evangelysta

I have been up to my eyeballs this week in personal organization. First, it was writing up a bibliography of all the writing books I've read or perused in the last couple of years. Then it was the email cleanout and tidying my bookmarks and links.  Yesterday, I started to get my harddrive files in order and today, I'm actually going through the five file boxes of notes from my TA and my course works stuff and putting them to rest.

The anxiety about how I write and produce paragraphs of argument and exposition from my readings and my notes has come back in a wave of ick.  Since starting the PHD five years ago, I have been treading water in a sea of expectations from myself and others about being an ordered writer. But who can be an ordered writer when the writing is so much about making a mess?

I still keep a lot of that mess.

Unless someone can write me here or call me and convince me that I don't need it anymore...

I'll let you know how it goes.

Hi LJ users and those from beyond,

I have been doing other things and not blogging. But I have been *thinking* about blogging... and going about setting up a new blog of my very own.  I will report on it soon.

But a question to LJ users: anyone of my friends/readers use a blog OTHER than LJ? Is it worth blogging here for free or do you find that pop up screen too annoying and just PAY for your LJ account? 

I've been thinking about "moving" my friendly, non-professional, online thinking life to another site (maybe a wordpress or a blogspot)--any feedback about this? Any defense of LJ?

thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Thank you all for celebrating the Advent season with me!  I heartily enjoyed the challenge of posting everyday of the season, even though I didn't make it through it all. I also enjoyed scrounging for fun internety things and generally sharing the season with those who are far away from me. Holidays acknowledge the cyclical nature of life and the passage of feelings and experiences--the coming and going of difficulty and pleasure both. It also is a time to "gather in" and take stock and count blessings.  I count my friends as my greatest blessing.

If anyone is still paying attention, we are in the 11th day of Christmas, with tomorrow being Epiphany!  Yeah! The Zoroastrian Astrologers have almost arrived!

I am back at doing some blogging with the new year. What has been keeping my attention thus far has been the steady humming of internet writing urges and the shift of our lives from the waking world to the online world.  I know for myself this last year has brought me more facebook, more twitter, and more looking for inspiring reading around the internet. But I also think that it has brought the commercial world closer to me, even though I don't have a television or generally hang out with pop-culturalists.

As I contemplate my own career and its trajectory, facing a world where only 50% of PhDs in the humanities get tenure track positions, I wonder about what it means to be a public intellectual. I see a lot of "life hackery" available on the web: lots of enterprising, ambitious,tech-saavy  twenty-somethings talking a lot about how to find what you love, to make money at your passion, and attract the lifestyle of your dreams. 

A case in point ins a fellow writing about the value of guest posting--where you write for other's blogs. This is a way of generating traffic to your own site and seems to work VERY effectively. (I found this guy through a guest post on dumblittleman.com).  This may be common to most folks working on sharing their interests over the internet, but what continues to fascinate me is how EVERYONE is encouraged now to have an online presence and persona.  It amounts to crafting an angle from which to view the world.  

And if you have more than one hobby/skill/job/opinion, it is good to have several blogs so that these personas can play the same tune to greater effect. It is what in the e-marketing world is called The Long Tail. Have a show that involves monkeys? Why not make it a red-hat-guitar-playing-Monkey-from-Central-Ohio-who-loves-pizza. This way, people can find what they are really looking for--and you will be there for them, right at the top of the google search list.

So, you need a blog. This fellow has "6 Powerful Reasons Why Everyone Needs a Blog."  Here is the gloss:
Of course, I scoff at the marketing of this--the shameless self-promotion. And I see this as an effect of this online persona building.  What does all this self-reflexive activity of constant selling do to our psyches?

But...

I like what he says about writing about something you love: about using a blog as a platform for discussing a topic you are interested in learning more about. Writing about a topic DOES build confidence. And wouldn't it be nice if, after all that labor of love, it opened doors? What about blogging that is topic-specific instead of an open letter to friends and readers? 

After all of this said, I will say the most interesting thing going on in my life is my new meditation practice. Which is very far from blogging. But even this has a crucial online element: meditation classes via podcast by Ken McCleod. 

Any thoughts on how they want to use the internet in the coming year?

I love the alternative tune of this carol, the harmonies, the enthusiasm of everyone singing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

The night Lisa, mom and I drove to Christmas eve service with three cars: one that broke down, one that iced over on the inside from lack of a defroster, and one that collected the three of us.



Or the night Dave Dicicco and I were in Galway and planned our trip on Christmas day driving up in the snow to Maeve's Grave and then onto to Derry for Christmas night




36 Christmas eve's to count. Two in Ireland, one in London, England (with a boyfriend's family who graciously took me to their xmas eve service despite their complete lack of interest in Christianity), most of them in North Hampton, Ohio, listening to mom's vinyl Christmas records.  This one is with Alex and the kitties in Ithaca, New York.  Just us.

John Denver and the Muppets from 1979. I know I watched this, and I had it on 8-track. There are children at 2:14 min into the youtube video who are just amazing to watch--so wonderfilled. And about my age at that time. 

I hope you are well wherever you are.  Merry Christmas.

or next to a power grid...

I give you some Christmas lights!

Today is the shortest day of the year. I happened to be up at dawn and drove home at sunset, so felt like I really "experienced" the fullness of the holiday. 

I then came home and hibernated for several hours on the couch.

How did you celebrate the holiday? any pagan rituals to speak of?

How might you celebrate the return of the sun?

"Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Silver white winters that melt into spring
These are  a few of my favorite things.."

(eh-hem. I just wrote all those lyrics from memory! Go me!)

Here are my favorite things that I read/interact with online.  I would invite you to add your own in the replies.

News
news.google.com http://www.bbcworldnews.com/

Gossip
wwtdd.com

Political commentary
http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/

Astrology
freewillastrology.com

Academic/professional development
http://calnewport.com/blog/

Ridiculous sugary mishaps
www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com

Favorite Firefox add on
http://readitlaterlist.com/firefox/

Active Utopian projects
http://musicnotation.twinnote.org/ http://jubileearts.net/

Ok, I know nothing about Knight Errants or Magic the Gathering card games, but I know I feel a little like this woman. Or maybe it is closer to say: I wish I felt as confident and world-ready as this woman is about her task. According to some information, she is a "planes walker," so if anyone out there wants to divine an interpretation as to why I might have been attracted to her, I would be open for suggestion/explanation. The energies that have been with me today have been:

One exemplar of this god-given duty is the Theotokos, the God Bearer, Mary, Mother of God herself



According to Luke (and not to Matthew, Mark, or John, as far as I can remember), Mary was visited by an angel and told that she will bear a son.

Sounds a lot like Isaiah.... 

Anyway, our contemporary interpretations go that she was frightened about this, kept it from Joseph, and "bore all these things in her heart." A historical interpretation will talk about other virgin births, about perhaps the practical purposes of not telling anyone that she was pregnant before getting married, let alone with the child of God, etc. 

What might be as interesting to focus on is a narrative approach to interpretation: how does this story go with anything we know? What might we learn from "being like Mary" with our godly charge? I don't have much really, here, except that we are to "bear these things in our heart." And instead of accepting them gracefully, I am now interested (for reasons that are hard to explain succinctly) in thinking that this might be a way of saying:



The Annunciation, Henry Tanner, 1898

So perhaps it isn't about just trusting God to guide. Maybe it is, and I just am not very skilled at what that means exactly. But I am getting more familiar, through Buddhist meditation, to know what it is like to sit and watch my monkey mind and my emotional reactions to situations come with force, strike fear in me, and paralyze me--all while I just sit in my living room. I am gaining experience in how quick the tumble of thought and feeling come together and I flash with shame or anxiety about "what's next' or "how I messed that up" or whatever.  I am starting to sit and watch and not always follow each of these feelings. 

And somewhere down the road, I am told, comes a point when compassion for my struggle will take over and I will not feel that hot distance of an "other me" who has it all together.  I will not feel so deprived or inadequate to that other me.  I will instead just be me, taking up the questions about God and purpose and vocation.  It will be all those thoughts about  the lack of teaching jobs and my confused desire for such a rare and precious position that will require me to write academic papers large and small for the rest of my life and me with them.  I will no longer ask, "why me, God?" with all the fire and rage that I do.  I will maybe then bear all this in my heart.