Reflections on Lent, April 9, 2014: To Blog or Not to Blog

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The act of blogging needs to be interrogated itself.  Why do I keep coming here and typing my words into the vast abyss of cyberspace?  Why do all the hits I get involve the same five or six blog posts?  One of them is clearly spam; some are clearly because students have been asked to write a paper on a subject and they are looking for sources; one is about my disorder.  I guess that's good, it's what I'm known for, but I hope I am being cited for that scholarly work, which is legitimate.

Anyway, I have been thoughtful and low recently, due to stress, due to a sinful reaction to something, due to a class I am taking, due to realization of my age and my mother's frailty, and due to a student's suicide this week.  A sweet, generous young man, a Christian.  No one seemed to know he was so depressed.  Depression is real.  We don't understand it.  It must be taken seriously.

I am going to write about the phrase "a relationship with Christ."  I have never really felt like I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, although I love and follow him and know he is the center of the universe (not just mine).  I have a friend who values relationship, but doesn't listen to the other person.   I think, truly, that we idolize relationship, we treat relationship as a god, as a goal in itself.  If the relationship hides us to the other person, we have missed the point.  The object is not relationship, it is the "Other."  Same thing with worship; the worship experience is not the goal, but the person being worshipped.  It  may seem like I am splitting hairs, but I don't think so.


Comments

fourkid said…
I don't think so either, Barb. These are very good points and will keep me thinking for some time.
Blessings,
Patti
1:03 PM
Barbara G. Tucker said…
Thanks, Patti. When I say I don't feel like I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, what I mean is that it is not the intense experience other people talk about. I have always found that terminology confusing, is what I am trying to say, not that we should not follow, worship, trust, love, obey Christ.
1:12 PM
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