Take the blog out of my eye first...

Some great posts out there about blogging: HT to Jase, Cynthia and John.  Some great posts about why not to blog as well: HT to Molly and Andrew.

Which in itself is the best arguement I can put forward for blogging - 5 people, different styles, thoughts, angles, approaches all sparking off a cascade of thought-action in me...

Blogs are like my ipod in shuffle mode - i never know what song is next, some i'll hear and think not in the mood now, others I'll go, oh yeah i forgot i had this, some i'll listen to just as a discipline against the skip on/impatience in me and others are just so joyeously right that they might get repeated again a few times.  I have a certain type of music I prefer, but often blogs like my musical style is quite ecclectic - exploring other people's fave blogs is one of my fave pass times - heh you heard this band/blog? Nope but if you like em i'll give em a listen and maybe they'll make it into my pod on a regular basis (hence my attempts to flesh out on my own fave blog list something of the essence of the blog, in a playful fun way i hope)...

That all said, for me, I'd just like to unpack below 10 more thoughts on me and blogging...

I blog because...

1. it helps me thing - seriously i'm the same with talking, I often start with a vague idea/feeling and by the end of much blathering/writing something will have been expressed and shaped of who I am (no really :)...
2. it is a way of connecting with other people, it is a way of listening to other people - I really am not good a listener in real life but in blogsphere, i just can't help wanting to ask Qs and enjoying the fact that I won't be able to interupt the thoughts/answers coming back... having a blog is like the doorway into a whole world of blogging interaction, ok I don't need a blog to interact on other people's but i like to have a home space to invite people too and more to be able to personalise my thoughts, ranting isn't my style, but i do like being able to head off to tangent city for a reflective beer or 2.
3. I like to write, it is a discipline to try and find my voice/style and cos I seriously like looking at the screen and saying heh I wrote that - call it artists pride :)
4. I like the chance to H(at) T(ip) to other people, to be able to promote and reference and link with other people - there is something real great I think about just being able to give away my space and share that with folk.  I love it that it is optional as well, people don't have to click on a link if they don't want too, it's just there if they feel like jumping down a rabbit hole...
5. I like finding out things about me - i've just found out that I am an unpacker (HT to Mak) - apparently i say/do it a lot and just hadn't noticed...
6. so heh unpacking stuff and making a mess can be #6
7. I am good at unpacking my thoughts and making a mess but no so good at unpacking messy me - I feel challenged to put more of me out there so I am going to.  Once I move past my fear and the wondering of what the reaction will be - but again I am watching and interacting with other people who are doing it so cool...
8. people do comment, not a real deluge but it so good just having that interaction - I have challenged myself to say hello when I visit another blog and challenged myself to leave more questions on other people's blogs - i think it is a healthy discipline for me to get into rather than just sit round here watching my stats,
9. a big thank you - it really is an exercise in learning, learning how to be generous, gracious, listen, think, respond in a kind, encouraging, building way - i get to practice here and i'm grateful that people have let me practice with them on other sites
10. Last but not least, there is the whole connection with God and a diverse community of people who follow him - my faith life is richer, broader , deeper and more generous from encountering God in so many ways, through so many people and feeling the warm encouragement to do so myself. Awesome!

Comments

[Junelle]

Paul.

I had to find you. I really miss your good stuff! I think that you have an amazing ability to explain a thought and have it be convicting and really spiritually feeding at the same time. (Help your #3?)

I really like your thoughts of the BLOG. I guess I have looked back on what I have shared with amazement and horror. I think writing takes you right into the heart, you know, and sometimes I think I am not sure what is going to come out? I think that scares a girl like me!

I really liked #10. I think that I have been greatly influenced and encouraged and convicted and "high"(on Jesus ;) and depressed and tested...you know what I am saying...by following along a little group of christians on their collective pathway for a while.

I have to share though, that I am seriously afraid of the BLOG when it comes to my mormon family reading any of it. They are all so uptight with my husband and I choosing Jesus over "the church". I don't know if I should keep posting. Is it just fear? Are you ever afraid to write something? Or wish after you wrote that you wouldn't have? I think it is healthy to write. Truth is freeing. I think exposing dark and hidden beliefs to the light is what Christ came to do and encourages us to do. Why do I fear so much? Perhaps I should just spill it all out on them with a list of blog sights to visit (that I have posted on) and see if my father has a heart attack, my mother in-law never wants to see me or the grandkids or if the world does blow up? (really that is probably the worst that could happen?)

Is it self-editing or is it just fear?

I miss you!
Junelle

[molly]

Junelle...
Just come up with an online name...
Like, "Tall Blond Babe" or something... LOL...
Then you'll never have to worry about them finding you!!!

*sorry, can't help myself*

But a big yes, to you both, on writing like that exposing things in you... I think I'm really uncomfortable writing right now, becasue I know I am smack in the middle of a huge process...and that there is mixture there...mixture that I don't even know, can't even sort at this stage of the game...I worry about unknown angers infecting others...I wonder if it would be wiser to take up blogging again AFTER this process has worked it's way out a little bit, AFTER things are more sorted, AFTER some of the raw emotions are starting to heal a bit...?

But then I wonder...without this medium to think and process and interact with others, CAN I come out of this stage at all? lol...

Ugh. I hate being introspective. It's way more fun to just point the finger out and feel good about yourself by putting others down. (er, that was a joke, I swear)... :)

[Paul]

Clearly my secret name and identity didn't work if you have tracked me down Junelle... most think of something more secret than just my first name... hmmm Molls seems to be good with names so I'll leave it to her :)

Anywho great to hear from ya! Funny enough I can never get enough enthusiastic, honest, passionate posting round here - so you are very welcome, glad to know that I'm not the only one who writes and then looks in slightly baffled amazement - how the heck did i just say that.

I could have added an #11 that i go back and change on the you's to me's in any post - guess it has been one of the best mediums for me to actually apply stuff to me rather that to apply it to everyone else - after all it's me who often has the issue, just too easy to project!

And yes I am afraid a lot of the time, i mean it's one thing to stick thoughts about God out there but to reveal God working in the mess of me, well that's jus messy... I guess I am feeling challenged as I have lived by a mantra of the last few yrs to be honest myself with folk and not pretend i'm some sort of super sorted dude... afer all people have been honest with me and that inspires me to be honest, so i kinda feel like continue to live that out - besides i was an angry lustful manipulative git a lot of the time and that was no fun projecting a good image on the outside when rotting on the inside, no fun at all :(

But then again I guess what do I really have to loose :)

As for you J guess it's something to pray about and see where you are being prodded, maybe this is a God prod maybe it's just some kamikazee idea, heck, i do not know - altho are your parents likely to be searching google for your online presence???? Mine can barely turn on a pc :)

Warmly
Paul

[Paul]

Heh Molls, that's ok you're welcome to hang round here and unpack :)

I hear you though, it is strange sharing yourself with cyber space - i mean i find it helpful to share my thinking and i guess if you go back to the beginning of the blog there is probably a tone of anger/searching a feeling of something more but not knowing how to express it or how stuff in my life has been working with stuff in my faith...

Personally I find it a helpful space to work, interacting with folk is great and helps me as much as it challenges me - i guess i'm tired of figuring stuff out alone and just like the ability to take a thought and stick it up and see how people react - of course it's also taught me a lot about the whole sharing/shaping thoughts along the way - which in some ways is enuff to snap me out of bitterness and into positive engagement with the issue - unless i change my name to myra and start throwing pity parties - i mean even they can be therapeutic for a time, sometimes it is just good to be negative to realise how much positive there is - again i'm naturally positve (annoyingly so in fact) so even my deconstruction doesn't tend to get too destructive...

Anywho, back to your finger pointing ;)

[Joy]

You're an unpacker?? *surprise*

Paul,

I find that my thoughts, as they bounce around in my head, are unformed and incomplete. It's like stereo feature that plays the first few seconds of a track and skips to the next. But when I sit down and write (or talk with Cyndi, who is the only person I've been brave enough to talk about all this with) the thoughts play to the end and I can see the fullness of them. Sometimes I have to rewind and rewrite a few lines, but unless I sit down and put fingers to keys, they remain constantly skipping through my head, 3 seconds at a time!!

I have really enjoyed reading hear... and I am so glad to SEE Molly still out! I hope your time off from blogging is going well!! I know you are busy, none the less!!

BTW, shhh... but my IRL name is Kim. Joy is the thing I am looking for!

[Paul]

Well it came as a surprise to me - i think unpacker is a polite way of saying mess maker :)

Thanks Joy for stopping by - or would you prefer Kim? I'll leave it to your discretion, secret identities are one thing i am very familiar with :)

I'm with you, i like the discipline of writing altho i am not very disciplined, i like the way it makes me think and stay focussed on something for just a few moments more...

I'm far to much ipod shuffle in life :)

thank you both for such insight...I just need a new name! Why not?

You know, it is just the being real thing. I can be here at the computer in my sweats and tell who ever these pretend people are (because I don't really know if any of you are real - except Molly and she could have just been in some funky dream I had about a family from alaska in my backyard?! That was quite weird now that I write it out.) So if you are not real, I can share all the thoughts and ideas I have. If you are real, am I like Molly says, going to mess up someone on their journey with my messy beliefs or get my self in a heap of horse crap for letting loose on the mormons?

I think that it is the real thing. I wore a mask my entire adult life and I am just now remembering what it feels like to be a real "me". I am like a teenager again you know, just trying to figure it all out, and being really angry that I lost so much of my life and myself in those years! I am such a different person now. I was taught and conditioned to be and see and taste and feel a certain way and now that I am free...I have to decide what kind of eggs I like (you know?). That is my problem I am continually writing out of two of me. The mask and the free-face (there is a way better word for that, blah!) and I don't like it. I just want to be completely free in my Jesus to be what He sees me. Living with His glory all bursting out of me and no more fear! Isn't that what we are hoping for? Just to see Jesus in you and see Jesus in me and be encouraged and challenged to get up the next day and face the real battles? I don't want to construct a "me" again. Perhaps that's why we journey together, to kick the crap out of each other (intentionally, not intentionally, literally and figuratively)and get to the real thing. That is really what I need. Will you both kick the crap out of me?
Junelle

[Joy]

Junelle,

WHEN you do get your blog and your secret identity, please come visit and let me know!

"Joy" ;-)

[Cynthia Ware]

Paul,
Hey......you took the post right out of my mouth (I mean mind)!
Cynthia

Here's the thing Paul, does blogging just encourage us all to run the rabbit trails of self-thought and circle around and around and around? (I am actually an expert at circular thinking and rabbit trail excursions.)

Does writing about the christian path lead us somewhere or distract us from our real goal? Do I want to spend time thinking about my kingdom (thoughts, ideas, beliefs) and writing what I think about my kingdom, when it is like dust in the wind? Or are my thoughts being more surrendered (scraped with sand paper is more like it) to the Jesus-kingdom through listening to you and writing from my heart?

I hate rabbit trails. I am trying to lose my maps to these critter trails. Even reading in Romans can be like this. I get all caught up in some little snippet of what Paul is trying to say and lose my focus completely on what Jesus wants me to see. Then I run to see what "the message" says and I have someone tell me that "that bible is new age and full of occult thinking and can't be trusted" and I get so caught up in the mess of what I think about that that I have to call my pastor and then I have completely forgotten about Jesus altogether. I can't see Him when I look down at the trail. Do you get me?

Junelle :/

[Paul]

Cynthia, thank you, it's clearly a case of great minds think a like - which could be #12 on the list, reading people's posts and saying excellent i don't have to write that now, lol

But then again you were one of the originators for the above thinking, so maybe no surprise at all :)

[Paul]

J, honestly probably both at times - distratcting and impacting - it's one of the many reasons I married my wife, Debs is the best ok let's do something rather than just talk about it person I know - and heh us unpackers need someone like that...

For instance I have found that the more I have engaged in the emerging conversation the more practical i have found it to be, suddenly i had words and reference for explaining what I was doing/thinking/being - something like being missional was a concept that let me actually grasp and think about my community engagement, witnessing etc which in turn helped me to journey with God and move into a deeper and broader understanding - for instance I did the accoutns of a local Pride march - not cos I agreed with the lifestyle but cos I wanted to love people and serve them despite of that with no other motive other than to give (see where this thinking can get ya :)...

It's also been great therapy for me in many ways which is a good thing and I hope it has helped others along the way - a few voices sharing and echoing what many people are trying to feel...

On the other hand I have written some vanity pieces in my time, or got stuck in rabbit trails of my own making - to me i chart that up as learning and another reason i try and learn in a variety of community settings, it's good for someone to give my record player a nudge and get me out of the scratch...

I think when it comes down to it you know if it's helpful or not. Joy left a great comment of the impact of the emerging chuch on her and how liberating it was all feeling on a previous post and I guess if that is the impact all well n good. If it's leaving you all knotted and blocked up maybe you need to go round the circle and see whether this is the most helpful thang you can be doing right now...

[molly]

Man, this is a great conversation thread!

Junelle, I SOOOO know what you are talking about. I loved The Message and then heard about why it was so dangerous... It's like you can just see Jesus in something and then have someone spew all over it, you know...? Getting you all worked up and running around and off-focus, losing that "single" eye on Him...

To all... (musing wondering/wanderings):

And yet am I guilty of doing that same thing to others when I talk about what I like and don't like, when I share (for example) my frustrations with the traditional church, with the fundamentalism that I am coming out of? (Yes. I think so. And yet no, I don't think so. Both/and, how about).

Blah!

I have to say, though, that on the whole, being in this online conversation has been one of the most prodding stimulating things that has happened to me on my walk with God.

I would rather it took place in real life, to be in a community of beleivers where we could wrestle and talk and hash stuff like this out. That's what my three years in Bible College were like...a bunch of young adults (and some older ones) all stuffed in this community together, studying, living, and working together...it was incredibly difficult and incredibly wonderful, all at the same time.

When we moved, and got our little house far seperated from everyone else, etc...I missed that more than I realized I would. The community. The iron-sharpening-iron, the brotherhood and sisterhood of being in Family together, of actually living it as opposed to just talking about it...

So the conversation with my brothers and sisters via internet fills that void for me. It provokes me, prods me, angers me, chastises me, encourages me, warms me, scares me, lifts me... all of those things and more.

It's biggest danger (aside from the need for self-control so that I'm not online more often than I should be) is that it the internet world is only real in the sense of my "thought/inner" life. It is not real in the sense of having to commune with real flesh and blood.

I can just avoid those I don't *like* by not going to their blog, you know? Whereas I can't do that in my Real World, when Mrs. Suzy Annoying wants me to come over for tea, etc...

So the internet can cause "percieved" growth/maturity, I think, without actually stimulating "real" growth/maturity... WE have to be responsible to see that the inner thought-changes are allowed to be worked out in our own flesh and blood lives. (Er, it doesn't really matter if I'm "seeing Jesus" on the internet screen while batting away my preschooler who wants me to read him a story, ya know?).

Okay, time to go read the dang story... :)

The other thing I noticed, now that I am a little more familiar with the blog, is the vast array of thought or idea out there. I am amazed by what people will write. Wow.

However, I am not drawn to all of that. I can see peoples interests in things, heavens I am interesed in all kinds of funny things, but I am drawn to this. What ever you all are. (Seriously addicted to knowing the ways of God? Jesus Junkies?) Sounds silly?

I am drawn to the way Molly can share a thought about Jesus that makes me really wonder what I really think, and I really get wild when someone shares a verse or thought or poem (!) that makes my spirit sing, you know? To see my Jesus in a fresh new way? To see Him working in someone and loving on someone, I just love it!

Now that I have spent time on the path with you, I get the feeling of community. I am so new to the idea of family in Christ (I was sealed to generations of my family you know...and now it's very questionable if I will know any of them?) But I really can see how family in Christ can be built. That is a huge eye-openner for me. The flip side to what Molly said: I can go to church here and not talk to people, stay in my own world, and go home after worship. My own thoughts and personal time. Here, I am bombarded with all kinds of people. I am hearing the inner workings of many Christian minds all at once about all kinds of great topics. I have learned SO much about what others think and feel (and the big deal is the -- why!!!). It has helped me to trust this whole path of Christ more. These are real (in my head *ha*) people that are being and doing and going up and down the mountains and valleys with God, just like me. I am not alone?

You see Jesus in something and you share it with me. THAT is HUGE! I many times have no one to talk about Jesus with except myself! Thank you for writing all that you do. Thank you for being so honest and messy and using really big words. Thank you for stretching a newbie like me and helping me to see love displayed for HIS GLORY! Thank you for being so welcoming to a lonely pilgrim on this walk. Keep blogging and letting others like me see you walk through your talk.

Junelle "the lost nun in the underworld"

[molly]

Hey, that could be your sneaky online name...
Lost Nun in the Underworld
:) :) :P

Junelle, you are sharing and stretching and blessing right BACK, chick.

[Paul]

Very true Molls, it's important to work out the real from the unreal...

Maybe the solution to your condundrum is to be extra generous, extra postive, extra considerate towards the modern church, a moment of revelation for me was the thought that it takes all sorts of different churches to reach all sorts of different folks - and that means folk will find homes in the most interesting of nests, lol. Seriously it took a lot of the anger out of my sails and a lot of wail out of my rail that everyone must immediately be like me...

I think our lost nun is right that community can exist as anyone can wander by and disagree or see things a different way - it's in those moments where we get to choose to ignore or to engage, to blame or to embrace, to shout down or to listen, to be generous or grumpy...

At least Mrs X has to ask to come round, blogs are open to anyone to pop by and say what they like :)

And all the better for it, I say...