Rachel Held Evans had a good post yesterday, entitled I don’t write for an audience of One.
Rachel was critiquing the popular Christian notion that we should write
or perform our worship music for an audience of One, namely, God,
without worrying about what other people think. Rachel went into how we
are relational creatures, and how she is happy when others value her
work and consider it to be helpful.
The Parson's Patch then had a good post entitled Why do I/You Write or Blog? I identified with some of these thoughts in the post:
"Maybe we can only truly be free to be who we are when we release
ourselves of our own need to be read or heard and think of writing as
expression of who we are...I started writing/blogging as a way of discovering who I was within the
context of the pastoral-vocation. For me blogging has been extremely
beneficial and helpful. I have tried to give voice to my questions,
struggles, celebrations and, of course, my love of coffee so that I
might work out what it means for me to be a pastor, and secondly
because there may be others who feel like I do. Some blog as a way of
interacting with scholarship and learning, others write to simply
share. All good and faithful responses to 'why I blog'."
Do I blog
for an audience of One, namely, God? To be honest, I don't. Why?
Because I don't see how my thoughts can impress God. God already knows
everything! What can God get out of reading my blog?
Do
I blog for others, then? Well, I'm like most people: I would love for
my work to be affirmed and to be deemed helpful. I'd like for my posts
to be read and, even more, acclaimed. Sometimes, this desire is
satisfied. Sometimes, I am disappointed. And, most of the time, I'm
somewhere in between those two extremes. I will say that, whether my
blog is popular or not, I do find it to be useful, at the very least for
myself. For one, I don't remember the contents of every book that I've
ever read and blogged about, so it's good for me to have a record so I
can remind myself of what I learned. Moreover, I find it helpful for me
to read about my ideals and the type of person I'd like to be, because
so often I stray from that path.