Subversive Secret Identity or Nom de Blog

The reason for anonymous blogging is freedom for me--freedom to speak my mind, no fear of people googling my real name and finding out all my inmost rants before a job interview, no fear of having my funding taken away if I take a different stance on an issue than the standard denominational line. But is that really true? Would I lose my job? Or have I lost my guts?

Before I got sucked into the vortex of the blogosphere, Real Live Preacher was my first real introduction to blogging when he got some press here at Christianity Today. He was anonymous, but not when I encountered him---he was Gordon Atkinson, author of Real Live Preacher. He posts about what it was like to come out of hiding here. After reading about him I googled "blogging", found my way to blogger, created my site and posted my first thoughts. I just realized that my first post and that posted interview both share the date of October 26, 2004. I guess that is Micah Girl's birthday.

Bobbie from Emerging Sideways, "a woman in a man's church" trying to find her voice, was my second big inspiration on what it means to be a successful anonymous blogger. When I found her site and noticed that she had a voice in the blogosphere, I really got excited. She could say what she wanted and not take the heat personally! And people acknowledged her thoughts and who she was--she had her virtual identity which was more authentic than her church face.

And yet I wonder if I am courageous to speak my mind or cowardly to have a nom de blog instead of my own lovely name plastered on my URL. Partly I fancy myself as a subversive worker in the kingdom of God, a woman in a man's denomination, who is profoundly influencing college students, yes, but also young men who are on the seminary track who serve under me for a time. One of these men actually went from telling me, "I have a problem working for a woman" to "I wasn't crazy about working for a woman at first, and I often disagreed with you, but you were always proved right." Then these young men go off and become the establishment, the ordained, the keepers of the conservative institutional church. And, I hope, they remember reporting to (dare I say submitting to the authority of) a woman. Hmmm...

In addition, there are the younger women, both students and ministry colleagues, who see me as a woman who has a call to ministry, but also a call to marriage, motherhood and domesticity. In my ministry circles the women in ministry are either single or have "wife" attached to their title--pastor's wife, church planting wife. Some of these women are the more gifted ministry partners in their marriages as well, which makes the title of somebody's wife a ridiculous diminutive. I am proud to be my husband's wife, and enjoy being called Mrs., but am so grateful that my identity is not wife of my husband's occupation.

Now as I develop regular readers and even blogosphere friends (many of whom know my name and can google me--feel free if ya know my name) I wonder how much all this secrecy matters. In my real world there are a handful of friends and family that know about this blog, although I think only my darling husband reads it regularly.

All this silly blogging angst over should I just say my name is ________________, and I grew up in _____________, and I currently work for ____________________ denomination as a _____________________. All this cloak & dagger seems a little silly, doesn't it?

I am taking the next big step of posting my picture below. I like the outfit because it's both practical and slimming...

Yours,
Micah Girl