I have been putting posts on here for almost 17 years— over 1700 posts. I realized that I feel, in the moment at least, that I am running out of things to say. I am sure that this is not a long-term thing, but now that I am in my 60s, I am starting to feel like a Senior Citizen Ranter. I don’t feel the urge to complain about “them darn fool kids,” since I am very aware that every generation, including my own, is bursting with foolishness. However, I keep feeling a strong desire to complain about those foolish Republicans, Democrats, Capitalists, Socialists, Fundamentalists, Theological Liberals, Calvinists, Prosperity folk, Apocalypticists, and more. Not only is that like yelling at a hurricane, doing that makes me part of the hurricane.
So I am going to take a bit of a break. That does not mean that I will stop working on this website. I have decided to go back through those 1700+ posts and clean them up. For a long time I had decided not to do that. I looked at it as sort of a personal diary of mine. As such, it tracks my thoughts, my values, and more.
However, I wonder if that was simply being lazy. A lot of my old posts are full of typos… some of which make the posts perplexing. Some have orphaned links— and some of those posts have as their only purpose to send people to those links. Some have dead images tied to them. I have gotten tired of putting pictures on here unless they specifically support the text. In some cases my thoughts may have also changed. Looking back at my older stuff, it does not seem as if my ideas have changed wildly. In most cases it is simply my focus that has changed. In some cases, I may have gotten hot and bothered about something and that would lead me to choose words I might regret now.
Anyway, I hope to change this. Instead of it being a ministerial diary or log, I hope to make it a legacy compilation of thoughts on missions, missions theology, and whatever else I thought to write about over time.
While my little website is not hugely popular, it does get thousands of views a month and much of that is to my archived posts. Therefore, I may also change the titles and keywords to help potential readers. I want people to know what they are getting… usually.
Again, this is probably not a long-term thing. I might choose to add something tomorrow. We will see. I am working on a book and I will certainly give more info about that when it nears being done.
I would just like to say that I have enjoyed reading your posts for a few years now. I was directed here during a time of need. My mother stopped celebrating most Christian holidays in favor of Jewish ones, not because she converted because she was misled (I feel) into believing only “Biblical Holidays” were valid. Your posts gave me comfort and validation for celebrating Jesus. I kept reading after that because I really enjoyed reading your point of view on various other things. I may not always agree with you, but I truly value your opinion. I would like to say that even though I don’t know you personally I like to think of you as an internet friend. So from your friend whenever you feel ready to write, I’m ready to read, and until then maybe I’ll catch up on some back reading and rereading some old favorites. Thanks for all you do!
Sarita, Thanks for your kind words. I have friends who are very much focused on Jewish holidays and some Jewish rituals as part of their expression of the Christian faith. I don’t have any problem with that, but I do fear that often it comes for a place of weak theology. We need to understand how faithfulness to God is best expressed within our own culture rather than trying to copy someone else’s culture. Anyway, I expect I will be back to adding more in a few days or weeks. Today I started cleaning up my old posts. I did 17, meaning that I am about 1% complete.