From Rumblings to Ramblings

Years ago, a heard a speaker say, "You can tell how self-centered a person is by counting how many times they say 'I' when they talk or write." That has always made me feel uncomfortable when writing.  I guess I'm just self-absorbed (there I go again).  Let me warn you, I'm about to say I a lot.  Honestly, I think that speaker was a bit unfair.  But wherever he is, I wish I could tell him that I have never forgotten that (I just used I three times in one sentence).

I've always had a compulsion to write.  I attempted to write my Chronicles of Narnia at age 12.  I don't remember many details other than the oddball team of travelers I had assembled and their journey through a kingdom filled with manicured lawns and extremely fat cattle with unusually short legs.  Oh, and a really big canyon.  I quit writing when they got to the really big canyon.

Over the past 15 years, I've found myself suddenly writing treatises on issues of faith and science.  These have almost exclusively consisted of partially completed documents stuck on my hard drive.  I've rarely shared them with anyone, and I've never really felt an obligation to bring them to completion.  This blog is my latest attempt at that.

In addition to wanting to introduce a catalyst for my writing, I think it's only healthy to discuss my thoughts in community.  As I've shared all the things that run through my mind related to my faith with my wife, she has told me, "You need to talk with someone about this."  I hope that this blog will invite the occasional reader to critique, agree, disagree, encourage, etc.

As each year passes, I find myself thinking things that are controversial in the circles in which I run.  I was raised in an Evangelical Christian home, and throughout my life, that faith has become my own.  As an adult, my Christian faith has been the single most defining aspect of my life.  But I, like a lot of Christians, have found myself asking tough questions about faith, and I've been dissatisfied with a good deal of what I've heard from today's Christian voices.  A fair amount of the issues I hope to discuss here will be related to those specific topics that I find myself coming back to over and over.  I don't expect to say anything terribly original, but the process of regurgitating my thoughts in this medium has to be at least therapeutic, and at most encouraging to other people walking a similar path through life.

For a few reasons I won't go into, I'm going to be blogging more or less anonymously.  I want to be able to be totally honest about the ideas that I entertain, and I want to post without hesitation or fear of complicating relationships with friends or family.

Thanks for checking it out.

James