Accounting for Silence

Frankly folks, I have a statistical indication that very few of "you" are actually missing my posts here. But, since I enjoy writing very much and most of "you" know that I do, I had the notion to explain the lack of activity on this blog in recent days.

Recently, Richard "Birdie" Okimoto provided a lengthy quote from Reverend Leithart's Miniatures and Morals. The passage is helpful on a number of levels, but particularly with regard to decision-making, i.e. - why should I publish my thoughts for general consumption.

Basically, I would alter one of his base questions to read: "What kind of blogdom do I wish to participate in, and what is my place in it?" My stopping to ask this question is long overdue. God has grown me and changed my circumstances since I first set out to blog, and I have been reflecting on my reasons for continuing.

I have no "calling" for a blog ministry. That is, I have not been invested with any authority to teach anyone who visits this blog. My education and experience surely do not commend me as an authoritative resource in any way. Quite the contrary, if I were your pastor, I might advise you not to spend time reading the blogs of young men with whom you are not acquainted in "real life."

I have reservations about including much "personal" information. Which is to say, reports on my life's circumstances are very limited.

Humourous anecdotes can be tiring because I'm not really all that funny anyway, and finding something humourous from someone else is usually (for me) the result of wasting time.

Criticizing the errors of others is very tiring, mainly because it's an overwhelming sort of thing. And eventually someone would decide to criticize me, and that would be annoying since that critic would obviously be wrong in whatever they chose to say.

One attractive notion for me is the idea of not posting so often as I did in my blogging "heyday." I realize now that part of my motivation for frequent postings was to maintain the higher level of site visits which that naturally produces. I liked the idea that some folks had me on their daily rounds. But that's a load of rubbish, so I'll just post when I feel like it.

I think posts like the recent one on Sola Ecclesiam may be the future of this blog. I don't know of any reasonable objection to my providing some points to ponder. With that post for instance, all I'm saying is that if John Calvin and the Westminster Confession retained a significant Roman Catholic principle, maybe modern protestants should put it in their pipe and smoke it. Clearly, everyone who reads this blog found that to be exactly right, since I had no comments to the contrary. As I've mentioned before, I view silence in the comment box as a resounding "AMEN!"

So I suppose that in the end, I'm saying that I'll stick around. But I should say that I have purposefully and drastically reduced the number of blogs that I visit. If you write something on your blog which is intended for me, you may want to email me and let me know or I will likely miss it.