Many times when looking at the quality of other blogs I realized I was a pauper among princes. No deep insights, no profound pronouncements, just a melancholy man trying to express the often inexpressible. I am in practice a very private man. I am slow to trust and quick to back off. Yet I found myself putting my life on public display. Vanity? Insanity?I quickly discovered the hidden cost of blogging. The blog took over, leading to vanity, to skewed priorities. Often I wrote hoping for a large response. Thankfully the groundswell of adulation never materialized. My vanity, my pride would have only tempted me to seek more. For the first time in my adult life writing offered no relief.
It got to the point that even looking at the blogs I usually perused became something I had to cast aside, if only temporarily. It all was taking up too much of my time. Time that should have been used in prayer, or learning to love those who hate me, or in seeking my salvation.
Also, I let myself get caught up in moving and spending all my free time addressing the many needs of a 50-year-old house. Perhaps I was searching for a geographical cure. But I am still a sojourner so I will try to post entries more regularly.
3 comments:
Many times when looking at the quality of other blogs I realized I was a pauper among princes. No deep insights, no profound pronouncements, just a melancholy man trying to express the often inexpressible. I am in practice a very private man. I am slow to trust and quick to back off. Yet I found myself putting my life on public display. Vanity? Insanity?
I know exactly what you are talking about. And blogging does take up a lot of time. I often wonder to myself "what would life be like without the internet?"
Some things cannot be quantified, and though I have not commented on your blog, I am often deeply touched by what you write, and admire your courage and humility. I think those who appreciate your writing the most also tend to be a bit on the ghostly side, and don't always make their presence known. I appreciate that you are not chatty and that what you have to say is something that has been pulled up from the depths. And I appreciated your eyes wide open way of looking at the world, that probably scares the bejeebers out of many people, because it is not a prelude to a "all shall be well" mentality, or that faith gives people the ability to not only survive, but to thrive in the face of any circumstance.
With God all things are possible, but people rarely want to look at the before picture, and would rather learn the story after the happy ending has taken place.
It's refreshing not to read yet another person making apologies for God for the suffering and pain visited on the most helpless and innocent ones in this world....don't get me wrong; your writing is not devoid of hope and gratitude either. If anything, you stand in solidarity with those who may have lost hope, and may help them to give it one more try.
Your survival, and the healing that God is working in your life through the Orthodox faith, also gives hope to those who thought there was no healing to be found for wounds often too deep for words.
Please keep writing, as time permits, and know that you have some kindred souls out here who are looking for someone to speak the unspeakable, with hope.
Thank you for your kind words of encouragement.
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