cup a joe

A friend of mine from the "other side of the pond" has been prodding me to start writing again. I guess my last post about resurrecting this blog was a little premature. I meant well and I really want to start writing again...I just never seem to have the time to do it. I think it has a lot to do with self discipline, meaning that I need to be more disciplined in writing. (duh!)

I really enjoy writing and it is something that I would love to do. I have had several "words" spoken over me about writing books. I have tried to write books, stories, blogs, journals, etc, but keep running into the same problem...I run out of ideas to write about. I am always amazed and awed by those people who can keep up with their blogs on a daily basis. I currently subscribe to a lot of different blogs (about 130). About half deal with soccer and half deal with theology or church stuff. I also subscribe to a handful of "friends" blogs....blogs by people I know or go to the church that deal with their lives. Of those church and football blogs, about 15 are what I would consider news feeds - almost like a wire service. The other 115 are actually written by people and about a third of them are updated at least once a day (some numerous times a day). A handful of these blogs actually make money...their blogs have become so successful that they can sell ad space on them and actually make some money off of it. (Unlike like the rest of us who have had Google ads on our sites for years but have yet to make a dime off of them!)

I don't have any grand vision of making a living off my blog, but I always thought it would be nice to be able to develop my writing through this medium. There was a time where I was doing it more regularly, a time when I had a small following, a time when publishing houses would ask me to review books. But that time is long gone and I doubt it will return. The age of the blog has come and gone...replaced by facebook, which is now being replaced by twitter. I have accounts on both services but I still don't find the enjoyment of them like I had when this blog was really up and running. I go on facebook to keep track of my congregation. I still have no clue on why I would want to twitter. But there was always something more about blogging.

A friend of mine asked me the other day why in the world would someone want to blog. Why would you want to be that transparent...why would you want to share all of your life on the internet? He gave the impression that those of us who blog are exhibitionists. I can see that (and I have seen that in the blogsphere). I think that is what myspace, facebook and twitter have become. But for me, blogging is different. I was somewhat of a geek in high school. I was not very athletic and I was in the computer club. I dressed exactly like Matthew Broderick in “War Games”. My room at home looked a lot like his (computer stuff everywhere). I was somewhat shy. I never went to dances, missed my prom and never went on my first date until I was a senior in High School (it was a disaster, I was too polite and she went home with a different guy). I was a geek and I hung out with geeks (picture John Cusack in “Sixteen Candles”. Once, for fun, we took a T.V. remote control and snuck up to people’s houses and changed the stations that they were watching to freak them out. If that is not the ultimate in geekness, then I don’t know what is!). But there was one thing that I did do in High School that got me out of my shell. I wrote for the school newspaper. I did stories my freshman year, had a column my sophomore and junior year and was Editor in Chief my senior year. It was what I loved and what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to be a journalist.

My dad talked me out of it when I went to college. “Journalists are a dime a dozen” he would say. “You should study business so that you can get a job out of college and make some money.” So that is what I did. I have a BS in Finance from DePaul University and I almost have my MBA (we got transferred to Georgia before I could finish it.) I had a job in the business world and I hated it. I now pastor. Pastors are a dime a dozen and we really don’t make much money…somewhat ironic, isn’t it?

I always looked at my blog the same what that I looked at my columns or editorials in High School. Yes, some of me would come out…there is a bit of exhibition there. But that was done so that I could get the reader to think. To get them to consider something and possibly change an attitude or opinion. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes….

That is why I started this, and that is why I always talk about continuing it. The question is not can I do it? The true question is will I?

Only time will tell….