becoming a better citizen of the blogsphere

i’ve been actually blogging for close to 5 years. from xanga to myspace to wordpress… blogging for me has been a series of one great mind dump experiment after another. i’ve enjoyed it, but i’m not sure how good i’ve actually been at it. as i am always seeking to become ‘better’ in general, i am working toward being a better blogger and becoming more involved in the blogsphere as a whole.

if you’re in the same boat and desire to become a better blog citizen, here are a few resources i’m tapping into that may be of use to you, too.

• “who says no one cares about your blog” by ben arment (a great blog to read, period)
• 31 days to building a better blog
• 31 day comment challenge
• breaking out of the echo chamber (not about blogs directly, but an excellent piece everyone should read)
• living in a blogging box and how to get out of it
• ‘building a better blog’ community
• lifehacker’s guide to weblog comments
• the blogger’s guide to comment etiquette
• 6 reasons people aren’t commenting on your blog
• why the internet is making me stupid

chances are if you are reading this, you are likely to be a blogger. what are some of the things you have learned about the blogging world through your experiences? how have your blogging chops gotten better? and what are some of the resources that have helped you develop your blog into more of an interactive community?

too connected?

i blog (and blog again), i twitter and i skype

i have a myspace, facebook and a linkedin profile

i text chronically (according to sprint.com i have used 1,828 text messages in the billing period since april 10)

i use blackberry messenger and any number of instant messengers (ichat, aim, gtalk, msn live… you name it) … btw, if you use all those, you need to know about adium. word.

if i am away from my computer and you send me an im, i will get a text message.

if i am not blogging, i am possibly catching up on any one of the nearly 40+ blogs that i subscribe to and read daily…

there are 1,686 contacts in my entourage and blackberry address books.

in addition to my own frenetic social network melange, i manage facebook, myspace, virb, xanga, twitter and various other pages/properties as part of my job…

if i am not skyping, texting, im’ing, twittering, myspacing, facebooking, bbmsgr’ing or anything else… i am probably on the phone. according to sprint.com, i have used 2865 minutes since april 10.

my homey daniel thinks i am too connected. is it possible to be too connected?

words

i like words. i like words a lot. i am very intrigued by how people use words. i’ve been told many times that i have a unique way with words. perhaps so. but i love to write and i wish i had more time to do it.  here’s something i wrote today. thought i’d share it here…

though I’ve outbursts of bravery
and moments of rhapsody
still all that i long to be
remains just beyond my reach

though i’ve reveled in entropy
i thirst for lucidity
when i feel You reach for me
and nothing else matters anymore

he knows what hurts within us

“what made Jesus of nazereth the greatest lover in history is that he really knew then and he really knows now what hurts people… the loves and hates, hopes and fears, the joys and sadnesses of each of us…Jesus knows what hurts us. not only knows but, knowing, seeks us out – whatever our kind of poverty or pain, however we weep, wherever we feel unloved.

if you read the gospels carefully, you find how fine-tuned Jesus is to our loneliness, our frustration, our emptiness, our cynicism, as well he is to our joys and to our consolations; that he really know what hurts the human heart.

it shows up all throughout his public ministry on earth: with a sinful woman, the home of simon the pharisee, the woman who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, with the adulterous woman in danger of stoning, with the thrice-denying peter, with the 23 year-old john in the upper room, with the widow weeping on the road to calvary, … it shows up in all those passages which describe Jesus as ‘having compassion’.

the greek verb ‘splagxniðzomai’ is used 12 times in the 4 gospels and is usually translated into english as ‘he was moved with compassion’. however, because of the poverty of our english vocabulary we really don’t capture the etymological meaning of splagxniðzomai, and depending on which translation of the bible you may use, it may say ‘he was moved with pity’, ‘he felt sorry for them’, or ‘his heart went out for them’, but they all miss the deep emotional flavor of this greek verb, … which is derived from another greek term meaning ‘bowels’, ‘intreals’ and ‘intestines’… the deepest parts of a person from which the strongest emotions such as love and hatred arise.

when you read in the gospels that Jesus was moved with compassion, it was saying that his gut was wrenched, his heart torn open, and the most vulnerable part of his being laid bare. and Jesus says to us, don’t ever be so foolish as to measure my compassion for you in terms of your compassion for one another.

when we speak of Jesus, as Emmanuel, as God with us, we are saying the greatest lover in history really knows what hurts us. There is absolutely nothing that Jesus does not understand about the pain that hangs like a darkening cloud over our lives.

if you are crying out and longing for a hand to touch you, an arm to embrace you, lips to kiss you… longing for someone who is not afraid of your cynicism, your skepticism, your indifference, your shallow faith, your inconsistent discipleship, … there comes a sacred man who says, ‘it’s ok. i understand, i am here, i am with you, i am for you, and your pain reverberates in the depth of my own being.”

—– brennan manning (excerpt from “he knows what hurts within us”)

the sorrow of God

one night a friend asked his handicapped son, “daniel, when you see Jesus looking at you, what do you see in his eyes?”

after a pause, the boy replied, “his eyes are filled with tears, dad.”

“why, dan?”

an even longer pause. “because he is sad.”

“and why is he sad?”

daniel stared at the floor. when at last he looked up, his eyes glistened with tears. “because I’m afraid.”
the sorrow of God lies in our fear of him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. he anguishes over our self-absorbtion and self-sufficiency. richard foster wrote, “today, the heart of God is an open wound of love. he aches over our distance and preoccupation. he mourns that we do not draw near to him. he grieves that we have forgotten him. he weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. he longs for our presence.”

God’s sorrow lies in our refusal to approach him when we have sinned and failed. a “slip” for an alchoholic is a terrifying experience. the obsession of the mind and body with booze returns with the wild fury of a sudden storm in springtime. when the person sobers up, he or she is devastated. when I relapsed, i had two options: yield once again to guilt, fear and depression; or rush into the arms of my heavenly father — choose to live as a victim of my disease; or choose to trust in abba’s immutable love.”

…. excerpt from “abba’s child” by brennan manning

ever growing, ever changing

when i first set out with the gideon chronicles blog, my intent was to have outlet exclusively dedicated to some of my more “purposeful” and significant thoughts, musings and/or ramblings. i was feeling like I needed to narrow the focus of my blogging somewhat, and the blog you are reading is the result of that desire.

however, i have lately been thinking about this approach as well as the fact that i actually have 3 blogs… this one, myspace and my music blog, flava in ya ear. my blog and thoughts have been kind of segmented and it has had me thinking about life and how we can tend to segment and compartmentalize our lives, sometimes feeling overwhelmed because of the pressure to keep all the plates spinning, independently of each other. i’ve been thinking lately how absurd it is to think that we have all these different life elements that we try to keep separate from the others as if they don’t feed and flow into and out of each other. i recently heard someone talking about the term “faith life” or “spiritual life” in the context of people using these terms like they are actually separate and independent from the other elements of their life. after all, what parts of our lives aren’t spiritual or faith-centric?

that being said, i am going to be broadening the scope of the gideon chronicles a bit. sometimes i’ll be sharing something particularly purposeful, but i will also be sharing from the other pieces of me and my life that all flow into one another, making me uniquely me. it might be music, art, culture, humor, relationships, love, random thoughts, pictures, stories or any number of other things… but all together, they are the sum total of who i am striving to be and of the life i am learning to walk out every day… ever growing… ever changing…

hope you enjoy the ride…

if you don’t already, i encourage you to subscribe to my blog in a reader or
via email updates.

love one another.