As this is the start of a new year, a new start is in order for my blogging situation. No, this is not going to be a sappy posting about a New Year’s Resolution to fufill. Nevertheless, I have not posted to my blog since August of 2009, an almost 6-month dearth of postings. Dearth means an inadequate supply; scarcity; lack: as in “There is a dearth of good writing and consistent postings, numbskull.”
Believe it or not, I really, really love to write! In the way an artist catches his breath in the stroke of brush to canvas or when a musician massages the instrument and finds that perfect chord sequence, I gather exquisite joy from putting quill to parchment (or rather fingers to the keys of my Mac) and parsing word and phrase and nuance to create an expression of myself. Me in Blog form!
If this is so, you may ask yourself, why oh why the almost 6-month dearth (there is that word again) of a blog posting?
The answer is really very simple: Guilt.
Let me explain.
A long time back, I mean back a really long time early last year, I made a commitment to an excellent friend to help rewrite a study guide for a college church history class. Not a daunting project by any stretch of the imagination, just time consuming. And time has consumed much and I have only finished half of the project, despite numerous protestations of completion. My excellent friend is gracious and long-suffering and truly believes that I will finish the project. Which I will!
But 12-hour days and lots of hard work and less sleep conspire against me. I am sure many of you are familiar with the phrase, “The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak.” I embody that phrase. This is not whining, just the truth. “Just the facts, ma’am, Just the facts.”
This leads me to the guilt thingy. Since I cannot seem to keep to a consistent schedule of question writing, I put it off and keep putting it off and keep putting it off. This naturally leads to me not doing the thing I really love: writing. I, in good conscience, cannot blog about anything in my leisure time because this giant church history book sits there looking at me, begging to be read and questioned and dissected. Kinda like that semi-creepy Geico stack of money with giant eyeballs.
IT SEES ME!
Enter my good friend, Barbara from California. She, of recently starting her own blog, Facebooked to me,
“So I check and check and Jeff is not posting on his blog...no musing, no meandering mind gems...sigh........sigh.......
I responded with the guilt thingy and she said…
“OK! Sit down and LISTEN TO ME. (well -- read this, anyway) Writing begets writing...guilt dries up the creative stream....I KNOW you know this. Blog about the course you are rewriting! Surely there must be SOMETHING that made you ponder as you read it to rewrite it. Thinking and writing GIVE you energy. Guilt and procrastination drain you! I KNOW you know this!!!!!
I responded, “Yes I do know this. Thank you for the verbal swift kick in the pants. I will do my best to turn the tap on and try to post something by the weekend! Good start to your blogging career!
What friendship had wrought in me! As I looked back to my productive stretch of question writing, I saw that I had indeed done a number of postings at the same time. Maybe Barbara was on to something!
So this is the first posting of the year and will not be the last. I have had something ruminating around in my grey matter for some time and will work to put it into a series of postings. For the past couple of years I have been on an extraordinary journey of faith that I will relate in great detail and prosaic style.
I hope to see you (and read your comments) along the way!
Glad for Butt-Kicking Friends!
Traveler
