Confession: I have a real attitude about bloggers.  So many of them remind me of mallcops, or maybe that softball guy who acts like his beer league game is the World Series; the kind of people whose self-awareness doesn’t sync well with reality.  And because not becoming Uncle Rico is among my life’s ambitions, I have never aspired to be a blogger.

I read a lot, and I have a high appreciation for superb wordsmithing.  Writers who can  with apparent ease turn the perfect phrase to express deep thoughts and big ideas provoke both my admiration and my envy.  The stuff I read varies (sports, politics, faith, probably in that order), but my appreciation for well-crafted reading material doesn’t depend on the topic.  Most of the people I read (and they have set my standards very high) are paid to write.  And that business is cutthroat enough that you can’t pay the bills with your scribbles if you don’t know what you’re doing with them.

Contrast that with the Blogosphere, weighed down as it is with the rotting fruit of poorly-expressed opinion and just plain trying too hard.  There are few blogs to which I ever pay a second visit; so many of them read like a misspelled thesaurus got sick and threw up.  Even the better ones leave me wondering if their authors have anything resembling an actual life (since I figure some other time-sucking activity has to be making the rent).  Well-written or not, blogging has often struck me as a bit (in some cases, more than merely a bit) pretentious.

Besides that, I am a guy who thrives to a degree on anonymity.  I’m a classic second-chair guy, who can function just fine in the spotlight but doesn’t really crave being there.  That, and I play every day with the giant rubber-band ball of persistent self-doubt I’ve built up over the years.  Guys like me aren’t burdened with the certainty that everybody simply must hear what we have to say.

Which is why I figured I’d never waste time and electrons writing a blog.   I’m so not eager to face the pointy end of my own critical wit.  And I have serious doubts about my ability to regularly write stuff that I’d bother reading, let alone anyone else.

So why do it now? Two main reasons.

The first grew out of a failed attempt recently to trim my Facebook friends list.  I don’t make a habit of accepting friend requests from people I don’t know, and because I can recount the story of how I know pretty much everybody on my friends list (whether it is from a week at a church camp or a lifetime of friendship) cutting those ties on Facebook just seemed cold.  It was startling to realize what a wide sphere of influence those relationships represent.

The second, a growing conviction that I need to intentionally engage and encourage that sphere of influence, hatched on my fortieth birthday last fall.  Stacie worked to give me the best birthday present I’ve ever received: Letters of encouragement from a broad cross-section of people in my life.  Every letter meant a lot to me, but the ones that left the deepest impression were those from former students:

You have had a marked influence on my life…the part you played in helping me hear from the Holy Spirit and the call He has for my life is pretty amazing. If you weren’t willing to play the role you did who knows what I would be doing right now…You are one of the first people in my life to tell me that I need to speak up more and share my thoughts with other people because they mattered, and that encouraged me more than you know…Thanks for pushing people. I’m so thankful that you are a professor that knew how to challenge people in ways that make them realize that they’ve settled for too little…I see you loving your family in the midst of the chaos. God has been using these things to quietly shape my life and the lives of other people…I’ve been blessed to see your professional side, but not just that. I’ve even been able to see your devotional side, as you’ve pulled back the curtain a few times.  I’d ask that you continue to do this…You help me remember the value of humor. Keep looking at life with your unique perspective…Thanks for not taking yourself too seriously and for always loving life…You make an incredible impact on the people around you, even the people who are simply watching…

This Mr. Holland moment impacted me in a couple ways.  I get irrationally embarrassed hearing things like this, even though I appreciate them and am encouraged by them so much.  I just don’t see myself this way, so I need to hear it.  And hearing it, I see it; seeing it, I realize that my desire to avoid pride and pretentiousness has led me to commit a different sin entirely: I have too often hidden my light under a basket and been faithless in my stewardship of gifts and opportunities.  I need to do intentionally what up until now I have done mostly incidentally.  I need to encourage.  I need to embolden.  I want to.

I have other goals as well.  I want to become a better writer and storyteller.  I’m not bad, but I want to perfect the craft of writing, carve out my own identity as an author, and excel with words.  I want to have a little fun.  I want to reflect meaningfully on life, the joy of family and friendship, and the pursuit of Christ in all things.

What I  don’t want to become is yet another internet opinion vending machine.  I have zero desire to bloviate on high-tension controversies, get into online slapfights, or pluck slivers out of the eyes of passersby.  That’s not to say I’ll never talk about politics or theological disputes or why I think the Dallas Cowboys are eminently mockworthy, but I’m not here for that.  My goal is to encourage whoever might find encouragement in whatever I may say and do.

And so begins the blog I said I’d never write. Thank you for your interest, and for your friendship. I hope my words can be a blessing to you.  In the meantime, I challenge you to encourage somebody today in a way that is sincere and specific.  If you make the effort, it’s hard to find time to complain.

rk