Year Four Commences

As Brother Maynard pointed out in the comments to the previous post, we spent my last evening in Winnipeg at the venerable King's Head Pub in Winnipeg's Exchange District.

I have many fond memories of the King's Head; it's where the Dead Pastors Society met in the late 90's, and it was also the site of the very first Theology Pub for the emerging gathering of Winnipeggers like Brother Maynard, Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Dan-D from Canada, Soul Pastor, and an assortment of other ecclesiastical vagabonds and subversives.

It's hard to believe that I'm entering my fourth year of blogging, while at the same time, Andrew Jones, the famous/infamous Tall Skinny Kiwi, has declared a blog fast for the month of September. Andrew has always been a fave rave here, and reading his list of reasons for proclaiming a season of fasting from his blog was actually inspiring, in a thought-provoking sort of way.

Three points of Andrew's that especially stood out:

"Because my blog is old and tired and not nearly as much fun as it used to be. I want to be re-inspired and invigorated."

I can really identify with Andrew's thoughts here. While my life has been enriched by the online community that I have encountered in my first three years of blogging, of late I've been feeling that my own blogging has a sort of "same old" quality to it, which frustrates me. I like the positive, "life-side" that Andrew focuses on: being "re-inspired and invigorated". That's really what I'm feeling the need for.

"Because the quality of my blog posts has decayed...and I need to raise the bar."

Again, I can relate. I've been feeling more and more that my own writing has been less than what I had hoped, and I'm not happy with that. And, to be as honest as Andrew has been (as he once again leads the way in blogdom)...

"Because I have become infatuated [again] with my stats and my blog authority and google-ranking..."

OUCH! But true. Andrew is struggling with the sheer numbers of people linking to him, which is causing problems. While I, on the other hand, have the opposite problem of watching my own "ranking" plummeting like a lead-filled lemming off the proverbial blogging cliff. Either way, it's the same disease of measuring our worth by our blogging audience, and as Andrew sums up, it's "a form of idolatry and narcissism that can only be harmful."

I've had a few thoughts about the direction of my own blog before the summer began, and several other conversations (on and off-line) have added impetus to that re-thinking; Andrew's post continues to challenge me in that area. So, over the next few days and weeks, I hope to be able to put into words some of the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head for the past several months.

Andrew, thanks for being such a helpful challenge, even by your reasons for silence.