Windows on the Blogosphere

The internet is sort of a window on the world. Actually it is more like MANY windows on the world. And today when I looked through those windows I discovered a new land. It is called The Blogosphere. 

(Like the nightmares of missing High School Geography class until the day of the final, or the reality of not learning a lick of history at CHS, I had somehow missed this in my years of computer usage. True story.)

The Blogosphere. It is enormous and seems to be populated almost solely by near-perfect, vigilant, well-studied and verbacious* middle-aged women.

In short, it is a terrifying place and I am pretty sure I don't want any part of it.

(* 'Verbacious' is a blogosphere word that has not yet been recognized by the gods Merriam, Webster or Oxford. You can look it up online and I'm using it. So is blogorrhea, which is self-explanatory; I'm not using that one.)

Many of these women are apparently the mothers of gifted children, the best wife of the best husband, and they are thoughtful about every thing they do. They live in tidy, well-organized homes kept that way by a schedule which keeps life in order. Their lives are model. They have giveaways and contests and subscribers and they exhort and encourage and link and monetize. And they blog about it all.

A missionary friend from Alaska (and already you rightly understand that she is fearless) warned me about this frightful place over 3 years ago. In my foolishness, beginning with only one well-intentioned click, I quickly found myself today at the mercy of dozens of compelling links to aid me in my many imperfections, multiplying and spreading out in a sort of hyper-pro-creative fashion until the tabs along the top of my screen were merely nubs. It was a buffet of right and needful information, each new window neatly trimmed with little buttons that link to still more windows of the same only different content. And before long I was struggling for breath as well as clarity of thought.

And somewhere in the process of peering through window after window after window of these...things, my  little blog and I were re-defined and made quite small, reduced to virtual nothingness, actually. And I thought about quitting, because it was a serious and uninvited case of deja vu that struck me. 

I do not fit. 

Again. 

(Or is that still?)

I'm 45 years old and I still feel self-conscious, awkward, and maybe even alien, in the presence of the people who 'have it all together'.

And most of the time that's okay with me--like yesterday when I rattled off in all seriousness: "...I want: God's special, specific, unique will for me and for my life. I don't want equality. I don't want my life, my self, my responsibilities, callings, gifts, lessons, family situation, trials, thoughts, emotions, and circumstances to be the same as everyone else's."

And then I'm tested and I'm not so sure for awhile, until...

I remember that this glimpse through this window was orchestrated by the One who made me the misfit I am. The same One who tests me from time to time to see if I really believe what I say I believe, will walk what I talk, and The One who reads not only the musings on my blog, but the un-shared thoughts in my head and the motivations of my heart, and asks that I work at aligning them to His own.

The gospel of John says that this same One came into the world, but the world didn't know Him. 

He didn't fit in this world. He was a mis-fit.

He wasn't what the crowds wanted or what the religious people expected, then or now. He definitely was not part of the 'in crowd', and neither were those who followed Him. Few are those that find the full and eternal life readily available through Christ, and I am one of the few!

I don't need to 'fit' in this world.

So, if all I do is take some time each day to see the interesting things that surround me in the life I've been given, and articulate once in awhile on the elusive, and hopefully not too boring, thoughts that bounce around in my brain, then that's okay with me.