To Blog, Or Not to Blog

I'm not entirely sure how long I've had this blog page set up here, but it's been a long time. And yet, every time I've come to blog, I go through this strange mental upheaval where I agonize over what to write, why to write, and who to write for. A friend of mine recently espoused a resentment for the idea of blogging, suggesting that it is somehow presumptuous to think that people should want to read what you have to say. I think this mindset hit the nerve which had for so long been irritating my ability to begin this blog, because I have to admit: I agree.

I've read blog after blog that seem to be nothing more than ill-conceived rants, or some person on a mission to advance the rights of animals or convert the omnivore to vegan or prove that Bush has a genetic link to Satan through his father's side. What sort of pretentious boobs must we be to think that our raving is going to somehow sway people to our way of thinking, or somehow build a platform for us to grow our army of precocious blunderers to a size befitting world domination on behalf of the endangered black-spotted desert owl? (it's a made up species, so don't google it ;-)

And yet something within me pushes me to write - to log my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs and questions, my convictions and concerns; and not just for myself, but for others to read and respond to. But why? Is it because I feel that I am somehow better than the majority of bloggers and writers, better than my fellow poets and bards? I must admit, I believe it is that thought that drives many of us to write, and has tempted me so many times before. We feel that somehow we are called to write because we have something important to say, as opposed to the masses of others who are but amateurs scratching and biting to make a name for themselves in a world that they have no place in. But no, that is no reason to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, for in truth we are no better, nor do we have more to say. Ours is but a line within a scene within a much bigger play, and we cannot perceive what gravity our part may bear out.

It is, however, for this reason that we must write, that we must create, that our words and existence bear weight and meaning. While we cannot paint the grand design, the stroke of our lives is what makes the whole a masterpiece, however minuscule and minor or grandiose and bold the stroke may be. It may be pretentious, a presumption of nobility to suggest that we have something to say, but in truth we would not exist were it not for our necessity as part of the grand design.

This is not a necessity born of importance or ability, but one of nuance and complexity, for we know not what our part may be, only that it exists. What impact might our existence perpetrate on the world? What seemingly insignificant happenstance could bear eternal fruit, or what supposedly important events lie forgotten in the dust of time? We cannot know, nor should we presume to suggest that we could. It is for this reason that we share, for this purpose that we join the grand narrative of life with our brief paragraph of testimony. For to withhold what we have seen, what we have undergone, is to presume that we have no place, that ours is the role of the audience doomed to watch the play from the anonymity of the cheap seats, our role surrendered to those less inhibited by decorum or common sense. To remain silent is to presume that we have seen the whole and not the part, and to suggest that we need not partake therein.

Perhaps it seems pretentious to add our stories when there is such a great mass of stories to behold, but I say that it is more pretentious to bite our tongue when there are within us tales of grief and woe, of joys and victories that do not belong to us alone, but to all who could be blessed and encouraged and challenged by our testimony of God's goodness and provision. For in reality it is His story - a story of hurt and healing, of death and rebirth, of loss and restoration - that we find ourselves in. A story that, while we did not write it, we have a role in, and it is a role that would not exist were it not for the beauty and completeness that it brings to the narrative. So I choose to speak, to share, to join in the song of the redeemed with a harmony that is entirely my own in a desire to enjoy my place in the story and not miss out on the beauty of the intricacy of the tale we find ourselves in.