why I'm a lousy blogger

OK, I admit that I don’t make very many entries in my blog. I know some people post blog entries, not just daily, but 2 or 3 times a day (and then there’s Twittering). I considered making a New Year’s resolution to make more blog entries. But I decided not to. First, I’m a husband and a dad with kids aged 6, 8 and 10. That takes up both time and energy (and I just turned 50, which, amazingly enough, means that I don’t have more energy than I did 10 years ago).

But more importantly, I can’t blog about everything. There are things that happen in our church community that might make for juicy gossip or blog fodder, but don’t belong on a public forum like a blog. These are events that are formative in people’s lives and the way they’re handled has a lot to do with how people will be formed. They’re still in process and deserve to have that process worked out without being submitted to public judgment outside our church family. Second, I’m uncomfortable writing about things that are still in process in my own life. I guess I still want the opportunity to work out my issues in the privacy of my church family, too.

Blogs are like photo albums (or Flickr streams). I don’t want to publish a photo of someone that will be embarrassing for them later. So I may post what I find to be an interesting “nature shot”, a rumination on the state of affairs in the world, but I hesitate to make the entries too personal (for me or others). And my comments about people are like studio photos: kind of staged and artificial, but definitely not embarrassing or too revealing.

So I’m not a blogger “paparrazzi”: I’m not after the sensational candid shot that will grab attention for a few minutes at someone’s expense (including mine). Nor am I writing a public diary. But, hey, it is what it is. Happy reading.