Deblogging No More

A month has passed since my last post below. There are many things happening in and around my life that are worth blogging between March 28 and April 27. Not that I felt guilty when I haven't blogged that long, but on the contrary missing the opportunities to write freely feels like there is a blockage in the sewerage system inside my mind or heart (thank God that was written only metaphorically not literally). But I have a good excuse or two for being absent from this blog for a month. I am now ready to blog again, even if it is only for the sake of maintaining my sanity....

Blogging and Loving Our Neighbor

Now that a new definition of blogging has been drafted by folks at despair.com (thanks to Justin Taylor for this), I think it's wise for Christian bloggers to rethink how their blogging affects their faith.

At that point I was reminded of something that Betsy Childs, an associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, wrote last year about loving our neigbors:

Because of the internet and global news coverage, we have twenty-four hour access to people all over the planet. We are now aware of the evils and injustice not only in our own communities, but also in Darfur, Iraq, Indonesia, and everywhere else. With the world as our backyard, our neighbors have become people of every tribe and tongue, and many of them suffer heavy oppression. On balance, I view this awareness of the larger world as a good thing. Awareness may move us to action, and the work of justice and mercy is exactly what the people of God are meant to do.

I am that we will substitute virtual community for real community. Trading emails and reading blogs may simulate some aspects of community, but the truth of the matter is, if you tire of your virtual neighbors, escape is a simple click away. When you live with people, you cannot shut them off when you are feeling selfish, tired, or tempted. Face-to-face relationships expose our sin and sanctify us in ways that internet relationships cannot. Listening to podcasts or watching church on TV is not a substitute for being an active member of the Body of Christ.

The question, "Who is my neighbor?" prompted Jesus to tell the story of the Good Samaritan. The man who was beaten and bruised was the Samaritan's neighbor simply by virtue of the fact that they came in contact with each other.

In our shrinking world we now have neighbors on the other side of the world. We have a responsibility to love those neighbors. But we must guard against passing by those who are literally in our path, whose needs have a claim on us, and who we, in spite of our pretensions to self-sufficiency, need just as deeply.

The danger of blogging

A recent article in New York Times on the phenomenon of over-blogging, reposted in The Age here. I suppose as with other things, blogging in moderation should be the case.

Of course, the bloggers could choose other work but they profess to love the nonstop action and the opportunity to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are wondering if something has gone very wrong: in recent months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the strain of producing news and information for the always-on internet.

Good Blogs

Just in case you never come across this stats, there are 90 million blogs on the web. It would be insane to even try to scan them all. Thankfully, people like Tony Morgan has listed his 25 Blogs Tony Can't Live Without. Unlike Tony, I can still live without them, but his list does contain some good blogs.

'Private Journals with Megaphones'

Blogs are merely "private journals with megaphones", wrote Russell Jacoby, a history prof at UCLA. Neat definition, isn't it?

He argued in today's Higher Education section of The Australian newspaper that in general blogs are pathetic when it comes to "reasoned contributions to public life." Certainly there is a grain of truth there. One can read lots of useless blogs, become a junkie at that, and, to use Portman's phrase, amuse him/herself to intellectual death. A word of caution there for both blog readers and writers (me included).

Here is another interesting quote from Jacoby:

Jose Ortega y Gasset's fear almost a century ago of the revolt of the masses needs an update. We face a revolt of the writers. Today everyone is a blogger, but where are the readers? A New Yorker cartoon reverses the usual picture of a literary festival with book lovers lined up to get the author's autograph. The cartoon shows a table and a queue, but authors line up to see the reader, who sits behind the table. On the internet, articles, blog posts and comments on blog posts pour forth, but who can keep up with them? And while everything is archived, has anyone looked at last year's blogs?

The full-text article is here.