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Jesus and Those Bodacious Women! With a title like this, who wouldn’t be curious enough to investigate deeper? Your curiosity will not disappoint. In this small volume, Linda H. Hollies gives us almost more than we can handle.

And this is not surprising. During our seminary days together at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Linda was always the one to ask the question that made us delve a little deeper, always the one who phrased a comment that made us think a littler broader, always the one who shared her own personal experience that made us reflect upon our own. In seminary, Linda was vocal, passionate, articulate, and open; yes, she was a bodacious woman back then—some things never change!

I have followed Linda’s ministerial career with interest; I’ve asked our mutual friends and colleagues, “What’s Linda up to these days?” The assumption is that Linda would always be up to something!

It is a joy for me to write these opening words to the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Jesus and Those Bodacious Women: Life Lessons from One Sister to Another. This is an opportunity for me not only to express my ongoing respect, admiration, and appreciation for Linda Hollies, but also to commend a book worth reading.

When Linda and I were in seminary, the feminist and Womanist movements were just beginning to gain some energy. Those days in the early and mid-1980s were ones of change and even a bit of frustration as we women ministers sought our places of leadership. Resources that took women’s lives and stories seriously were few and far between. Since then, there’s been an explosion of works focused on women and women’s concerns as well as works devoted to women in the Bible. Linda’s works are among those that invite us to take another look at those often nameless, voiceless, devalued, and misunderstood women in the Bible.

Linda Hollies embodies two important learnings from our seminary days. First, she understands clearly that those things that are most personal are also those that are most universal. In this edition of Jesus and Those Bodacious Women, Linda continues to share from her own experiences—the good, the bad, the joy, and the pain. She infuses her work with raw authenticity—we feel as if we know her. We experience her defeats and her triumphs because her story is our story. Without blaming or shaming, Linda reflects back to us all those things that haunt us—abuse, neglect, self-esteem and self-worth issues, injustice, body image issues—she keeps it “real” and keeps it based in the actual stuff of life.

Second, Linda understands that life is a journey and she provides practical advice for us to follow as we make our way to wholeness. She doesn’t just give us glimpses of life and wish us well. Instead, she offers hands-on, get up and move, make a contribution activities designed to keep us connected to God, to each other, and to ourselves. Linda has made her life lessons accessible to us—she highlights each chapter with biblical passages and provides a reflection, meditation, and sermon rooted in a biblical woman’s story. Then, Linda invites us to think about how the biblical study mirrors our own lives in “Just Between Us.” She closes each chapter with “Suggestions”—actions we can take to enhance and enrich our spiritual lives and to foster community. The suggestions range from journaling to visiting shelters to taking someone to lunch—all designed to help us live and embody our faith and not just think about it—she pushes us toward bodaciousness.

In this Tenth Anniversary Edition, Linda invites us into the stories of five additional women—Vashti, Cozbi, Jezebel, Tabitha, and Lydia. By highlighting their stories, she educates, inspires, affirms, challenges, and celebrates us—black women. Yet her book has wide appeal, for these are lessons for women across racial and class lines. In these stories, Linda teaches and preaches and she challenges us to find ourselves in the stories—through study, prayer, and conversation, we learn something about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, each other, and ourselves. In all of this, Linda promises to journey with us!

In a world where women in general are devalued and exploited; in a world where women of color and black women are victims of misogyny and abuse; in a world that continues to be plagued with violence, injustice, neglect, and oppression; in a world where people find it easier to sit in front of their computers to find “community”; in a world where honesty and reliability are more and more difficult to find and trust—Rev. Dr. Linda H. Hollies invites us to travel with Jesus. In this world where we make too many compromises and where we go along to get along, Linda challenges us to be bodacious!

In this hurting and hungry world, God needs people of courage and conviction, people of passion and action, people who think and reflect, people who wed word and deed. In other more eloquent words, God needs bodacious women and men to co-create a world of peace, justice, harmony, and wholeness.

I hope you will take up the challenge that Dr. Hollies presents in this new book. The invitation is so gracious and the rewards are filled with possibility and hope.

Thank you, Linda, for being your bodacious self—and thank you for inviting us—all of us—to join you in this venture for God … “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed….” (1 John 3:2, NRSV)

Rev. Barbara J. Essex

Berkeley, CA