What's the point in blogging?

Read with brevity or just go “Bloggoff”

Blogs are not “articles” or written, re-written, edited and polished pieces of literature… They are hopefully, streams of thought that are honestly spoken from questioning and thinking bloggers. They are typed, posted and then "NOT" edited. Snippets of time. Like an ink journal you are sharing with others to hopefully and sometimes cathartic-ally learn about life from another perspective. I enjoy reading them from people I want to get more of life from. Those who I think I can glean something interesting or from. I think possibly we used to read daily editorials like this except they were and are edited and re-edited for time and content and syntax.

Articles and books sit in formulas of (filling space within set boundries till editors get them). I love the blog concept because I feel people are more honest, no one’s getting paid, mass employers are not “yet” hiring and firing from them like is happening in the FB world of S. Networking. I guess the honesty in blogging will end soon and some other virtual underground “Ap” will allow transparency to continue without fear or taxation.

Over the last few years there have been those who’ve contacted me and told me I should not be so transparent on issues and things in my blogs while working in the church movement. I think that’s exactly what the church needs.

I love the contact from others who are inspired and motivated and moved to desire to seek and be real in Christ, are the ones I want to care about. Bring me the prodigal not the Presbyterian. Unfortunately I’ll relate to one better than the other. I wonder who Jesus would rather hang around, to love on…

Do you find yourself skimming a lot of self-help books and thinking “geeze” did they have to take 200 pages to say – re-say – re-phrase and re-tool something over and over, that they could have taught and explained in 20 pages?

Now there are those that will look up and realize I’ve not quoted a scripture yet and therefore disregard this all as tripe. So sad…

I shared Christ to a young man the other night at 1AM on Facebook IM.

Someone I met years ago and watched grow up. Who hated parents, loved to fight and party and get high and smoke. I used to invite him to my backyard firepit cigar nights and we’d talk “real” about life and if possible – and if it went that direction- we’d talk about faith as well. He knew who I was. He knew my kids.

Many would say I was a bad influence on him. I would never offer him an adult beverage, but he on occasion would show up with one of his own like a badge of pride and I’d just smile and let him know where to throw a can.

Well, the other night out of nowhere I get a Facebook message from him. He lives in another state and is going for a dbl major in a college. And what do you think he contacts me to discuss? Cigars? Heck no. LIFE and how to navigate it.

Faith and how do I live it in an environment that is totally contrary to faith. How to navigate anti God people without turning them away from faith but sowing seeds of faith into them while they hate you? What denominations are good and why? Girls? Sex? Forgiveness, Lust, Rules, Commandments, Legalism, and Condemnation….

Well my fingers were burning, and you know what I realized very quickly?

My vocabulary for this young man (as hip as I might think I am) is so immersed in Christian speak that I had to erase and re-think many of my pat religious answers to simple and complex questions.

Hmmm. There it is.

When my day to day answers begin to have Greek, Hebrew, Aramic, mulit-sylabic Christian catch word foundations to my answers… I’ve become good for no one but my friends and fellow scholars. (OK forget it – I’m not a scholar, I take that back).

(this is a blog not a book – we are thinking and typing – remember J )

So somewhere after 2AM I said goodnight to my young friend. Jane was sleeping next to me with a light rumble and I lay there with HD cable on in the background as I prayed for this friend. Thanking God that He had trusted me enough to get close and real with him, so that later on he’d feel free to talk to me when he was ready to start a life dialogue. I have friends I’ve been waiting for these conversations with now for decades.

Much of this reminds me of being 15 again. I had just accepted Christ as my Savior alone in my room. I then baptized myself in a lake while fishing and prayed for the infilling of the Holy Spirit in my room. I wanted it all --- every gift of God from the Holy Spirit. I read the bible all day and night like a sponge. I was at odds with the trad. Church for not sharing “salvation” to me but just my neighborhood local church denominational “religion” and it’s set do’s and don’ts.

I was a radical. Abrasive and abusive. BUT. I did do it all in LOVE not judgment because I hadn’t learned that yet from the church. I just wanted people born again because I was so changed and happy and “found not lost” . I wanted people to experience that. Not because of a small group class or a book or a sermon series but because MY LIFE WAS CHANGED. Dear God I so still want that to be the only reason I share you with the world…

So back to my being 15.. Then I met this really cool priest at a Catholic Church.

Not being Catholic, he was a departure for me but I figured with his youth, passion and schooling, I could be honest with him about my frustrations of a lost world in need of Jesus.

What did he do for me that I still think about to this day? Not what you’d think and no priest jokes are necessary here…

We’d go play tennis and I’d rant about the church and how it’s not doing it’s job to share Christ as Savior and on and on. And I’d quote scripture at him about baptism and transliteration and the gift of tongues and and and… And what would he do. Over and over he’s hit the ball across the net or serve and say. “Craig F—kin lighten up would you. “ This priest would just say the craziest things about life and balancing life. Never heard him curse otherwise, just on the tennis court when he was trying to get me to “lighten up and relax” about my passion for the lost. Now I’m not suggesting any of us begin that method. It is not a word in use in my vocabulary, however His being “real” to me and honest and 0pen as a minister had a profound effect on me over the rest of the clergy I was surrounded with who seemed aloof, afar, untouchable, unreachable, over educated and over fed and I couldn’t get an hour of their time. I was only 15 and I could see the difference.

So is that what I’ve become? Do I relate to only those close to me, those in my narrow world? Do I without knowing, push all others away by my looks and speech and relate only to that 15 years older/younger window that Barna speaks of?

So here we are 2011, social networking is taking over all forms of communication in less than 300 characters. We’ve learned from media to speak in soundbytes.

Conventional books are going away. Newspapers already have. It’s monetary driven…78’s, 33’s, LP’s , Cassettes, CD’s, Dats, .wav, .aiff , mp3’s.. What goes by the wayside next in art and communication? Moving backgrounds on broadcasts have so rapidly taken over that even a static 100k HD camera shot looks boring after 10 seconds. How does this affect how we share a living faith to a world of God’s children looking to find and re-connect to Him.

Blogs, what about blogs? Will people still find ways to communicate without all the visual or aural stimulation? Will it be only phones to text and communicate from. Will Tweets be as intimate as we go. Will video compressed video blogs be next. It will be 3D for a while I’m sure. In all of it, are we remaining approachable and relatable and is the fruit of a life of faith actually coming out of us to the world around us or only to those we think matter or might judge us?

What if I actually blogged all the negative and or dark thoughts from a bad day or encounter. Exposed all the sins I’m aware of that no one talks about… What would you do. Dis-respect me. Run away. Post it all online and say “Craig really is not who he says he is”. Would that make you feel better about your own issues? Well don’t worry, I have no big issues… I’m just like everyone elseJ

Ask my mom.. perfect in every way.

Read my blog and you’ll see me in soundbytes about love, arts , nature and how it relates to faith. You just might see you here too…