Pretty Little Vampires: Osheta Moore

We’re thrilled today to introduce you to Osheta Moore, blogger extraordinaire over at Shalom in the City. Osheta is in the middle of a wonderful series of blog posts on finding her “tribe”. We love this woman. Listen to a section from her “about me”:

I’m an African-American, suburbanite Texan from the Bible Belt living in a diverse, Cambridge neighborhood.  I’m an Assembly-of-God-Methodist-Southern-Baptist-a-teryn turned Anabaptist.  A stay at home mom whose ten-year plan had me comfortably settled in a law firm on the partner track, not settled at a messy kitchen table keeping track of an urban minister’s tight budget. And until I married my white husband, I didn’t listen to rap music, know the difference between Tupac and Snoop Dogg, or watch BET.

But you know what? Living at the intersections of so many seemingly contrary ideas and identities has helped me confidently embrace the “middle”: the gray space where most of us reside and feel constantly tugged to be either/or.  I’ve learned life and people are messy—it’s all too complex to pigeon-hole as this or that. So, I’ve grown to love being in the middle.

Neither white nor black. Neither secular nor sacred.  Neither conservative nor liberal.

Only me and Jesus.

Only Kingdom and the community of believers.

Only peacemaking and barrier breaking.

You know, all that stuff Jesus talked about in all four Gospels.

Doesn’t that make you want to get to know her better?

In the process of telling her story in this series, Osheta has begun to unpack some of the ReKnew Manifesto. This is something she said in a post called Me and My Pretty Little Vampires: Day Seven of Finding My Tribe, which pretty much makes you want to read the whole series.

This tribe’s first and foremost conviction is that we get our life for Jesus and Jesus alone.  Not the rightness of our theology, but Jesus.  If Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and The Life, then it is nothing short of idolatry when we turn to other things—maybe even good things—for our salvation or sense of worth.

So, Sister…where do you get your life?

Do you get it in the veracity of your beliefs?  What about being  a “biblical woman”? The overall GAP cuteness of your kids?  What about your body?  Do you feel particularly powerful and capable when your scale registers that “perfect” number?  Do you rely on your wit, intelligence, or accomplishments to feed your thirsty soul?

If so, then you my dear are a pretty little vampire like me, but all is not lost.  There is a cure for it.  And unlike “the cure” in Vampire Diaries that is only enough to make one person aware of their vulnerabilities, we all have access to The Cure.

Our Cure is our found with our Good Shepherd Jesus, who calls for the thirsty to come and drink and never thirst again.

You should definitely go visit her.