Kingdom Blogging

So my mother said to me, "Okay, I understand what a blog is, but what I don't understand is, why would anyone want to read one?"

Good question, Mom. In truth, I don't exactly know the answer. All I know is, words have this fascination, this hold on us. They are, it seems, the medium by which we reach beyond ourselves to others. We are all "expressors," and in addition to that we all seek the "expression" of others. It is a thirst quite as powerful as the thirst for water, an activity as closely associated with the presence of life as breathing or brain-waves. We need to speak, in some way, somehow, and we prefer not to speak into a vacuum. No, we deeply desire response. No act of communication is complete without response.

When the Kingdom comes in fullness, human expression will at last be redeemed and perfected. We will never speak from base or selfish motives. We will never speak words that mislead, or cover up, or tear down. There will be no small talk, but there will be much glorying in the small, for nothing then will be insignificant or unlovely. Oh, and there will be laughter, for that too is pure expression. Also, everything we speak will have the beauty and transparency of a Keats ode. Every word will be a kindness, an act of love and appreciation, an instance of deep understanding, drawn from a bottomless well of reverence and praise for the Father.

Until that day, expression is a sin-tainted process. And yet, we do not lose hope, for the Spirit can redeem our minds and the very roots of our expressive capacities, and (here is something more miraculous by far than speaking in tongues) by His power we can speak words that are an authentic foretaste of the Kingdom to come.

So, I say again, we do not lose hope. Expression is always an act laden with Kingdom-potential, and therefore always an occasion for hope. The expressing one reaches across the infinite space between his soul and another's, makes contact, and perhaps a kind of "chemistry" happens.

Therefore we go on reaching out, as bloggers, even despite our mixed or ingenuous motives, and we go on expressing ourselves, and we go on seeking the expressing-other, seeking contact, trusting God in the process. Blogging, and reading blogs, is just a new medium for this old (indeed, eternal) need.