6 years.

At the time of this writing it has been six years since I wrote anything here.

While that is true I have far from lacked wanting to say things here or even having things to say. A lot of things have prevented that. Life, health, outlook. I won’t be surprised if what those are and their respective effects get fleshed out as things revitalize here a bit.

Below are a few considerations I have wrestled with as I made the decision to return here.

At times I can be a bit of a perfectionist. So to write something here again, there is a part of me that feels like I have to add back every what could have been or would have been idea. As I write it, I know that is non-sensical. But alas it is the thought that I have now and have battled before. I have no doubt there will be a post or two that get added back, but by no means what once would have been.

What a blog was when I started out on this journey and what they are now are drastically different things. Not to sound trite, but there is a significant difference between who I was and who I am as well. But well beyond that, what I wanted to say/express then and what I want to say/express now, there is a lot different there. So much of what was here was just the journal aspect of a blog. While I have no intention on leaving that behind, there was so much more to say, that I wanted to say that for different reasons I just didn’t.

At the end of the day I want to write. And there are a lot of things I want to write about. There are a lot of stories I want to tell. Why not here?

Another thought or two that at a high level acknowledge things that have kept me from writing at times.

For various reasons at different times I haven’t felt like I could say what I thought, say what I wanted. I have often found myself found myself on what I felt like where the fringes of situations. As I have grown and moved through life I have absolutely come to acknowledge some of this is my own doing. There is an unwillingness on my part to be defined and categorized. I am also a contrarian and sometimes will … discuss things just for discussion’s sake. There is enough misapplied context that has led to too many divisions in our present society that I wasn’t reluctant to contribute to that. But what I have found in my fighting my own instinct to fight everything, I have in different ways walled myself off just generally from a lot of things. Theologically, politically, so on. I think there is far more common ground than we realize. But the world we live in simply will not allow us to consider it. Well. I consider it. And I know there will be a cost from some. But I also don’t think I’m alone. And I’m no longer going to have the floor for discourse defined for me by the loudest speaking of the distant fringes.

But finally I would be remiss if I didn’t saying that there was a time where I didn’t want anyone to see me. The best articulation of this is a story. I was asked to speak at a discipleship weekend. There is an outline of talks on specific topics that volunteers are asked to give. To attempt to ensure things don’t get too sideways, speakers practice their talks before the weekend. I had my outline, I prepared my talk, I practiced accordingly. After the practice someone came up to me and said (essentially), “You covered the material fine. But where’s your story?” The snarky part of me thought, “Well, the outline didn’t mention anything about my story.” But I knew what the gentleman meant. There has been a long period of time where I could stand in the middle of a crowded room – I could stand on a stage in the middle of the crowded room and the one talking – and you could hear me, but you wouldn’t see me. There are A LOT of pieces to that and I won’t begin to parse them out here. If anything I think part of that parsing is what finally enabled my return here.

Everything else I want to say here is really summed up on the Why page. I’m not so arrogant as to think I have all the answers. Not by a long shot. But there are just things I’ve seen, lessons I’ve learned, and I feel compelled to talk about them, to share them. I think the Bible clearly points us to community, but I don’t know that we always understand what that means. And even if we do I think so often we find it difficult to apply to our lives. But I know some of the things that have helped me have been folks that have been willing to share and speak even when its uncomfortable. By God’s grace writing has been incredibly therapeutic for me. Lord willing it can be light or fresh air to someone else.

Sometimes I didn’t know how to articulate how I saw things or how I felt, so I just closed myself off from anything beyond the most surface level; as much as a departure as it was from how I felt in that season, that season is part of what has prompted this return… I’m not so arrogant as to think i have all the answers, but if what I went through can be of benefit to someone, I absolutely want to help if I can.

Oh, and since I live in America and nothing has to be my fault, I blame all this on Chase.