New Year! Welcome to 2024. There’s going to be some changes around here starting next month as we move to Substack and become The Redbud Hyphen. Our guild president, Dorina Lazo-Gilmore Young will be telling you more about that soon. Meanwhile, we want to look back on our 2023 issues and repost our most…
Here at Redbuds, we like to say we “create in community and foster a safe sisterhood of creatives.” There’s not a spirit of competition, but only one of building each other up and encouraging one another.
I decided to attend the popular girl’s party and overcome the fear of being an imposter. It was beyond anything I could have anticipated.
As my world got busier, I silenced the small voice that kept whispering, “But I asked you to write.” But that whispering voice, the one that wouldn’t remain silent, kept pushing, “But I asked you to write.”
We need to get our words out to open the gates we have been given, because the Kingdom is waiting.
With each conversation over the following two days —at meals, before breakout sessions, even standing in hallways—I bore witness to God’s abundant grace as each woman shared her good story and spoke hope others needed to hear.
All those hours in front of a blank screen leave our thoughts whirling in a cyclone, twisting out of control until our words find a place to touch down.
Uniting with others around the desire to honor Jesus with our creativity established a new refrain: I don’t have the margin to write alone.
Although each individual Redbud member is important, we truly experienced something greater — synergy — when we gathered. This synergy strengthened my spirit more than I could have done alone.
Dear Readers, It’s been a year, hasn’t it? We’re still dealing with Covid. We’ve lost some notable people like Loretta Lynn and Queen Elizabeth, and many of us have lost people only notable to us. And we feel their loss deeply. But we’ve also experienced some amazing progress. Writer Maya Angelou became the first Black…
Dear Reader, What’s so holy about going to the grocery store? Or doing laundry? Or taking a meal to a sick friend? Or changing a diaper? You might think of sacraments as things like the Eucharist (Communion) or Baptism, or Marriage. But when we do all that we do for Christ and in Christ, we…
In the month of December, the Christmas story often stands alone, lifted with huge parentheses out of the New Testament—maybe delivered in Linus’s hushed boy soprano, and then tucked away with the durable resin Nativity set and the twinkly white lights until next year. It’s a great story, so it’s easy to see why authors of…
I love to lead and teach. It’s a part of my natural gifting, the way I’m wired. These traits have been evident from an early age. My mom recalls with fondness the authority with which I lined up my stuffed animals in my bedroom after school, demanding their attention and presenting the new material I’d…
Author Sharon Garlough Brown (MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary) is a pastor, spiritual director and retreat leader who is passionate about shepherding others deep into the love of God. Her book Sensible Shoes was named one of television personality Kathie Lee Gifford’s “favorite things” in March 2013. She and her husband Jack have served congregations in…