A recent article by Scot McKnight prompted this post.
Apparently Scot and I have been blogging for about the same length of time. A professional blogger, he is a theologian, scholar and prolific author. I have been following him for some time and appreciate his writing, he is one of my trusted resources.
I am an amateur blogger. His readers number thousands, mine on a good day, a few dozen. Our blogs are as different as as our biographies.His article (reposted from 2010) gave me pause to think about my blog .
The genesis of my blog was a personal journal. 1 A Personal Journal Jan. 14th, 2006 | 09:11 pm
This is a personal journal of George Ezell. It has been created to be a repository of writings about my life and experiences. The information, although personal, is intended to be shared. Perhaps it will be of interest to family and/or friends, if not in the present, in the years to come. It is my belief this journal will be a useful tool in coming to a better self-understanding. It is also my hope that I will be able to provide a window into my life through which others may better understand just who I am. The personal journal quickly became a blog“For the Joy of the Journey”. My intent was to use it as a vehicle to communicate with family and friends, especially my children. That audience has continued to be primary.
With aging there is a lot of grasping, holding on, fighting the inevitable. Don’t give up!
I am reminded of two quotes:
Winston Churchill: “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never…”
W. C. Fields: “If first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool”
I appears I am more W.C. Fields than Winston Churchill.
The challenge is knowing when to quit. My quit list, still growing, includes photography, running, golf, fishing, public speaking, woodturning, to name a few. Recently I’ve considered adding blogging to the list. However Scot’s article prompted me to keep on trying. I am committed to seek the counsel of trusted family and friends to avoid becoming a damn fool. Hopefully, I not already there and blind to the truth.
Unless I learn otherwise, I will continue to blog.
Scot McKnight provides a fresh vision for “For the Joy of the Journey” going forward:
Christian civil conversation requires that the participants are seeking wisdom. The goal is not just to learn something new or to be informed, but to grow by listening to others, to explore aloud so others can help us grow, and a civil conversation about a good topic is the best place I know for us to learn civility that is aimed at wisdom. Another way of saying this is that the aim of the Christian conversation is truth, and by truth I mean what conforms to the gospel of Jesus Christ and how that gospel can shape all we believe, think and practice.
Marks of a Civil Conversation
First, a good conversation requires a safe environment.
an environment were the commenter feels safe enough to say what she or he wants to say. But creating a culture, which can be either redemptive or not, is not the same as creating a civil culture. A civil culture can be redemptive.
Second, a civil culture requires shared virtues. A culture only requires shared ideas or ideology, but a civil culture requires shared virtues in civility.
Third, a civil conversation is created by a good topic and a good question. Good questions don’t ask for “Yes or No” and they don’t ask simply for information, but they probe a person to probe further, to look inside, to ponder the Bible, and to consider one’s theological tradition and beliefs. Civil conversations ask open-ended questions in a safe environment so the audience, and in this case blog commenters and readers, can think and then express what they think.
Fourth, civil conversations about good questions require the spirit of exploration. There are times when we want answers and we want them right away: What’s the best router for my home for our family’s computers? But a conversation is not just after answers: it is a mutual gathering for mutual exploration. It encourages different people to experiment with ideas and answers, it encourages others to interact with those ideas and answers and prohibits censure and denunciations. Instead, it assumes the virtues and it assumes each person is there is intelligent enough to probe the question and it assumes that if the answer were simple there’d be no reason to have a conversation.
Fifth, you may be wondering if this whole idea of a civil conversation isn’t just for European elites or educated dilettantes. No, and here’s where a civil conversation and a Christian context merge into something powerful: a Christian civil conversation requires that the participants are seeking wisdom. The goal is not just to learn something new or to be informed, but to grow by listening to others, to explore aloud so others can help us grow, and a civil conversation about a good topic is the best place I know for us to learn civility that is aimed at wisdom.
Civil conversation flows out of what I call the “Jesus Creed,” often called the Two Great Commandments – the call to love God and to love others. Loving others requires that we listen enough to climb into the skin of others, that we treat them as persons made in God’s image, and that we engage them for the purpose of leading them to see the truth of the gospel in Jesus Christ.
Scot McKnight
I am deeply grateful for all readers but especially the faithful ones — you know who you are.
STILL ON THE JOURNEY
- 1A Personal Journal Jan. 14th, 2006 | 09:11 pm
This is a personal journal of George Ezell. It has been created to be a repository of writings about my life and experiences. The information, although personal, is intended to be shared. Perhaps it will be of interest to family and/or friends, if not in the present, in the years to come. It is my belief this journal will be a useful tool in coming to a better self-understanding. It is also my hope that I will be able to provide a window into my life through which others may better understand just who I am.
Keep blogging