1) They give the blogger an outlet for expression and decompression.
2) They give the blog reader a chance to 'look in' on someone else's life/journey in order to glean entertainment, inspiration, education, mystification or just plain distraction for a moment popping them out of their moment-by-moment living to give them a 'glimpse' from someone else's 'other side' and that glimpse (under ideal circumstances) gives the reader a little 'lift' or 'thrill' that perhaps they've been needing.
So, it seems like there's almost an unspoken sacred 'pact' between blogger and reader that the blogger will keep it real and the reader will read. Blogger feels 'heard' and gets decompressed. Reader gets whatever specific thing it was they were looking to get because the blogger took his/hers emotional 'wraps' off for just a second.
(with that kind of preamble you're thinking--crap, what's coming next?)
Well, my old Church is in transition.
I've heard, third-hand, that the man who took over after I left (a good, brilliant--I would dare say--man) is leaving. I heard in an email. The person writing me the email just asked if maybe we could connect in and around the time he was going to be in-town for my former associate's last sermon at our Church.
And I was like, "His last WHAT!?"
So ever since (and that was three days ago now) I've been mildly freaking out wondering what's going on, what's going to happen to my friend and former associate and, perhaps most immediately, what's going to happen to (my) Church.
(and it's in brackets 'cause once you plant a Church you always think of it as 'yours' and that's not meant in any kind of possessive way but in the same way you call your child 'yours'--yes, they're their own person, always will be, but you'll always feel a special connection to and care for them...)
And here's where the post gets relevant to what this blog's supposed to be about.
It's a good and painful thing to care about your work.
You plant a Church. You care about it and about its people. You make a movie. You care about its story and the way in which it's going to impact its audience. You run a TV show. You care about its staff and talent and hope to high heaven that it connects in some kind of meaningful way with the people who watch it each day. You have a job. You care about doing it well and hope that the input you give (no matter how small or large) translates into impact.
Right?
You care.
And the thing about caring is that it comes hand in glove with pain.
The more you care in life the more you're going to hurt.
My heart has been hurting for three days since I heard the news. I just got a txt from my friend and former associate saying he's been moving and that's why he hasn't called me but that I'm on the list and he'll call soon. And I, literally, have chest pain waiting for him to call.
And maybe you're thinking I'm an excessively emotional and edgy person--and you'd be right in thinking that--but my sense of it is that to feel deep emotion about the things you have done, are doing, and will do is a pretty good litmus test for whether or not you're doing the thing(s) that you're supposed to be doing.
What's really freaky (and this goes in the 'supernatural' bin, so if that's not quite your 'bag' please just feel free to ignore me here for 'sec...) about all this is that I had a dream a couple months back that my friend and former associate was calling me telling me that he was leaving our Church to move overseas.
Crazy.
So here I am, waiting for a phone call. Worrying (not too much, but enough) and hoping and praying and caring.
'Cause all good work is worth at least that much.
T
1 comment:
Mad drama guy! Long live Freedomize! As Billy Joel said, "we didn't start the fire..."
P.S. - Free Huey!
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