Our Lives are Funny, Really...

Cool, irrelevant graphic. Something's gotta go here!

Dear Blogging Friends (and Blog Readers, too):

There are so many blogs out there, so many shapes and styles, varieties of length and frequency, covering so many diverse topics. People voice opinions, share recipes, talk about their families, post pictures and graphics, develop philosophical meditations, or just ramble.

Many bloggers are struggling to write stories — their own personal stories — even as those stories continue to unfold.

Some of us have an urgency to reflect upon our own lives, to put our experiences into words. And we also want to share our experiences; we have the sense that something is happening in our lives that might be interesting to others, or perhaps helpful, or even inspiring.

Some of us are hoping that the miracle of the Love that cares for us and carries us will shine through even when people realize that we are incoherent, that we hardly know who we are, that no matter how expert we may be with words we can't hide the fact that we are really children.

The beauty of blogging can be seen in the different ways that we try to tell our stories (and to read the stories of other people). I want to encourage my blogging friends (and myself) to keep telling those stories.

And we needn't be afraid to be candid and to let the messiness show. In an honest recollection we can express how things happen, and the sloppy and awkward drama of every day. We can show our strength and frailty, our determination and all the limitations, frustrations, and obstacles that confront us. We can express reality in the midst of this collage of problems and our response to them, whether it be courageous, patient, bad-tempered, angry, calm, persistent, foolish, or (most likely) some combination of these.

And we will discover, often spontaneously, some things that are quite funny.

Those moments of humor — miraculous humor that comes through like shafts of light, humor that we don’t need to make up because it’s just there in the circumstance itself or in the effort to convey it — that humor is a beautiful thing, a strong and hopeful thing. Of course, we can go through long periods where we don’t see it, even in retrospect, but that underlying hope is still there.

It certainly helps us to communicate these things in writing, working through these experiences by putting them into words, and sharing them with people who are on the other side reading — knowing that among those who read there are people who pray and who care about what we're going through.

I’m sure, also, that our writing touches people and brings strength, encouragement, and healing in ways that none of us know. We must keep writing from the heart and letting our humanity show, because that’s where God’s grace is working.