If I describe Sarah Bessey as “kind” that may not make you want to read her blog. “Kind” is one of those words — like “nice” — that has acquired so many lukewarm connotations that we tend to think of kindness as something bland, tepid and unremarkable.
But that’s part of why you should read Sarah Bessey — to be reminded that kindness can be subversive, and strong and revolutionary. The “Bonfire” list takes its name from something Bessey wrote:
So I am no longer standing beside your table, asking for a seat, working and serving and hoping to be noticed and then offered a seat or arguing for my right to a seat. I don’t care to sit here any more. I have no desire to be indoors, in your neat boxes. … And someday, I’ll throw my arms around you when you break up that table to use it for kindling and toss it out the window to the outside. We’ll build a bonfire and we’ll dance around the old arguments together, laughing.
That’s such a winsome, gentle invitation that it’s possible at first to miss that it’s also a threat. Kindness is sneaky like that.
Marg Herder’s recent review of Bessey’s book Jesus Feminist also describes what it is I find compelling about her blog:
I think the reason why I like Sarah Bessey is that she has figured out how to be love in pictures and typed words.
… Sarah thinks in terms of bringing people together, not in terms of sorting into categories, like happens so often when we are using typed words. It takes a real connection between the heart and the head to make those typed words work for love.
… And if you spend time looking at what Sarah is doing with all of her personal expression, not just in her book, you’ll find that she is managing to not only portray the kindness, compassion, and love of her Jesus in the world, but also create a virtual community of people united around that concept. People are gathering around a Christian feminist theology of loving interaction, as portrayed by Sarah Bessey’s work, and she’s going to end up with quite a crowd at the back of the church.
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