"As long as you live under my house, you will abide by my rules." Like so many of the youth of the past, and no doubt those of the future, I heard these words from my dad on numerous occasions during my freedom-fighting teen years. And like so many dads of the past and future, I just might say these words to my boys one day. But today I am addressing them to you, the illustrious reader.
Sort of.
I've dabbled in blogging before. Back in the mid 90's, I had a page on my first personal website (hosted by Earthlink.net, then by AOL) called "For Your Consideration" (a couple of you might remember that). Once a month, I would choose a topic and express my thoughts. Only a few of my friends read it, and after a sporadic couple of years, it was gone like the elusive Star Wars Christmas Special.
Since then, blogging has changed and so have I. The interaction on blogs has become intellectually collaborative at best and emotionally destructive at worst. So, I thought for my return to the forum I would set some simple ground rules, a code of conduct, if you will.
The purpose of this blog is to tell my story of life and faith. That may sound somewhat narcissistic, but that is not my intent. I think to appreciate where you have come in your journey, you sometimes need to reflect on where you have been. In doing so, I also want to encourage those who have been or might some day find themselves on a similar path. It may actually be narcissistic in thinking that my experiences could offer some small measure of consolation to someone else, but I believe it's worth bearing one's soul, as it were. In the spirit of my former blog, the intent here is to facilitate contemplative introspection. Or as many seem incapable of doing these days... to critically think.
Things I write might make some mad. That's not my intent. To borrow an idea from Abraham Lincoln, you can please all of the people some of the time, and you can please some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. That being said, I am not providing a forum for debate, though some would like that. You can disagree with me, but I won't entertain debate here. Similarly, I don't tolerate trolls. No hobbits being squashed into jelly here either.
Simply put, I will be respectful and polite and I would ask the same of all who interact here. In our current social climate this may seem like a pipe dream, but I believe in setting the bar high and reacting with grace rather than having minimal expectations and feeling disappointed.
Welcome. Take off your overcoat of skepticism and bias and stay for awhile. I will try to keep the sarcasm and geeky nerd references to a minimum (but if you can pick them out, you get a cookie).
3 comments:
So when can we expect your first undebatable troll-free word nugget?
Mingo, My first full-length blog post will be on Sunday. It won't be undebatable but it will be troll-free. Anyone is free to debate anything I write as long as it's in person at an agreed upon location and time.
Saweet! Also, bro. You should probably just set me up with like a bag of cookies, because I will be identifying all of the geeky nerd references. :)
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