Blogging, to the Max

Blogging, to the Max June 1, 2011

Max Lindenman, that is.

The ham-on-wry (and wouldn’t his Jewish ancestors love that?) who gained a loyal following as sub-Anchoress when Elizabeth was tied up in Rome now has a blog of his own, right here at Patheos, called “Diary of a Wimpy Catholic.”

From his first post — which begins, aptly enough, with a tip of the yarmulke to Elizabeth herself:

I trust most of you will know exactly what I mean when I say I fell quite in love with Elizabeth’s authorial voice. It has a gritty authenticity I’ve found in few other places in the Catholic blogosphere. That’s not to say her style is in any way unpolished, or that her manner is anything but ladylike, but both clearly belong to a person who is unafraid to do the undone thing. Elizabeth can speak Church-speak and cite encyclicals with the best of them, but far more than most, she writes with the street savvy that can only be won through personal experience.. She may write with the team — her thinking is entirely orthodox, as far as I can tell — but she speaks for herself. Many Catholic writers default to the first-person plural; Elizabeth writes from the “I.” That’s gutsy.

I want to do the same thing — write about the life of faith from a distinctly (and distinctively) personal perspective. Don’t worry — dispatches from my navel won’t account for all my posts, or even for the majority. Its contents just aren’t that fascinating, even to me, and in any case I look forward to trying my hand at punditry and cultural criticism. But even on subjects of general interest, I’ll be writing from a personal slant — that of a Catholic convert who gets touched by grace, but very rarely; who believes that God is, but finds Him very far away; who detests his sin because he fears the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, etc., but still can’t help recalling some with a smile.

My writing won’t be to everyone’s taste. No one will mistake it for the broadcasts of Mother Angelica. If you’re one of those people who gravitates toward red-hot culture warriors, I doubt I‘ll make your list of favorites. I make no bones about my ambivalence toward much of what I’ve seen and learned in the Church. Getting to work through that ambivalence is one of the perks of writing, and to my own ear, my voice is at its most authentic and convincing when I address it head-on.

Check out his landing page for more.  And check out, too, his cutting take on circumcision,  titled  The Circumcision Flap — surely, the first and only time those two words have been in such dangerous proximity.

And I know: his name’s not Shirley.

Go.  Read.  Enjoy.  You can thank me later.


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