Defending the blog

Some older Christians tend to pooh-pooh at the concept of blogging. I’ve heard it said that reading blogs are a waste of time. A survey in the US reported that one out of four workers spent an average of 9% of their workweek (3.5 hours) reading blogs, and that Americans will spend the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs unrelated to their work.

A pastor said -- Why read blogs which are usually unprocessed thoughts and gripes when you can read the formed, mature thoughts of bygone philosophers and saints?

While some tend to pick up only on evidence of how modern society is going to the dogs, I only see the potential.

Blogs bring new meaning to the term “living testament”, or “living book”. What you read here on this page is really my life flattened out into words. If you are a popular blogger, let’s say mrbrown, you have the opportunity to interact with hundreds of thousands of people. When I read the post about mrbrown running into the pool fully clothed to pull his autistic daughter out of the deep water, I was touched by his unconditional love. That kind of thing.

Reading blogs also fosters compassion for other people. If you read with an open mind, you get a sense of what it is like in the other person’s shoes. What is it like to be a pastor and have to close down your church? What is it like to feel as if all the teachers are always picking on you? What is it like to be branded a hopeless case? What is it like to fail an exam? What is it like to be dumped? What it is like to be human...

I have to get back to work now.