Entering “Blog-World” feels like taking up residence in a foreign country.
In the ancient civilization where I grew up, interaction with the wide world was slow, limited, and usually written longhand, on paper. A set of World Book Encyclopedias and the telephone book served as our Google. The impossible-to-refold map we picked up at the gas station was our navigation system, and we learned the events of the day by reading the newspaper or watching Walter Cronkite on the console television set, in living color. In those halcyon days of typewriters, instamatic cameras, and rotary telephones, people wrote letters, with practiced penmanship, on carefully chosen stationery. They signed, sealed, and mailed them, and waited patiently for a reply. Our private lives were neither “out there,” nor did we wish them to be.
Those who live long enough find that the world changes. Communication is now constant and instantaneous. Information is infinite, if not always accurate. Thoughts leap “out there,” ready or not- and everyone joins the conversation (posting the picture they snapped a second ago). Blog is a familiar, versatile word- a noun, a verb, and adjective- (though the term is only a few years older than my dog and certainly does not appear in my World Book Encyclopedias), and blogging is something a writer-a blogger– is required to do.
A suspicious few of my generation clutch relics of our fading culture, taking pride in obstinate refusal to budge from comfortable (and therefore right) ways of interaction with the world- disdaining texts, impervious to tweets, and holding hashtags in contempt. Others embrace new technologies, or at least give them a whirl, with various levels of enthusiasm and success. Carried by currents of time, I drifted into the latter category, by increments throwing useless (though beloved) baggage overboard. I read blogs, thinking that blogging would be fun- and I determined to put the scribbling in my college-ruled notebook “out there.”
With rudimentary skill and a credit card, I navigated unfamiliar seas, gazed with fear and wonder on widening horizons, puzzled through unintelligible maps (wait, nobody uses maps anymore- they were tutorials), asked directions from a millennial, and arrived at the harbor of my new domain. Hello, Blog-World! It’s time to step out.
I have chosen to call my new territory “All Uphill.”
Though the name may sound daunting, I don’t intend to lead my friends to a steep trail, load their packs, set a hard pace, and leave them gasping for breath. I like All Uphill for a different set of reasons:
As a hiker, I prefer the uphill track. The upward trail offers possibilities, camaraderie, heart-pounding challenge, unexpected vistas, then…the grandeur of the summit! (And lunch).
As a faith-walker, following Jesus is a journey to the loftiest heights. Although the trail sometimes wanders through barren places and tests endurance, our good Guide assures us that He is leading us “all uphill,” for He is the door to the dwelling place of God.
Long ago, my dad clipped a poem by an unknown author from a newspaper. The words aptly expressed my optimistic, resilient, hard-working father’s philosophy, and I heard him quote it many times.
“There’s a beautiful view from the top of the hill
If you’ve but the will to climb.
There’s always a lift and a rift in the clouds
To disclose the peaks sublime.
The road may be rough, you may blow and puff
But never you mind, you’ll be scaling the bluff.
Then yours is the view from the top of the hill
If you’ve but the will to climb.”
Why settle for lowlands when the pinnacle rises ahead?
When I mentioned to friends and family that I had figured out how to create a blog and was on the cusp of becoming a blogger, some were amazed. Others were amused. A few offered congratulations. Many asked, “What are you going to write about?”
The details of my own existence are not noteworthy, even to me. I have many interests, but merely “piddle” at them. Any attempt to pick one and create a blog around it would be unsustainable and no one would read it except my sweet mother, who still believes that everything I do is remarkable. But I have lived; I have seen and done noble, reckless, creative, exciting, and stupid things- and I have experienced consequences. I enjoy a long, happy marriage, and somehow raised three hard-headed children into thoughtful, kind, super-cool adults. I have loved simple, ordinary folk who are in reality complex, extraordinary immortals, and I treasure years of friendship with compassionate, intelligent, good people. I read books. I go places. I think. I laugh. I can tell a story. So- what am I going to write about? I plan to write about life- you and me- the common trail we share. Who knows what we may encounter around the bend?
Follow the trail with me – through remembrance and imagination, observation and insight, humor and wisdom, muddling through the mundane, and reaching for a dream.
It’s all uphill!
