Santiago Returns

Wow, you know it's been a long time when it took me about 30 minutes to find my own blog and then actually get access to it. Password had aged out I guess.  It's like the health care system....what's supposed to be for you can actually seem set against you.

So it's been a year, over a year. Kind of lost my way on blogging. The first 34 posts were done during a time when there was a bit of a blogging community that I was a part of. I would often lose my way, lose the WHY? of writing/posting. And then there was the whole thing of wondering who might read and what they might have to say by way of comment. Although kind of exciting in the expectancy that came with it, all in all in wasn't helpful for me. I would like to write with no audience in mind, to have the writing process be an end in itself. With that in mind I believe I have turned off the ability for others to comment (if I did it correctly). Now, only members of this blog can comment and I am the only member....brilliant!

Rather than try and recap the 15 months or so that has gone by, I really just want to start fresh. Being present, seeking the transformation that has in large part been elusive (at least measured by me, which I'm not certain you can really do all that adequately). We are pursuing this exploration of missional discipleship community right now in the effort to explore doing "church" differently. I am hungry to live these career twilight times with less fear and trepidation. If perfect love does in fact cast out fear then I have a lot more need for more perfect love!

Reading Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts has been quite inspirational....it even set me down to write tonight. On my 2nd read which is fairly rare.  I was watching a You Tube of one of her interviews and several things stood out that parallel what I have found in writing. Things like not even knowing what you thought about something until you write about it. About the power of naming things and for me writing is naming fuzzy thoughts and birthing them into articulated substance. Even heard the quote from Eric Little in one of the interviews, the very line that I have used to describe writing....Yes, when I write (and later read it) I too feel the pleasure of God. It's somewhere in the strange co-mingling of my self-familiarity with the presence of someone else that I believe to be Christ in me. The resulting product can often be like reading something fresh, not at all something that I actually wrote.  So very strange and yet absolutely exhilarating! 

Writing is work and I have a very lazy streak in me. I like to check things off my list, keep things moving, accomplish in some volume. But I can't do that with writing...it leads me to only writing when I am in a certain mood which is on the same cycle as 'blue moons'. Everything of value is work, good and lasting things come through intentionality, through honest effort, focus. One doesn't birth anything without expending plenty of energy and for me, thrashing around until I name it is a messy, tiring exercise that keeps me totally in the dark until it is over and done.

So I have returned with a desire to exercise a gift God gave me to communicate with written words. I want to exercise this for Him, because He gave it to me. I want to derive clarity and increased freedoms for myself by being honest, by exploring 2' fears casting 7' shadows. I desire to form a discipline in writing even when I don't feel like it because "writers" write. If I want to get better at writing I must write. This is my first, renewed step to write, to feel the pleasure of God and do at least part of what I was created to do. All this but with no thought of it having any purpose other than allowing a James/God dialogue, to grow in Christ, to be a more thankful, courageous member of the Kingdom community.

So, welcome back ol' friend.  Thank you for taking some time to dust off the old cobwebs and clack the keys.  I  choose to glory in having no idea where to go from here.  The words above have established sufficient WHY.  Now it's time for some DO!
And oh by the way...let's skip the search for clever pictures to accompany the posts...as they say on American Idol..."this is a singing contest".  So no superfulous efforts on prettifying the blog....just write from the heart and all will be well compadre!