Removing all doubt

This is actually my second attempt at blogging, though I have to admit, my first attempt was... quite lame. A friend of mine encouraged me to get a blog, I set it up, and promptly ignored it for the past few months.

A big part of this was laziness. I mean, there are better ways to use the Internet, like reading German newspapers or watching soccer highlights or listening to random MySpace music (shameless plug: check out my friend Ben's band, the Northernness at www.thenorthernness.com). Sometimes I feel like I have an SUV of a brain, burning intense mental energy and then needing all night to recharge. I could be reading, watching TV, phoning a friend. Heck, now that I am in a metropolitan area surrounded by thousands of like-minded young people, my social life is really starting to take off. I could be tasting foreign beer in a pub discussing exotic cultures with peace corp graduates, re-nationalized missionaries and State Department bureaucrats.

However, I had better reasons for procrastinating. The Internet is democracy unveiled in all its naked glory. Everybody gets to say what is on there mind, which is a power we don't use very well. I remember being excited about a website forum sponsored by a Christian magazine. I thought it would be a chance for edifying discussion with a world-wide community of faith. I was disappointed when I read most of the posts. Many of them were very angry, and (I thought) unnecessarily so. Some of them were bad attempts of sophomoric humor. Not the intellectual Christian forum I had hoped for.

What struck me about most of the posts was how familiar they were. Poisonous cynical comments, crude jokes, unnecessary anger - all of them had been in my mind, have, in my (dare I say) most authentic times, leaped from my tongue and have found their ways my own pen and keyboards. Sensible expression, praise, humor and criticism are art forms I am barely learning. I guess I had thought, to butcher a famous quote, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to start a blog and removing all doubt.

The lure and fear of blogging is exposure. I want friends and strangers to know me, to know the thoughts and opinions I am not always able to give orally. However, I am also afraid they will know poor writing skills, bad spelling and grammar. I am more afraid they will know opinions and words they may be hurtful, offensive and best left unsaid.

So why have I started a blog? Well, when enough people at the same time encourage me to do something I have secretly wanted to do, it is likely I will do it. Several people within a weeks time encouraged me to write a blog. And heck, I like to write, and I could use the practice.

Yet there is a deeper reason too. My mind works like a swarm of bees. It is healthy for me, mentally and spiritually, to focus my thoughts on something. A blog will give me a forum to express myself spiritually in a controlled way. The fact that others may actually read this will curve the raw and disorganized emotion my journals have to suffer (though has its time and purpose).

I hope in a small way I can worship with this blog. I hope I can sort my thoughts about the world around so I better understand how Jesus has been good to me. I cannot escape the Christian notions of Agape and sovereignty. I hope this helps me record it, examine it and know it.

So here is my blog, written pieces of who I am, being somewhat self-indulgent, and, of course, removing all doubt.