Kicking Off

For a while now a number of friends have asked when I was going to start a blog. I have resisted doing so for a number of reasons:

1) When writing op-ed pieces I, like most people, tend to enjoy unsheathing the knife and attacking. It feels good to drive the pen, like a blade, deep into the the ideas of others and turn. I take great joy out of poping the balloons of others. Because I know that Christ is (often) not evident in me in those times…I have not blogged.

2) I have looked down at the cyber world with contempt. When I read other people’s blogs, I was often disappointed at the irrational vitriol that seemed to be tossed back and forth. To put it bluntly, I found the “blog-o-sphere” filled with just to many weirdos and had no interest in becoming part of that world.

3) Although I probably won’t, if I ever ran for public office again, I didn’t want any silly blog entry I did coming back to bite me.

4) There seems to be a narcessistic desire these days for everyone to “express themselves”. I know I am not immune to this. I didn’t want to do the classic “express your individuality by doing what everyone else is doing” routine.

5) I enjoy building bridges with people, (or at least building a bridge so that they can cross over to my right way of thinking 🙂 Because I have many friends on the Left and Right, Christian and not, multi-ethnicities, and from around the globe etc. I did not want to intentionally offend anyone who is close to me by writing some of the blog entries I’m sure to write.

So why start one now???

1) Because our move to China prompted the establishing of a family blog. Often there were things I wanted to write about, but a family update blog was not the most appropriate forum

2) My brother’s blog. As I would start commenting on his blog about certain topics, I found I wanted to have my own forum for exprssion.

3) By willfulling ignoring and not thinking about the 5 reasons for not starting one that I previously mentioned.

So with that, welcome to Beyond The Pale. A hodge podge of my thoughts on Christianity, politics, religion, current events, movies, and baseball. Enjoy!!!

5 comments

  • I am coming up on 200 blog posts pretty soon, so I have one more to add to your list of why to blog – our kids. In the past, people kept detailed journals. Then people got busy and journaling fell by the wayside for most. Though I am not as honest in a blog as I might be in a private journal, my blog will be something the kids can read over when they are older and see what I was thinking about concerning parenting, work, family, and God.

  • Your brother’s a good guy — I’m glad he started blogging so that we had a chance to meet, digitally.

    Welcome!

  • Redlefty…glad to meet you…digitally 🙂

  • MLV

    Steve,

    We have a lot of “terminal uniqueness” here in Australia too. Its a global epidemic.

    Blogs are great to trade ideas though, particularly with friends lin far flung places like yourselves!

    I’ll be tuning in!

    Marylou

  • Hi Steve,

    Glad to see another Hackman in the blogosphere.

    I ran into Andrew’s blog a while back while researching The Truth Project. I liked his sane and balanced approach to the topic and have been a fan ever since.

    I will be checking in from time to time.

    Blessings.

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