Blog Day Reflections

26 November, 2004 4:09 PM

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of my first ever blog post.

Two years is not a long time - I feel like I've been at it a lot longer than that. This blog has recorded 1440 moments of time in my life and has recorded a period of real change for me. Not only has it recorded change - but blogging has actually been a change agent also!

Last year at this time I reflected upon the first year of blogging with the words:

'Blogging for me is many things. It started off as an outlet for me to think out loud about my hopes and dreams for the birthing of a little community of faith. Since then it has become many other things. It is a hobby, its a way of connecting with others on similar journeys, it is a way of learning about the world I live in, it has been a spiritual discipline, it gives me a place to get feedback on my ideas, it is a creative outlet, it is a record keeping devise for ideas and experiences and it has been a way to keep my supporters informed of what's happening for me.'

As I've reflected today upon the directions my blogging has taken since I wrote that I realize that things have continued to evolve for me. A year ago I had just launched Digital Photography Blog as a record of one of my other loves and hobbies. Through a number of strange twists of fate, coincidence and/or divine intervention that blog has become the basis for something of an emerging Career - a career as a communicator - a career as a gatherer of information - a career as a blogger.

It sounds strange to say those words - who would have ever thought that in 2 years the twists and turns of life would lead to that statement - but its the way it has happened. I don't say it to big note anything that I do - but rather because blogging has actually opened up a way for me to help put food on the table in our home and to release me to give my time freely next year to my work with LivingRoom.

It is hard to believe that the ugly little blog I first created with a free Blogger template has evolved into something like it has. I now have 13 blogs and am associated and partnering in the life of a handful of others. Blogging has changed my life (did that sound like a religious testimony?) but my approach to blogging has also changed since starting.

To be honest there both good and bad aspects of the change. The bad includes things like comment spam (which took me to the point of wanting to give up a month back), the criticism of others, the lack of time to blog about passions. However the good aspects far out weigh the rest at this point - the relationships that have opened up, the opportunities to be a part of some life giving projects, a stable and generous income, the encouragement I'm given daily by so many of you - these things keep me going.

Also keeping me going is the potential that I see in blogging. Potential not only to keep food on our table, but potential to give the marginalized a voice, potential to provide income to those without, the potential for learning, for community, for relationships. I would never have imagined that the last 12 months would have evolved the way they have for my blogging and I'm very excite about what the next year will bring and about the ideas that are continuing to form in my mind.

Thanks again to those of you who go out of your way to read my scattered thoughts. I'm encouraged by your comments and emails and even by those of you who lurk without commenting but whom I seem to bump into regularly in real life.

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