It’s cold and still dark outside this quiet Sunday morning as I write. The beat of the lali signaling the dawn prayer service sounded minutes ago, but I’m not going because I’m feeling so cold and my warm bed is more inviting, my blankets more cosy than a hard, cold church pew.
I’ve decided that sometimes it’s better to choose what’s best for me than to pretend. And that’s the same direction I’m going with my writing here on Solitary Grace. It’s better for my peace of mind that I go towards what I’ve been noticing for a long time rather than stay in the same path, the same place, and stagnate.
That’s what I’ve noticed more and more about my writing, that I want to write down what I’ve been observing in my ordinary life here in this space.
More personal, diary or notebook-like entries than a set of instructions.
The truth is that I was stuck.
I thought that all blogging or all writing published online had to be outward-focused, had to serve readers, had to be SEO-optimized, had to appease algorithms whatever that means. And for months, years, I’ve tried that. I struggled with all that.
Then this past Monday morning, 8th June, while in the middle of an email at work, I found myself thinking about my next blog post. And that’s when I felt something settled within me. It was like I was realising for the first time that my writing isn’t work, it’s not a job. I already had a day job and my writing, my having a website and blog wasn’t it.
It was as if a room that I hadn’t known existed had gently been revealed to me and I was walking through its doors and truths were being illuminated to me.
Truths about struggling to write ministry style material that would appeal to other Christians or that would answer seeker questions rather than following my natural instinct to share my reflections on things I notice about walking with God. Struggling to keep to a publishing schedule rather than to publishing when I observed something worth recording.
I’ve always wanted to simply share the small moments, the ordinary things I see, the lessons I learned, snippets from my diary or notebook. Things that I naturally find interesting. Things that matter to me. Things that matter from my perspective.
Moments, thoughts, photographs, quotes, prayers, books, and observations. These are some of the things I’m drawn towards.
Things I’ve stifled over the years because they were not the ‘right way to blog’ that I’d read about in the many, many ‘how-to blog’ posts I’ve read over the years.
Even a Christian ‘blogging expert’ (come on, is there really such a thing as a blogging expert?), in one of her many posts about blogging, wrote that Christian bloggers must not publish devotionals because they are short pieces and ‘the algorithm’ doesn’t like short pieces! This, from a Christian blogger writing to other Christian bloggers. Mind boggling.
And now, here I am having my epiphany and thinking shorter pieces are acceptable.
Here I am moving towards a more writer’s notebook style writing and blogging than a ‘normal’ ministry style blog.
I’ve realised that I’m not trying to build a content machine but a record of a life lived attentively before God. This life, that I’m living right now. With all its small moments, observations, things noticed in my ordinary days. Things worth remembering.