An Apology, An Explanation, and Some New Goals...

    So... If you're reading this, chances are you are an invaluable friend blogger of mine who has somehow stayed a faithful reader through my year-long disappearance, or you are a random person internet-surfing. In the light of Romantic optimism, I will wishfully assume the former. So, yes. I disappeared for a year. For that, I apologize to my readers and blogger friends alike. I don't really have a good excuse other than I got really focused on college and rather ignored everything else this past semester. Over the summer before that? Well, my family moved. That still really didn't cover the whole summer, though, and not the school year before it either. I suppose there was really only one decent reason I had not to post something in that whole time, and I took a lot longer deciding it than I should have.

    To tell the truth, I've been considering giving up this blog entirely for a while. One of the character flaws I struggle with is a tendency to intellectual pride, a conviction that my opinion is actually quite worthwhile and expert and everybody wants to hear it, bla bla bla. As any good theologian can tell you, one human being is as fallible as the next. My opinion is merely the collection of prejudices and experiences I've built up in my short life (for better or worse), the truths that better, wiser people have taught me, and my often-faulty interpretations of those truths. I think this blog has sometimes given me an avenue to ignore that fact and make a lot out of my own thoughts. It's very easy, when you have a platform to express yourself, to fall into the idea that you necessarily have something wonderful to express. 

    Now, I don't think this blog has been a waste of time. I've had a lot of fun on this blog, and I've been able to meet and keep up with some other splendid bloggers who I would not be able to contact without this platform. I suppose that touches on what I'm really trying to get around to saying... I'm not going to give up the blog, for two main reasons: a) I would like to keep in contact with the other amazing people who've built up this writing circle I've been blessed enough to join, and b) I need to combat a secondary fault of laziness. One of my resolutions this year is to stop committing to things and then dropping them. I need to start distinguishing between what I can't do and what I'm just not making time to do. I intend to put more of myself into the things I'm working on, and not commit to anything I can't work on. I've done a lot of letting people down this year, and perhaps I need to be held accountable to work on things in earnest. 

    In other words, this blog from here on out will look somewhat identical to the old one, but its purpose will be a different one. From here on out, I'd like this to be a way of staying in the circle of wonderful Christian writers I've met here, and I would like this blog to be a report to keep me accountable as far as writing and reading go. With the new year, I'd like to propose a new beginning - no ranting and raving about things I don't know much about, no politics, and no argument-pandering. I will still probably post opinion pieces and such, but I would like to make them more civil and more humble than they have been in the past. In addition to this, I'd like to make more of an effort to read the things my fellows post. (I'll try to post something else over this next week or so, and hopefully I'll be able to figure out this new format a little better.) 

    So, if there are any readers left here, I'd like to apologize and promise to turn over a new leaf this year. Thank you for sticking with me all this time - I really appreciate it. Here's hoping that the blog is better than ever! Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!