Responding to Melissa's Blog Question July 21

I wanted to respond to Melissa’s question since I have a blog that I haven’t posted to since last October. First I thought I should mention why I do (or did) feel like blogging.

When I was traveling every week to Texas and back, I hoped it might be a way to stay rooted with my real life while my body was physically removed from my family and the routines of life in Indiana slowly started to fade. The nature of the season was temporary, leading ultimately to life back in California, so the whole period was to be an adventure I could write about.

So for the reasons I haven’t blogged for the past nine months, here are a few:

1. Life gets busy. When I was “living” in my apartment in Texas, the idea of writing everyday seemed doable. It was for a while, but my trips became shorter and less frequent, and the whole travel thing was more sporadic and unpredictable, with recovery periods lasting a long time and the guilt of tasks left undone or time spent with family always taking precedence.

2. What to choose to write about? As weeks pass by, I become frustrated that I can’t capture each enjoyable experience before the next one comes along. The kids will say or do something worthy of cherishing forever, and then it’s gone. I’ll read a passage in one of my books or devotions, underlining or asterisking like crazy, and then I turn the page and forget to share it. I’ll watch a movie, or hear a song, or feel like basking in the weather and wanting to somehow describe it to somebody far away, and then I arrive at my destination, and I forget.

3. Privacy. When I was traveling to Texas I was careful not to say where I actually lived, lest I lead some online predator to my fatherless family. Also, I was careful, maybe paranoid, about getting too specific about my kids, their ages, where they went to school, or something, and simply kept everything I wrote safe or vague. I know there’s nothing fun about reading a blog that doesn’t somehow give the reader a glimpse into the author’s private thoughts or insights, but I was guarded, and probably overly so.

4. Anonymity. I really didn’t think anybody was reading, and frankly I don’t think I ever told anybody that I had a blog at all. Apparently Melissa had a link to it, and at least one person was reading the blog which I figured out when I ran into a friend at Bella Vita (oh no, did I just share a specific place?) and he said he’d read the last posting about bottled water. I was totally convinced nobody had ever seen it.

So these are the answers that come to mind, and just writing them causes me to want to have a do-over and give it another chance.

Schedule time for blog posts

I realize that I'm not fully taking advantage of this blog. I had all the best intentions, but I've spent nearly all of my time lately enjoying the presence of my family, diving into the new job and spending hours getting up to speed, or traveling to and from work. There are only a couple times typically when I might stop to assemble blog-worthy thoughts, and regretfully it's either when I am lying in bed at night or when I'm captive on a plane. In any given day there are dozens of situations that lead to streams of memories, spontaneous prayers of thanks to God for his goodness and grace, and sometimes new ideas. Even the one-sided conversations that I have in my mind could find some resolve in such posts, but instead they remain frustratingly imprisoned and doomed to be forgotten. So I haven't figured out when or how to consistently disengage from these moments and channel the inspiration into writing. I'll schedule time for it, which has worked for other worthwhile habits, and we'll see how it goes.

All Pro Dad Article Published

One of the things I believe God has called me to do is reach out to dads, or guys thinking about being dads, who might be considering adoption. All Pro Dad asked if they could republish my story from a couple years ago. I made some updates and it was sent out as the “Play of the Day” on September 7 to almost 31,000 e-mail recipients, mostly men. I’ve had some really great responses from dads who have adopted, and others who are currently contemplating the decision with their wives and can relate to some of the concerns that I addressed. Feel free to pass it along to anyone you know who might benefit.

Finally a blogger

I want to thank my wife, Melissa, for setting up this blog spot for me. Writing has long been an outlet for me but only privately; the benefit has been my own without an audience or the possibility of interaction. And yet I'm highly driven by, dependent on, and drawn toward other people.

So far I've merely inserted some of my journal entries from this past summer traveling back and forth between home and Fort Worth, Texas, where I've been working. I'll add more, but probably just new stuff unless something I've written before ties together nicely with something I'm thinking in the present.

In the spirit of C.S. Lewis' Shadowlands or N.T. Wright's metaphor, I hope that my story might be a mere echo, faint and flawed as it is, that leads you to the voice of the One telling the real and true story.