Blogging

Some of you know the adage:

We judge ourselves by our intentions; others judge us by our actions.

This morning I received an email “judging my actions” or at least my blogging. The author suggested that my blogs are:

“self-serving, braggish, tacky, whining and childish.”

People that know me well might agree (at times) with childish and whining, willing to debate tacky but would argue (I’d hope) the accusation that I am self-serving or braggish. Typically I’m accussed of the opposite.

Still it’s feedback and it was signed (I don’t read anything anonymous) so that I could attempt to respond to the sender (who unfortunately has a deactivated email account). Most importantly it’s given me a pause to think about blogging (and a topic to write about).

I included in a recent post a quote by Rob Bell (whose writing really inspires me)

You have to be so totally disconnected from the pain of the world to think that blogging and twittering are somehow a redemptive use of your time.

I suspect Rob might agree that blogging (and he adds twittering) are self-serving activities but still I wonder:

Can blogs, twitter, facebook and whatever the next new thing in social media connect us and become places to exchange ideas?

I regularly read a small handful of blogs from church leaders (Mark Batterson, Kem Meyer, Carey Niewwhof) and a few written by friends (especially newly published author Christina Dudley). I also follow a variety of people on Twitter. From both I regularly find insights or news on things profound and things mundane and lots of things in between.

So for the moment I’m going to continue to give blogging a try but I will be mindful to try not be self-serving or whiny!