The Family that Blogs Together

My son, Josh started a blog this week (http://seekingtheother.blogspot.com/). My wife, Nancy posted twice to her blog this week (http://lovesgoldenspirals.blogspot.com/). It seems we have become a blogging family. It is not surprising for Loves to write. That side of the family features people who write for a living, who are very good at it. In relation to the family gene pool, I'm a hack. But the Loves make their way through the world with words. Anyway, you should check out their blogs. Josh is a very thoughtful writer and a dead serious Christian (he wrote perhaps the best undergrad student paper for one of my courses I have had the privilege to read. But, I'm his dad. You should decide for yourself). Nancy has a poet's heart, knows beauty when she sees it, and as a graphic artist her blog is just way too pretty. It's not fair.

I am struck, however, by the image of us each with our own personal computers blogging away in worlds of our own creation. Blogging together is different than joining a bowling league or working together on a pine derby race car. (Can you see me in a bowling league? I can wear the shoes, but I don't think I can do the shirts). As many have pointed out, we live in a culture where being and doing together is increasingly disembodied. I hope the family that blogs together is one that stays together.

This whole blogging thing has been surprising to me. I met four friends last night from my junior high basketball team that I hadn't seen since I moved from Portland in 1975. They found me by googling me, and one of them told me last night he had found my blog. Some of you who regularly comment are long time friends, but some of you I've never met. But the kind of interaction we have here puts you already in the friend category. And you may feel the same about me. (But as many will tell you, I'm much easier to get along with online than in person. We might not be friends any other way).

So, I'm thankful for this new world and cautious about it at the same time. Christians are people who find their relationship with God in water, bread, and wine. At our truest, we are an embodied, participatory faith. This type of interaction bears a certain gnostic temptation, to be minds or digital spirits and not bodies. It might be possible to love my blog world, but not the people right in front of me (This could indeed be true for me). May God bless our togetherness for his purposes.