I have become something of a blog hound these days. I have had very little time for reading but blogs, by and large, are reasonably easy to keep up with. One of the pastors I look up to (aside from the ones I work with) is Andy Stanley – I was surprised to find out about his love for blogs.
Here are some things I have noticed:
– blogs seem to be that place where people become a little more open…the darkest secrets don’t come out but people feel safer about revealing themselves because there is a distance between them and the reader.
– blogs sometimes become the place where the alternate persona is taken on. People sometimes try to craft the person they wish they were or who they perceive themselves to be inside but are too afraid to be in public.
– the blog world is filled with selfish trolls hunting for youth who in turn find the blog world to be a place without boundaries…no one to tell them what to do, or how to be, or who they can talk to.
– there are discussion oriented blogs
– there are monologue/rant oriented blogs
– there are photo/music oriented blogs
– some blogs feel like lonely shouts to an empty universe; "here I am, save me!"
– many of the blogs I read surprise me, sadden me, make me joyous, make me angry…I am convinced that people (youth in particular) have compartmentalized their lives to such a degree that they see no problem with being completly immoral/ammoral on the net because it lacks a "realness" that life has. It lacks accountability – as though God is not on the Net.
– sometimes I want to comment on a blog in a way that would not ultimately be helpful. I want to go to the trolls and warn them to "stay away from my youth, or else…". I want to let the hurting know that someone who cares is listening. But I realize that being present is often the best I can do and pray that connection happens.
– sometimes watching a blog is like watching a birth. It can be a frightening and helpless experience where, as father, you have no control over what happens – you have faith and hope.
– blogs can be windows into worlds and sub-cultures you might never otherwise have a chance to see. These can be good places or places or stinking evil. Take for example the blog I found which focuses on encouraging and posting videos of youth hurting themselves which broken glass, fire, knives, tacks etc. As beings created in the image of God it is like watching an assault on God Himself. It is painful to see to the point where I want to reach through the screen and intervene somehow. There are also places of freshness of beauty.
– sometimes I feel like I am invading a person’s privacy by reading their blog until I realize that this was the whole point of the blog in the first place. A blog is like a diary left out at a strategic time, in a strategic place, for a particular person to find…there is a hope that it will be read and responded to.
– Blogs are ironic because they are a virtual attempt to establish a person’s existance in reality – they are existential. They are validating.
– blgos are places where the word is becoming fresh and alive again in a time when it was once thought dead…and where the word is fresh the Word can come and transform…pray that it does.
Harnessing Chaos 