Later this year, my dissertation, "Where The Spirit Is: Affect, Ritual, Pentecostal Worship, and Liberative Praxis," will be published by PICKWICK Publications, an academic imprint of Wipf & Stock.
Once I got over the excitement and signed the contract, panic set in. I read through their marketing questionnaire, which made me wonder what exactly I have gotten myself into this time? Videos and posts to highlight my work! WHAT HAVE I DONE?
I realized: This project is deeply personal to me.
It is a combination of theory and testimony. In it are stories of faith and of doubt, as well as the painful experiences that occasioned them.
The thought of promoting my work, which is to promote myself, is not appealing. And while I've worked years on this project, all of a sudden, I am reminded of the vulnerability of offering a part of yourself to the world.
But I am also reminded that this work is urgent. Theology begins where the pain is, and it is exactly that reason that I wrote a dissertation on the relationship between the Holy Spirit, worship, and liberative praxis.
The beauty of it all is I am not alone in this. The book is not just my work; it is a shared work. Simply by reading this, you have become of the work and the cloud of witnesses that guides us all toward justice.
Welcome to the journey.
R. Shea Watts
