( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

I found this interview to be intense.  Charity Tensel exudes the kind of charged courage necessary when making major personal, political, and spiritual shifts. That she has made these changes in the public world of the blogosphere, where people tend to engage in identity reinforcing behaviors, gives a sense of the honesty you will find at Tenselblog and Shatter Nicely.

Charity left the comfort and certainty of Christianity as well as the popularity and notoriety of She’s Right. She did something all too rare in online discourse; she stopped and said “Wait a minute, maybe I am not right.” And she didn’t just momentarily think those heretical thoughts; she allowed herself to actively challenge the “all questions are answered” combination of conservative Christianity and right-wing ideology.  

I have had difficulty writing up this blurb to go with the interview. I am making a change in my life right now, losing a habit, and MAN is it difficult. Seeing just how automatic the mind works to bring one back to the known and the comfortable, discovering how seemingly separate areas of belief interact and reinforce each other, finding out just how much renegotiating of identity must happen; it’s real work. And that’s about as close as I can get to sharing about it, because I guess guardedness guarantees an illusion of control.

Charity has taken on much larger transformations, and has done so with candor and clarity. I don’t know how she does it and I’m biting my nails here just thinking about it. Oddly, the word “faith” comes to mind. When making identity-shaking change, there needs to be a faith that the losses one feels almost immediately will be replaced by better things in the long run. But that’s the rub; change is a proposition that tends to dole out its challenges on the front end and saves its rewards for the long term.  

I never knew that Charity began She’s Right as a public access TV show and migrated it to the blogosphere. Shortly after her interview with me, she coincidentally returned to public access TV to guest host a show on Channel 17. Amazingly, this full-circle return to her PEG roots resulted in more self-reflection and a decision to take a blogging break at Tenselblog, while she continues to post fresh at Shatter Nicely. Check out her latest post there on the connotations of the label “atheist.” Great stuff.  

The rhetoric of personal transformation generally has a formulaic New Age taint to it that makes it easy to scoff and cynically dismiss the notion. I think because Charity’s background is in the Christian Right, her conception of identity evolution has none of that flavor; she is incredibly direct, clear-eyed, and uncliched. She is perfectly suited for her next endeavor, helping others successfully make transitions as a personal coach. She just took her CharityTensel.com  site online, so think of her next time you look in the mirror and realize it’s time for a change.