Because I Believe in Science

I’ve had a repeated and animated argument with someone very close to me about why I don’t agree with blogging. Personally, I’m just not a fan of public journaling.

Here’s my logic: you have an issue, work it out. Don’t journal your heart out for the world to see and then limp on through life as though now that you’ve told the invisible masses, you’ve either:

a. cleared your chest and can move forward guiltless and free,

b. have twisted the heart-strings of your readers and in response, someone will undoubtedly reach out to save you (because now that it’s admitted on the world-wide-web, it’s the responsibility of those very same invisible masses to come to your rescue), or

c. just seriously publicized your or a close friend’s break-up, make-out, pants-pee in science class, what-have-you and have embarrassed and exposed someone who is too shy to journal in a locked book hidden in a shoe box under their bed, let alone in front of the universe.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to think I’m not that big of a meanie and I do believe God reads blogs too (and actually responds to them, although probably not by commenting, but you get the idea). But really, I’ve always felt that there’s a time and a place for everything and spilling your guts on the internet as a means for personal therapy is just not one of them. That being said…

I’ve obviously been persuaded that value can be found in the written word in public forum and beyond just expression, most people aren’t out there journaling like 12 year-olds and those who are may be just that, 12. Or in very real pain. And when I think about it, I applaud them for sharing, because if nothing else, it’s real. A cry for help is better than no cry at all, right? There are also those amazingly wonderful bloggers who are out there initiating thought and discussion, and responding to pain instead of ignoring it and dorking around of facebook, which if I’m honest, takes up too much of my time.

So then, how do you actually start this? Clearly I’m not a word-mincer. In fact, I’m now feeling like I err on the side of harsh and possibly, if not probably, I will go back and re-write the entire beginning of this post. (Or at least will look back and want to once it’s posted. Especially since I don’t even really know how to work this thing and couldn’t go back if I tried).

My reality, and point (yes, I’m actually getting to one… I know, you were wondering there for a moment), is this:

At any given time, we are one of two things:

Lost or Wandering.

And I never, not once, not now, not ever, I repeat, NEVER get to judge which of those categories we fall into. I’m either lost, without God, unsure of the point of my life and the point of life in general. Or I’m wandering towards Him while He makes me more like Him. Team A or Team B.

Until death or Christ’s return, none of us is ever “there yet”.

So I can judge how public writing becomes an outlet for pain with no end or answer. Or I can remember that I had no answers, just a dung-heap of pain and questions, and then suddenly a Father who found me and gave me a path to wander while He worked (and works) things out in me…

Turns out what He’s working out today is that maybe I shouldn’t judge so much.

So now what I have is two things:

A big, fat crush on words, and a heart that finally, thankfully is not so much lost as wandering.

And thus begins a new path in the wandering…