Book details
Love, Auntie
Embrace a faith that makes room for all of us.
Where can we go when the world refuses to see us in our fullness? When culture reduces us to categories and stereotypes and even our churches make us feel like we don’t fit in? If we’re blessed to have an Auntie—someone who, like Jesus, welcomes us wholly and calls us beloved—then we have glimpsed the liberation and divine affirmation of sacred belonging.
Time and again, Aunties have offered a model for undoing, becoming, and embracing our identities and deepest beliefs. Auntie culture, particularly in Black spaces, is immediately recognizable as an embodied experience where nieces, nephews, and “niblings” feel safe, heard, and seen. Whether we are biological or simply beloved kin, Aunties welcome us in.
In Love, Auntie, Shantell Hinton Hill—aka Reverend Auntie—offers tender testimonies to a flock of loved ones who have been led to believe they do not belong. Through modern-day parables, prayers, and prompts for reflection, she invites readers to sit alongside the wisdom-bearing of Black women, lovingly known as Aunties, as they carve out space for doubts, questions, and spiritual expression that honor intersecting identities of race, gender, and class. Because trust and believe, Aunties always know how to turn mess into miracles.
Where can we go when the world refuses to see us in our fullness? When culture reduces us to categories and stereotypes and even our churches make us feel like we don’t fit in? If we’re blessed to have an Auntie—someone who, like Jesus, welcomes us wholly and calls us beloved—then we have glimpsed the liberation and divine affirmation of sacred belonging.
Time and again, Aunties have offered a model for undoing, becoming, and embracing our identities and deepest beliefs. Auntie culture, particularly in Black spaces, is immediately recognizable as an embodied experience where nieces, nephews, and “niblings” feel safe, heard, and seen. Whether we are biological or simply beloved kin, Aunties welcome us in.
In Love, Auntie, Shantell Hinton Hill—aka Reverend Auntie—offers tender testimonies to a flock of loved ones who have been led to believe they do not belong. Through modern-day parables, prayers, and prompts for reflection, she invites readers to sit alongside the wisdom-bearing of Black women, lovingly known as Aunties, as they carve out space for doubts, questions, and spiritual expression that honor intersecting identities of race, gender, and class. Because trust and believe, Aunties always know how to turn mess into miracles.
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Foreword
Preface
From My Front Porch: An Invitation to Sacred Belonging & a Word about Auntie(s)
Sacred Belonging Commitment #1: Truth-Telling Is Spiritual Discernment
1. To My Too Growns (People Who Have Sage Wisdom & Smart Mouths)
2. To My Hardheads (People Who Typically Learn the Hard Way)
3. To My Holy Rollers (People Struggling with Unhealthy Theological Ties)
4. To My Nephews (All Boys & Men)
Porch Talk: “Call a Thing a Thing” & Other Lessons from Radical Subjectivity
Sacred Belonging Commitment #2: Tribe Is Sanctuary
5. To My Babies and Fools (People Who Don’t Know No Better)
6. To My Beloveds (People Who Show Us a Better Way to Do Faith & Community)
7. To My Blessed Hearts (People Who Have Been Harmed or Just Do Stupid Stuff)
8. To My Seasoned Saints (People Ranging from Gen X to Boomers & Beyond)
Porch Talk: “We All We Got” & Other Lessons from Traditional Communalism
Sacred Belonging Commitment #3: Tears Are Salvific Work
9. To My Sugas (People Who Are Fragile and Flamboyant, Awkward & Awesome—aka Neurodivergents)
10. To My Niblings (Transgender, Non-Binary and Gender-Fluid People)
11. To My Love-Makers (People, Typically Women, Who Are Stereotyped as Promiscuous but Are Truly Just Self-Possessed)
12. To My Brave and Brazens (Generational Curse and Toxic Relationship Breakers)
Porch Talk: “I Found God in Me” & Other Lessons from Redemptive Self-Love
Sacred Belonging Commitment #4: Transfiguration Is Social Healing
13. To My Daughters and Deacons (People Who Pretend to Be, or Actually Are, Churchy)
14. To My Nieces (All Girls & Women)
15. To My Loud Cologne-Wearers (People Who Are Recovering Misogynists)
16. To My Whippers and Snappers (People Ranging from Gen Z to Millennials)
Porch Talk: “Make It Make Sense” & Other Lessons on Critical Engagement
A Benediction for My Sacred Belongings
Glossary (on Auntie's Terms)
Notes
The Author
Preface
From My Front Porch: An Invitation to Sacred Belonging & a Word about Auntie(s)
Sacred Belonging Commitment #1: Truth-Telling Is Spiritual Discernment
1. To My Too Growns (People Who Have Sage Wisdom & Smart Mouths)
2. To My Hardheads (People Who Typically Learn the Hard Way)
3. To My Holy Rollers (People Struggling with Unhealthy Theological Ties)
4. To My Nephews (All Boys & Men)
Porch Talk: “Call a Thing a Thing” & Other Lessons from Radical Subjectivity
Sacred Belonging Commitment #2: Tribe Is Sanctuary
5. To My Babies and Fools (People Who Don’t Know No Better)
6. To My Beloveds (People Who Show Us a Better Way to Do Faith & Community)
7. To My Blessed Hearts (People Who Have Been Harmed or Just Do Stupid Stuff)
8. To My Seasoned Saints (People Ranging from Gen X to Boomers & Beyond)
Porch Talk: “We All We Got” & Other Lessons from Traditional Communalism
Sacred Belonging Commitment #3: Tears Are Salvific Work
9. To My Sugas (People Who Are Fragile and Flamboyant, Awkward & Awesome—aka Neurodivergents)
10. To My Niblings (Transgender, Non-Binary and Gender-Fluid People)
11. To My Love-Makers (People, Typically Women, Who Are Stereotyped as Promiscuous but Are Truly Just Self-Possessed)
12. To My Brave and Brazens (Generational Curse and Toxic Relationship Breakers)
Porch Talk: “I Found God in Me” & Other Lessons from Redemptive Self-Love
Sacred Belonging Commitment #4: Transfiguration Is Social Healing
13. To My Daughters and Deacons (People Who Pretend to Be, or Actually Are, Churchy)
14. To My Nieces (All Girls & Women)
15. To My Loud Cologne-Wearers (People Who Are Recovering Misogynists)
16. To My Whippers and Snappers (People Ranging from Gen Z to Millennials)
Porch Talk: “Make It Make Sense” & Other Lessons on Critical Engagement
A Benediction for My Sacred Belongings
Glossary (on Auntie's Terms)
Notes
The Author
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Praise for Love, Auntie
“In a world where we all wish to belong, we rarely have the gift of truth-tellers naming how hard it can be to truly find community, love, and compassion. Rev. Hinton Hill gives us a window into her soul in Love, Auntie. Her transparency reminds us that we are not alone, and the parables and prayers assure us that belonging is a journey, not a destination. She guides us through the highs and lows of our search for belonging and assures us that we matter. Run, don’t walk, to your local bookseller to pick up this book.”
Rev. Dr. Gabby Cudjoe Wilkes, pastor and author of Psalms for Black Lives: Reflections for the Work of Liberation
“The concept of sacred belonging is a gentle and warm call toward love. Even if you’ve never met Shantell Hinton Hill, you can feel her evolution throughout this book. Love, Auntie is a tender hug after what feels like an excruciating decade for this country and its people. I cannot wait for the world to receive this book with open hearts.”
Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, author of For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color and Tías and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us
“Rev. Shantell Hinton Hill’s Love, Auntie is a practical, prayerful, and powerful invitation into the fullness of our God-given humanity through community, justice, and faithful curiosity. Hinton Hill reminds us that vulnerable leadership is powerful, and she shares her own experiences—pains she carries, mistakes she’s made, transformations she has undergone, skills she has developed—in a practice of caretaking and wisdom-sharing. What an absolute gift: this book is part memoir, part devotional practice, and one hundred percent a Womanist companion for building justice and faithfulness simultaneously.”
Lyndsey Godwin, program operations coordinator at SACReD Dignity and adjunct professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School
“Shantell Hinton Hill’s Love, Auntie is a necessary and bold love letter to all of us. It drips in gorgeous womanist insistence on the world we could have. Her moving linguistic artistry—which calls on us to tell the truth, discern what is, heal what can be healed, and survive and create sanctuary in the best and most radical ways possible—is beautiful and precise.”
Tamura Lomax, PhD, associate professor of religious studies at Michigan State University and author of Jezebel Unhinged: Loosing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture