{"id":2023,"date":"2013-06-10T09:25:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T15:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=2023"},"modified":"2013-06-10T13:48:29","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T19:48:29","slug":"monday-morning-confessional-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2013\/06\/monday-morning-confessional-59.html","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Confessional"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cBlogging is not writing. It\u2019s just graffiti with punctuation.\u201d \u2013 Contagion.<\/p>\n

I confess to some ambivalence about blogging today. I confess that I am not entirely convinced that what I\u2019m doing at Paperback Theology is making the world a better place. I think this is a very normal thought to consider, and I bet most people ask these questions about their chosen profession. It\u2019s a healthy thing to ask.<\/p>\n

The first time I ever wrote a song that I really cared about I was 25 years old. It was called Equal to the Fall<\/a>. Before that most of the writing that I had done was an attempt to carve out a space in the world in which I could live\u2026 an Enneagram three doing what we do. But this song was different. I wanted it to matter to others the way it mattered to me. I was passionate about it. I shared it with everyone I could. I spent every dime I had and went into debt getting a demo of it made. That song got my band a record deal, it opened doors that I\u2019m still walking through. Nearly 1000 shows as a band, bunches of radio hits, playing for hundreds of thousands of people, touring all over the country\u2026 that song was big for me.<\/p>\n

I confess that I have always regretted the way we produced Equal to the Fall. I really don\u2019t like it at all. To this day I can hardly listen to the song. The song was written on piano, it was a piano driven song \u2013 that\u2019s where the musical hook was and all of the energy \u2013 the soul of the song. I let the producers talk me out of keeping the piano part on the final mix. It was a mistake.<\/p>\n

I confess that I think my problem was that I didn\u2019t know who I was as a songwriter and performer. I felt like I was cut from the Rich Mullins cloth, they wanted me to be cut out of the Tom Petty cloth, so that\u2019s the way we went. It was a fun direction, but I\u2019m not sure that at the time, it was really me. Rock and roll is pretty fun, so I can\u2019t complain, but I do always wonder what would have happened with music if I would have done the heavy soul-searching, figured out who I really was and then stuck to my guns. Every young artist needs production help and somebody to give them a cohesive sound. I\u2019m grateful to folks like Paul Ebersold and Skidd Mills who did that for me, but it would have been much more productive if I would have found my musical center before we put that record out. In the end, I think they were right. Rock & roll was probably the right place (not adult contemporary stuff like Rich did), but I was not able to really own in at the time.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my confession. Just as I had to go through years of figuring out who I was musically, I think that I\u2019m still trying to do the same thing with my writing. For better or worse, this blog is the space where I am attempting to figure it out. It\u2019s harder than I thought it would be and I\u2019m still not convinced that I\u2019m any good at it. I know that there are things I write here that I will regret later on. There\u2019s no way around it. Nevertheless I really love writing. I love the book projects I\u2019m involved with, the articles, I love the daily challenge to come up with something to say here. I love that I get the chance to share it on a wider stage. Sometimes I post things here and feel about them the same way I did when I wrote Equal to the Fall nearly twenty years ago. I confess that I will keep going because I want to find my center \u2013 in terms of writing \u2013 and I don\u2019t know any other way to work it out.<\/p>\n

I confess that Jimmy Johnson won the NASCAR race yesterday and I\u2019m pretty stoked about that.<\/p>\n

I confess that I\u2019m pretty raw from some rough emotional things that happened yesterday \u2013 things connected to my need to achieve, and desire to flee vulnerability through perfectionism. I confess that I didn\u2019t hide and showed up to be my vulnerable self in every situation. I confess this feels like real progress for me.<\/p>\n

Okay friends\u2026 that\u2019s my confession. Maybe it\u2019s time for you to make yours!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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