Post 1701: Deconstructing the blogosphere
Spring semester is over and I am entering a new phase of my life (more on that below). For the first time in my life I have strep infection and am home from work for three days. The illness isn't fun but being home is a blessing, because I am able to separate myself from the demands of work and reflect.
I put the number 1701 above because this is my 1701st post on this blog, and there are about 160 on my other blog. Due to work constraints I was not able to write much in the last month or so and I plan for that to change, and I want to re-ignite this blog and its mission now.
But, WHY?
Christianity Today is running a series on this subject, more or less, and there was a link to this article by Beth Moore: https://blog.lproof.org/2017/04/personal-branding-conversation.html It's worthy reading, whether you are a Beth fan or not. I go back and forth, but she is the hottest and biggest thing around so she has a lot of wisdom here. She states toward the end:
"It would be unspeakably better for us to drop into obscurity than sell our souls. We may have to make the biggest sacrifice in our entire social media culture: we may have to settle for being unknown."
Yes. This goes back to the WHY question. Does my voice need to be on the blogosphere? Do I have something to say, not just because of who I am, but to other people? I might think what I write is great, and it is, I hope, theologically true and relevant, but is it of value to others and not just my branding, my self-sales, my feeling important, my wanting likes or followers or hits or whatever.
As the CT article says, this is a huge problem women in ministry struggle with, and I consider myself a women in ministry, although not very good at it.
The strep infection has forced me to slow down and re-evaluate how much stress I have been under, because I fear I have a weakened immune system. That is due, WedMD tells me, to lack of rest, too much stress, not eating enough antioxidants, and eating too much simple sugar. I am guilty of all of those, so changes are in store. The first change is to say no to all the people who flatter me with requests for involvement in things I cannot manage and have little value. The end of this semester is a good time for me to rethink all this.
So, if the point of this blog is to have value, I trust that you too will re-evaluate the stressors in your life to increase your immune system, which may be weakening without your even knowing it. It can take years for those inputs to become the output of illness. I also trust that in the coming days I will put posts of spiritual and intellectual/aesthetic value on here for readers.
I put the number 1701 above because this is my 1701st post on this blog, and there are about 160 on my other blog. Due to work constraints I was not able to write much in the last month or so and I plan for that to change, and I want to re-ignite this blog and its mission now.
But, WHY?
Christianity Today is running a series on this subject, more or less, and there was a link to this article by Beth Moore: https://blog.lproof.org/2017/04/personal-branding-conversation.html It's worthy reading, whether you are a Beth fan or not. I go back and forth, but she is the hottest and biggest thing around so she has a lot of wisdom here. She states toward the end:
"It would be unspeakably better for us to drop into obscurity than sell our souls. We may have to make the biggest sacrifice in our entire social media culture: we may have to settle for being unknown."
Yes. This goes back to the WHY question. Does my voice need to be on the blogosphere? Do I have something to say, not just because of who I am, but to other people? I might think what I write is great, and it is, I hope, theologically true and relevant, but is it of value to others and not just my branding, my self-sales, my feeling important, my wanting likes or followers or hits or whatever.
As the CT article says, this is a huge problem women in ministry struggle with, and I consider myself a women in ministry, although not very good at it.
The strep infection has forced me to slow down and re-evaluate how much stress I have been under, because I fear I have a weakened immune system. That is due, WedMD tells me, to lack of rest, too much stress, not eating enough antioxidants, and eating too much simple sugar. I am guilty of all of those, so changes are in store. The first change is to say no to all the people who flatter me with requests for involvement in things I cannot manage and have little value. The end of this semester is a good time for me to rethink all this.
So, if the point of this blog is to have value, I trust that you too will re-evaluate the stressors in your life to increase your immune system, which may be weakening without your even knowing it. It can take years for those inputs to become the output of illness. I also trust that in the coming days I will put posts of spiritual and intellectual/aesthetic value on here for readers.
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