my voice

i originally intended to take about a week or so off from blogging.  as it turns out, i guess i needed a little longer.  part of the reason, as some of you know, is that i was away on a vacation to the jersey shore, and then a short camping trip following that.  still, i had my blackberry, so i could have easily updated the blog (and facebook and twitter), but i was resolute in my feeling that i needed some time off the grid.  i needed to shut my mouth for a moment and just listen.  i don't want to blog just because i always have.  i want to have a reason, and i wasn't sure anymore what that reason was. 

so i needed some time to listen again and remember why i started in the first place. 

sure, part of why i blog is just to stay connected.  it is important to me to stay connected this way.  i hear so many people complain so much about staying connected in our day and age.  i hear complaints about facebook and about smart phones and how email and social media keep us too connected and too enslaved to our technology and so forth.  i'm always a bit perplexed when people start into that rant, however, because i don't identify with it.  i love being connected.  maybe it's the innate need for community in me, or maybe its the inner exhibitionist, or both, but i find satisfaction in the connections afforded to me by the screen in front of me. 

but staying connected is not my primary focus.  it's not why i started the blog.  i started because i felt like i had something to say.  like a boiling pot with the lid on, i felt like i would burst if i didn't let it out somewhere.  it's never really been about how many people read it (if it were, i would have stopped some time ago), but about the saying of the thing.  if someone reads it and interacts with it, that is a beautiful accident, as far as i'm concerned.  i just wanted to write. 

last week, during my blogging hiatus, i watched a wonderful film that i'm sure you've seen (parenthood has caused me to resign myself to being the last person to see any film), the king's speech.  it was one of those movies that after watching it, i wanted to watch every last minute of the extras to somehow keep the story alive.  i loved it.  but more than just entertain me, the film also challenged me to consider what is my voice, and how i might use it. 

which brings me back to my blog.  sometimes, in the middle of a post about the steelers, or on a random wednesday, there's a little voice in the back of my brain that whispers dubiously to me, "why are you wasting your time doing this?  nobody cares.  nobody reads it.  it doesn't really even matter to anybody.  there's more important things you could be doing."  and sometimes this voice really gets to me.  i believe it.  and while it is true that there are probably more important things i could be doing (aren't there always?), this seems to be the thing that i am supposed to do - that one place where my gifts seem to find their sweet spot, so to speak.  it is my voice.  and i feel called to use it.  and although you may not care about the steelers or radiohead's newest album, i have to remind myself from time to time that "the earth is the Lord's and everything that is in it."  in other words, the fact that i write about everything from baseball to bluegrass to bad theology belies my bedrock belief that all of life is sacred.  all of it.  there is a holiness to this wild existence that i refuse to lock up in the cages of the christian subculture, or confine to the limited language of religion.  there is opportunity to meet God and live the abundant life God promises in all the nooks and crannies of life, and that is the story i feel called to tell.  that is how i am supposed to use my voice.

and so i am back.  not in black, but in orange (i suppose).  actually, i'm still wrestling with the name of this blog and what i would change it to.  in any case, if you're reading, i'm glad you are here, and i hope and pray you hear something that inspires you or makes you mad or comforts you or challenges you or makes you think or makes you laugh or makes you talk to someone else about it.  i hope it makes you dream.  i hope it makes you want to use your own voice.