One of the really frustrating realities of writing a blog about one’s life is that anyone could read it. It’s not anonymous, and therefore the juciest, most compelling bits, must always be left on the cutting room floor.

Anytime I write about a frustration I am currently experiencing, I risk making that frustration a lot worse. Because the people that are frustrating me could read it. This of course is compounded by my theory that Blogs are supposed to be half-baked because I’m not even prepared to stand behind what I write! I’m just processing here!

When I left InterVarsity I had plenty of material to write on and think about regarding failure. I felt like I had let my students down and was being edged out of ministry, and I wanted to talk about what that felt like in the moment. I was also looking for a new Job, and It didn’t make any sense to have a series of articles about all the mistakes I had made. So I let those ideas simmer and wrote on more disposable media.

Again in seminary I had thoughts and feelings about community life and about progressive theology and the ways people on the left fail to practice many of the good things they preach. Again I felt it was better if I continued to be able to live at peace in my dorm, as opposed to having more scathing content for the blog.

Even now, as I deal with the ordination process, and work on planting, I have content begging to be published about how to help planters and not hurt them, or about effective and ineffective ministry expectations… and yet, I want to be ordained.

It’s not that I never wrote on any of these things. Just that it all had to be neutered, to some degree.

This is all to be expected, this happens in all forms of writing to some degree. And this is a blog after all. It’s not a priority in my life and it shoulden’t be. And yet years later those articles about failure and community life still beg to be written, and I mourn for the fact that whatever form they take, they will never be as raw and authentic as if they were written back when writing might have cost me something.

I’m going to try anyway. Next week!