“Listen…” -St Benedict
For the record, I hate the word blogging, blog and bloggers. The words themsleves are far less elegant than painter dancer, baker, or custodial technician. Unlike the preacher or the academic, the blogger is not a formal office with any kind of authority. “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers some to be bloggers?” Ephesians 4:11 ….and a little added. Hm.
But since blogging is currently a “thing” it is worth questioning why one sets out to do this in the first place. The only reason I could find is, “I have stories.” A lot of these stories are pretty interesting and the more I listen to my life, the more I realize there may be something to these stories than can help make sense of a threadbare faith for others, for you. Frederik Buechner says the story of any one of us is to some degree the story of us all.
I take my cues from the first word of the Rule of Saint Benedict: Listen. I regard writing a form of paying-attention-to. I think writing can be a form of listening in the same way that painting is seeing and music is hearing. It means I have to pay attention. I write in the hope that reading becomes a form of listening for you too. I pray your find something of your own story here in my own, or even raise the possibility of new kinds of stories to be lived and told.
May God make it so.
your little br. Doug
