About

As trite as it sounds, my blogging career started during a boring day at work. It was 2003, back when these strange new things called blogs were still making news.

I had been reading a few. The authors made it look easy. So, one day when things were slow, I logged into blogger and got started.

Publishing on the internet was even more thrilling than seeing my name in print because I controlled the press and the results were instant. Unfortunately, my ecstasy started to flag after the first few posts when it became obvious no one was reading.

WORLD magazine had just launched its blog. In an attempt to generate some readership, I emailed WORLD magazine editor Marvin Olasky a link to my site asking him to look it over.

This strategy proved more successful than I could have anticipated. Dr. Olasky replied by asking for my phone number. I wasted no time sending it to him.

He called and offered me a chance to write as a WORLD Magazine sub-blogger, meaning my blog would be attached to the main WORLD site and my blog’s URL would contain the worldmagblog.com domain. I jumped at the chance and began what would become several months of blogging there.

My stint as a WORLD Mag sub-blogger gave me a good look at the downside of the blogosphere. Readers seemed to think the sole purpose of any blog was vehement debate. Listening was nobody’s strong suit. Christians were the worst,acting like they had been waiting a long time for a fight. They wanted political blogging and seemed to relish restatements of already widespread, popular opinion. Expressing any thought deviating from the neo-conservative, free-market, evangelical synthesis brought out more than a few souls willing to help bring me back in line.

I didn’t last long. After a few months, I was bored and so, I suspect, were most of my readers. The day-to-day maneuverings of politicians and the ebb and flow of power are superficial things. I prefer to give my attention to the undercurrents, those cultural convictions that shape daily life though many of us remain oblivious of them.

That summer, I stopped blogging for WORLD. In the meantime, I had an opportunity to meet Dr. Olasky and many of the other talented people who make that magazine happen. Nothing I’m saying here is meant to disparage them or their work. While I respect the staff and what they do, it was clear to me I wasn’t cut out to play for that team.

The experience blogging there left me leery of blogging anything controversial. For a long time I blogged only about my personal life. I worked on capturing mundane moments in what I hope was a friendly, humorous style. I learned a lot, but playing it so safe got boring too.

About three months ago, I decided to start blogging whatever was on my mind. Readership tripled. On busy days readership has been almost ten times what it once was. Attracting new readers has made blogging fun again. Thanks. I now see this blog as an open notebook where I record part of what passes through my head.

At the same time, I want what I write here to be enjoyed by at least a few others. Though I have ongoing interests in matters theological, I'm not a theo-blogger. I don't have the doggedness or passion to be a political blogger. I'm not rightly sure what I am.

I want to convey a sense of the world and the way living in it feels to me. Obviously, such a project will contain ideas, but it must go beyond just analysis. To communicate all I want to say, I have to stretch beyond the border of the merely intellectual. I have to tell stories, strive for the poetic moment.

The reason I so often couch my ideas inside personal anecdotes is because I am trying, whether successfully or not, to aim for the heart, to give the senses something to cling to. I want readers of this blog to go away more than affirmed if they agree or angry if the don't. I want them to go away having had a memorable experience. Maybe that's too much to ask from a blog. I don't know.

Either way,the future is open. Whatever shape this blog takes, I hope to keep increasing the quality of the content. I’ve got a few ideas for how to do that. I’ll be implementing them as time and energy permit. I hope you’ll stick around.