OK, this has really been happening for a while, and I've been meaning to make it more explicit.
After sustaining two blogs, "Trusting Delight" and "Freedom Diaries", for several months, I've decided to make life simpler and put the two into one. And since "Trusting Delight" has been the longer-running of the two, it is the one that will continue, until some good reason arises for a change.
I've surely had my ups and downs as a blogger, and recently I've noticed how easily I can become the servant of my blog, rather that being clear that the blog exists to serve me and some larger purpose that I get to determine.
I am now clear that I intend to use the blog as a place both to post current observations (like, "the early morning bird chorus is so much more vigorous these days!") or photos of artwork as well as to post pieces of the larger story of my midlife journey from Episcopal priest to free-lance human being and the unfolding adventure of being myself.
This larger story is a midlife story of self-discovery and freedom, a "coming of age at 55" story, an ecclesiastical story through 24 years of being ordained and out the other side, and a theological and spiritual story of an evolving faith apart from religious beliefs, finding myself more grateful and having more fun with the unfolding adventure of being alive and being myself.
Which means that I am not attempting to post polished pieces of the story, but to let the blog serve as my way of getting stuff written, and not keeping it hidden away in some journal. To be the vehicle for what Anne Lamott advises in Bird by Bird:
"Get it all down. Let it pour out of you onto the page. Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft."
"Then," she adds, "take out as many of the excesses as you can."
Just for the record, I'm not going to worry about those excesses for now, which would be another excuse not to write or not to share what I'm writing. Although I do aim to be careful enough to be civil and thoughtful and compassionate in a basic kind of way.
If in the process it becomes clear that I really do need a distinctly separate blog for this purpose, I'll deal with that when the time comes. (And I thank you for rolling with me yet again!)
In the meantime, I really do appreciate and am grateful for all of you who keep reading my blogs. Many of you I do not know and may never know (although I do encourage you to leave comments if you feel like it). Others are the kind of faithful friends who make life much more enjoyable!
If you are someone who has enjoyed reading "Freedom Diaries" from time to time, I do hope you will continue to follow the story on "Trusting Delight". It's all the same story!
OK. Here we go!
Posts
