I saw Adrian Warnock’s Wordle and was curious to see what my recent posts would look like. Just the feed of the last 15 posts yielded this:
The word “God” doesn’t appear at all. Which is not entirely surprising, given the struggle I’ve been having with my faith recently. It’s hard even to pray. So that’s pretty bad, but 2008 generally would surely be better. It was, but not by much.
There’s a little God in there, but not too much. “People” definitely wins. And the progression is extremely convicting:
2007:
2006:
2005 (Hurricane Katrina):
2004:
I’ve posted before about how I often regret and/or am convicted by the name of this blog given how much I post on politics and other topics that don’t directly relate to faith. When I started the blog in 2004 it was devotionals and bible studies. I began to feel a conviction that I wasn’t called to teach or preach, so I stopped writing about those things. Instead, I’ve tried to focus on the Christian walk generally. I gravitated mostly to politics because that interests me – since God put us in a federal republic with participatory government, active political participation is part of what we give to Caesar. Even taking that purposeful change into account, you can really see the downward slope I’ve been on at least since Hurricane Katrina. Part of the original purpose of this blog was to log my personal pursuit of holiness, and in that, at least, the blog is successful. Thanks to technology, I have an extremely clear picture of my spiritual condition, and it’s even more deplorable than I thought.
If you have a blog, what does your wordle say about you?
If you actually feel guilty over a wordle, that unease says a lot more about your faith than the fact that God’s name is small. St. Paul would probably call such a conscience “weak.” Saying God’s name means little, anyway. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words (Matthew 6:7). I’m sure you have heard prayers before where God’s name gets used twice every sentence. They just sound annoying.
Besides, separating social issues from devotionals is an arbitrary and difficult distinction. Essentially all of Jesus’s teachings involved religion in some way, but most of them touched on social issues and influenced Jewish politics as well.
A wise teacher only speaks on issues that he knows about and which are worth discussing. There is no point in posting a devotional until you feel like you have something significant to add. Otherwise, your blog would be merely style over substance, and bad style at that.
When I ran my own blog I would do Sermon Blogging. Essentially just a post or two a week on what I learned from that weeks sermon(s). That way you’re not so much teaching as communicating what your pastor taught you.
It’s not a matter of feeling guilty, Drew, it’s that I can clearly see the progression of how my focus has changed – which is indicative of my spiritual condition. The wordles provide a nifty graphic but it would be the same if I were reading through old paper journals. What I write about indicates what I’ve been thinking about. What I’m thinking about indicates the condition of my walk with Christ.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the blog as far as blogs go, but my writing the last couple of years is increasingly inconsistent with my own stated goals, and that’s a problem.
Servius – I did that for a while too.
With regard to repetitious prayers – that verbal tic people fall into while praying has led to an unfortunate habit of mine of counting. In one small group meeting prayer session, one guy said “Father God” 35 times and another racked up 28 “Lords.”
The same forces that have destroyed modern politics have been severely weakening the church within the past half century. It’s the liberals, the feelings-oriented theology, the non-judgmentalism, and an overall childishness that have cripled the church. The same thing has been happening to politics and all of society. If it’s really bothering you then you might want to re-emphasize the religious slant of your blog, but overall there is little distinction between the political evils and the religious evils in the West.
What’s really bothering me is less the lack of religious slant of my blog and more the lack of religious slant of my mind. Genuine faith is all-encompassing. My faith used to be. I’ve drifted; the blog content is a symptom, not the problem.
Thank you for your honesty and openess. Recognising something is the first step towards correcting it. Begin today to turn you gaze back to God, and his son Jesus. In fact wordles do have a useful function. I realised that my own wordle didn’t have as much focus on Jesus as I would want, so I plan to talk a whole lot more about him.
God bless you. I am praying for your right now. the truth is that if we focus on people they will let us down, but God will never fail! Having said that you do need some good people around you, so may God help you find them.