Let’s be clear, I am a Jesus lover, a professor of biblical studies and a serious academic but I like a mindless reality television series as much as the next girl—maybe more. After a long day of text criticism I enjoy coming home to watch fashion and friendship on parade. However, fond as I am of the shoes and bags and hair extensions, I am always troubled to the core by the catfights and the conflicts and the blatant disconnect between the lives of these Bravo housewives and women everywhere.

Regularly, I find myself wanting to write my own series about the women with whom I share my life. I want the world, or at least the Bravo viewing audience, to know that we are women who are of one Spirit, one baptism and one Lord. I want the world to know that we share love and grace and tragedy and laughter—that we shop, mourn, celebrate new life and hold hands through the good and bad and raw of this life. We are real women in Indiana coping with loss and battling our weight, women who are desperate to become mothers and women who are trying to keep home and family and career a float. Right here where I live we lunch and meet for coffee, we hit the occasional White House Black Market sale, we Zumba and we take meals to a local strip club after Bible Study on Wednesday nights.