Authentic? Honesty? Honestly...

Its very frustrating for me to ease back into blogging.  And I made a list of reasons why.

Reason #1: I've allowed more free time into my life and I like it.  Writing takes a long time and sometimes I just want to do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g e-l-s-e rather than sorting through the clutter in my mind and find a profound thought. That takes a lot of work, and time!  Besides, I'm a writer 40 hours a week and it seems crazy to leave work just to go home and stare at a computer screen again.

Reason #2: I follow a lot of bloggers on twitter and am subscribed to many blogs in my google reader account--they're good, really good.  And they're funny.  And they have a lot of regular blog readers and followers.  I want to be a "popular" blog, but I'm not. Then I realize that I'm not blogging to be popular, I'm trying to keep a record of what I'm learning...then I get frustrated at my selfish desire for personal fame... and then I really don't want to write anything.

Reason #3: As I look back at previous blogs, and even old journal entries at home, I realize that I'm in an incredibly weird and unexpected place in life--and my spiritual life is so inconsistent that I'm embarrassed to compose a honest narrative for fear of what someone might think of my heart's condition.

Reason #4 (last one, I promise): My blog-writing-style is weird.  I don't organize my thoughts beforehand; I simply start writing and let my thoughts unfold as I go.  Prone to bounce around from one idea to the next before you can even sniff, I know how sporadic my posts are.  I've gone back through my old posts before and been completely bewildered as to what I was trying to say.  So I ask myself, why don't I change my style to be more interactive? More conversational? More logical?  That's what the "cool" bloggers are doing.  Am I even a good writer?!?  (Rhetorical question!!!)  Oh well, this is me.  Maybe if I could make a living out of writing on a blog or working on a book I would learn how to communicate my thoughts and ideas better while still keeping my personal writing style.

SUMMARY: I feel very vulnerable with this blog, so I sometimes avoid it.  Honesty is hard. And, in my mind, it's the same as authenticity. And since I've declared "authentic" as my goal in life (and have my tattoo as a daily reminder...stupid tattoo...), I have to do this...no matter how unpopular, revealing, or unorganized it might be.

Now that I've composed a pathetic list of reasons why blogging again is so hard for me, I'm going to share something that was encouraging to me and helped motivate me to come here (Starbucks) directly after work today to write.

In the last two days, two "cool" bloggers have written on the topic of honesty.  Since I was obviously pondering the same thing this week, I feel as though the Lord affirmed my feelings by letting me see that other writers feel the same way as me about writing honestly.

Just read some of their thoughts below--can you see how they would resonate with me?  They seem exactly the same as how I'm feeling...and they can obviously articulate that better than I can.


"And honestly, I think it’s been difficult to write because I’m trying to be honest."

"While I desire to be honest about how I see and understand God or what I believe to be true about Jesus, grace, hope, spirituality, sometimes it’s just not worth it. Sometimes, from my perspective, “honesty” makes life/writing more difficult."

"In our churches and neighborhoods and politics, we uphold honesty as an ideal. Authenticity is key. Integrity is preached. As Christians, we're supposed to aspire to these things...But sometimes I wonder what society would look like if all of us were brutally honest all the time. We might have clear consciences and satisfied intellects. But would we have any friends? Would we live in chaos? I don't know. I aspire to personal transparency just like anyone else. But I wonder if we could really handle heavy doses of it."


This is an abrupt ending -- but I can't think of anything else to say.  Thanks for reading.