Mike will attest to this. About once a year or so I email him and say something like, \u201cMike, I don\u2019t know if I should continue to be your blog mate. I\u2019ve not blogged in so long. And I feel guilty for not contributing to our blog. Maybe I should give it up.\u201d Every time he has told me, \u201cNo worries! Blog when you can. I understand\u201d. I sometimes remind him that when he invited me to join him a decade ago, I was reluctant \u2013 I didn\u2019t see myself as a blogger; and still don\u2019t. What I don\u2019t tell him, but what I often think is this: \u201cBesides everyone knows its really your blog anyway, who am I fooling.\u201d After all, many readers think my posts are Mike\u2019s anyway; \u00a0Someone even asked Mike a question in comments on one of my recent posts. The little I blog, it would make little difference if I stopped. I hesitated to write this \u2013 it\u2019s a little to vulnerable isn\u2019t it? \u2013 but part of the reason I find blogging a burden is because of just these kinds of feelings.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s face it. I\u2019m a lousy blogger. If it were up to me, there wouldn\u2019t be a blog. I am incapable of following the strategy for a successful blog. I blog in fits and starts. As now, until today it had been several weeks since I\u2019ve posted something. And I rarely even read blogs. So I don\u2019t write posts consistently and I don\u2019t read blogs \u2013 not a good recipe for a blogger!<\/p>\n
The excellent bloggers I know, such as Mike or certainly Scot McKnight (and I could name many others), are serial writers: they are always in a state of writing. So a blog is simply an outlet for their constant production. Over the course of the years after my Ph.D., since 2006 say, \u00a0I have tried to structure my life so I can become a serial writer. I have made numerous weekly schedules in an attempt to create space for writing. I\u2019ve gotten up at 3:30 am many times to try to get in a couple of good hours of writing before the twins wake up. But I as far as it goes, I\u2019ve failed to become a serial writer. And now my energy is waning. Even in this year of sabbatical I\u2019ve struggled to produce. Now the reasons for this are for quite a different post, but something is happening in me in the last handful of months.<\/p>\n
In the past, I\u2019ve chalked up my difficulty to write (blogs or otherwise) to the stage of life \u2013 \u00a0for goodness sake I have twins! I\u2019ve been in ministry; I\u2019ve been developing a teaching career; I need to make money; I like the Yankees \u2013 well you get the idea. I\u2019m always pining to my wife about my need for more time to write. \u00a0\u201cKarla, I need time alone to write.\u201d \u201cI need to get away to write.\u201d She\u2019s so tired of hearing me say that! Now I\u2019m getting tired of feeling it and saying it. Why do I feel such pressure to write, but can\u2019t seem to find the time to do it regularly? Something is beginning to dawn on me, although this is by no means the final report. Perhaps I\u2019m not what I have struggled so hard to be. Perhaps I\u2019ve tried to be something God has not fit me for. Perhaps my struggle to be a serial writer has less to do with a lack of discipline and more to do with gifting and desire.<\/p>\n
Is serial writing something you do or something you are? I know you can discipline yourself to do a good many things. So I believe you can discipline yourself to be a serial writer, at least for stents. But I think there are are natural born writers and there are those who struggle to write. I\u2019m not saying that I can\u2019t write, I believe I can write and write well. I also believe I can be more disciplined than I am and improve my current level of writing. I know this because I have. I have worked hard to be a good writer since the day very early in my Ph.D. Markus Bockmuehl, my PhD supervisor, told me plainly my writing was poor. I spent that next summer reading Dostoyevsky novels (The<\/em>\u00a0Idiot<\/em>, Brothers<\/em>) to gain an ear for scholarly prose. And since then I\u2019ve not stopped working to improve.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m getting weary. I don\u2019t know if I want to get up many more mornings at 3:30 am to write. More than that though, I think I\u2019m coming to grips with myself. I\u2019m becoming connected. I\u2019m beginning to notice, name \u201csorrow\u201d the feeling I get when I hear of some friend or peer publishing another book, instead of burying the feeling in a fury of work disconnecting from myself and those around me. I\u2019m tired of pining, of an angst-filled spirit. I\u2019m tired of trying to keep up. I\u2019m gotten curious as to why I feel the way I do.<\/p>\n Yes, I\u2019m 43 years old and only now coming to terms with who I am. Again vulnerability \u2013 this has shame potential all over it. Shouldn\u2019t I have figured this out by now? I\u2019m coming to terms with the fact that for all of my adult life I have lived a disconnected, shallow emotional life. The reason: I have attempted to compensate for the harm I experienced as a boy by disregarding feelings especially of fear and sorrow (but also intimacy) and throwing myself recklessly into my weaknesses and into exciting opportunities. This makes for an exciting and accomplished life no doubt \u2013 and I have lived one. But it is a thin, burdensome life that is difficult to sustain. I know this can sound like a whole load of psychobabble and probably a year ago I would have agreed, but these days\u00a0that sentence makes perfect sense and is giving me a path to a fuller life. The life God wants for me. In the last couple of months, I\u2019ve reflected on the possibility, a frightful but liberating one, that I\u2019ve spent a decade and a half striving to be something I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mike will attest to this. About once a year or so I email him and say something like, \u201cMike, I don\u2019t know if I should continue to be your blog mate. I\u2019ve not blogged in so long. And I feel guilty for not contributing to our blog. Maybe I should give it up.\u201d Every time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n