No Quote
I have to admit that when I started this blog I had originally wanted to see if I could pull these thoughts into a single, cohesive book format and see if I could get it published. I realize that the quality is not up to even my standards, but I would have been crazy to think that they would be up to a stranger’s standards, but I would say that being a writer is Dream Job #1. But as I explored the options I had uneasiness about it. Then when I realized that I would probably have to self-publish I knew that it wouldn’t work out. Not only did I not want to spend the money on publishing it with the knowledge that I would probably not make any money in the process, but the idea of having to market my own work went against the very things that caused me to want to write it in the first place. I thought that a blog would be great. I write what I want to write and not worry about how people responded to it. What developed was a journal that helped me work through some thoughts about my own faith. Knowing that it would be online helped keep me accountable to really think through it, but knowing that it was likely that no one would read it kept it personal. Because my goal was to write with the highest degree of integrity possible, I never installed a stats component. I would go back to it occasionally to see if anyone posted a comment, but I was unsure if anyone else was reading it. This gave me a lot of peace about it. Through this blog I have worked through my problems with the institutional church to deconstruction and a new word I just learned, polydoxy.
However, this past month sometime, Blogspot added a stats tab that gave me the opportunity to see how many times my blog was viewed and which country it was viewed from. After my last entry I was curious and went to see how many times my blog was viewed. I was not surprised that it didn’t break the stats counter, but I was disappointed. Quickly I realized that all of the sudden I was hoping that my blog was a success. I had never felt that before. This happens to coincide with my 40th titled entry. I have many more entries than that, but many are broken into parts. I have been doing this for over a year and have worked through many of my initial issues. Now I am to a place where I find myself writing for the blog. This doesn’t necessarily contradict with its intentions, but doesn’t necessarily jive with them either. So here I am, asking myself why I should continue to keep the blog. Who am I doing it for? What do I hope to gain from it? How do I avoid criticizing religious environments that I may soon find myself in? And even though I consider myself still in “recovery,” what is going to be the point of the blog now that I am no longer critical of the church, but critical of Christianity with renewed devotion to Christ?
Keep writing bro. I Love stopping buy, and its the unfliteredness that makes it interesting. Besides you chose the Academic rout, and one important choice that contains is your self relegation to relative obscurity (I'm making that choice as well), knowing that the popularizers will come along and bring your work into the mainstream someday, maybe even hundreds of years from now. That's theirs to do, this is ours to do..... So live from your calling!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chuck. Keep writing!!!
ReplyDeleteAppreciated, but here's the thing. If I am going to maintain the integrity of which I strive to see in my own faith as I discuss in this little blog, then I must be willing to stop the blog. My concern is not that it is good or not (of that I already know), but that if keeping the blog and secretly hoping that I will experience some form of success through it then everything that I "process" in the blog is hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your longing for intentional perfection, but is it really possible to live without some level of mixed motives. I'm immediately reminded of Martin Luther, who while confessing to his confessor that even his confessions were sinful because he longed for salvation and that was of course a selfish motivation thus sinful. The response of the confessor - Martin, Go out and Commit a real sin, then we will talk. Eventually Luther would say "Sin Boldly so that Grace may Abound all the more" Certainly he didn't mean we should embrace immorality he was just kind of saying lighten up, it is what it is. So my advice - commit hypocrisy boldly, so that grace and truth will abound all the more.
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