I was tagged for a meme by Brother Maynard where I need to write about “Five Ways Blogging Has Changed My Life.”

Here are the rules :
1. Write about 5 specific ways blogging has affected you, either positively or negatively.
2. Link back to the person who tagged you.
3. Link back to the parent post (this one was started by L.L. Barkat).
4. Tag a few friends or five, or none at all.
5. Post these rules – or just have fun breaking them.

I try to respond to all meme taggings, as they generally turn out to be fun or interesting excursions … and I enjoy doing stuff when friends ask. So – here are my five ways, and in the order they popped out of my brain and onto e-paper.

1. I used to clog other people’s blogs with hugemongous comments, and now generally – not always – my comments on others’ blogs are far shorter than they used to be. That’s the “what” but the “so what” is I’ve learned that if I have that much to say on the topic, I need to take more responsibility for my own thoughts by posting them on my own blog and linking to what sparked them. It’s more considerate of others and also .

Commenting is not a bad practice. You might end up with wonderful surprises, as did I! It was through commenting on blogs (mostly on Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways blog) that we four members of The Virtual Abbey met each other (Peggy, Matt, Celtic Son, and myself). We commented on each others’ comments, trying to interpret them for those who didn’t understand what we were saying. Eventually, we all sort of simultaneously figured out we were serving as interpreters for one another, and Peggy catalyzed our virtual connections as The Abbey. These three have become valued friends, prayer partners, and feedback-givers, and the only way I can figure that we could’ve met was on blogs. So, commenting is not a bad thing, not at all. I just needed to redirect some of that energy elsewhere.

2. Sometimes I say something of import to others. Everyone wants to be heard. Isn’t that a key reason why any of us blog or comment? It is gratifying to find out that at least once in a while, something really really connects and makes a difference for someone. And although that was not so much a part of my original purpose for the current futuristguy blog, the fact that it happened gradually wedged my thinking wider to consider how what I say can constructively influence/impact others – or be destructive if I’m not considerate. In fact, I suspect I would not have continued with the series on Recovery from Spiritual Abuse (which is still unfinished) had I not gotten feedback through the grapevine and through comments that it made a difference.

This kind of feedback doesn’t happen often, but that’s also true in local ministry. So much of what I do involves years of work to help others build toward the hoped-for breakthrough so they get what it means to have following generations who simply do not process life the same as we older generations do, and that we can’t expect them to just “put up and shut up.” No, as elder generation representatives, we have the responsibility to undergo a “paradigm shift” and to serve in ways that validate, empower, equip, and release those who carry forth on behalf of us all that legacy which we ourselves inherited. As those who serve/blog, we need periodic validation and encouragement, but probably not quite as much as we think …

Sidenote: The best comments/feedback I’ve received have been ones that say things like I’ve stated a complex issue sharply and succinctly, or that the material is making a difference, or that the value wasn’t so much in any one post but that the entire blog was helpful as a way for reconstruction for those who were done with deconstruction.

3. I’ve let myself say what I want, in the way that I want to. This has been important to my accepting the ways God chose to “wire” me in processing information, and not apologizing for that. I know my writing generally is very dense and doesn’t connect with a lot of people. Can I be okay with that? Yes, sometimes I need to ratchet it down quite a few notches in order to be more accessible, but my purpose is not always to be accessible – it’s to express what’s on my mind. And what you read is often exactly that – in density, complexity, and vocabulary. And I’ve arrived at where I am more okay with that.

Sidenotes: According to a particular “reading level” calculator, my futuristguy WordPress blog rated “College (Postgrad).” (And this isn’t even the top rating – the blog of one of my friends requires an even higher reading comprehension level!) I didn’t aim for this complex of a reading level, but hey, when you’re writing about concepts that have seven or more syllables (e.g., contextualization) and occasionally use compound complex sentences, well then, okay. It make sense … the rating, that is … not necessarily the content or the writing. But the first writing is not necessarily for anyone else, it’s for me to externalize what I’m thinking, as fast and as best as I can download it from my brain.

Also, according to the same system, the website that I wrote or edited every single word for rates as “high school.” So, it is a relief to know I can write at other levels. It gives me hope that I can edit my dense-and-intense curriculum material to be more accessible. Which is what I hope to do in the next two years.

P.S. I removed the image and link to the reading leveler site, because I found out when trying to get details on their research methodology, that they had previously been called out for implanting spam codes in the link. So, I didn’t want to subject anyone else to that possibility. If you’re interested in figuring out the approximate education level of your blog, see the section on the Fog Index at the end of this post.

4. I’ve realized that my blog serves as a good “acclaim barometer” about my motivations. Am I doing this to express myself and to leave what I consider to be important material for others to find later? Or am I actually more than a little hungry for technotariety, adultation, fame? These are important questions that are now far more fresh and relevant in blogging than in local ministry work, as the world is a potential platform. Each of us has a Gollum-side that seeks after power … will we give in to it?

5. This may sound morose, but it’s meant to be more melancholy: I am simultaneously more aware of both my mortality and immortality. Whah? How could blogging do that? Well, my primary purpose for beginning this blog was as a means of communicating with others from the Allelon Missional Order meeting in Seattle, and after a month, my secondary purpose became to create a “time capsule” of my thinking about ministry in emerging cultures, etc. 

We are all “terminal.” We’re not all so very aware of it. As a cancer survivor and one who has lived with chronic illness for over three-quarters of my life, I am probably more aware of that than are most. And an impetus for this blog is sharing what I’m learning, as I’m learning it – because I may not have an opportunity later to edit and clarify and expand on those thoughts. Would it be better to wait for blogging something until I’ve got it all together, clearly conceptualized and accessibly written? Or just get it out there because who but God knows whether, when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll wake up here tomorrow! And, because of sharing it now rather than maybe later or risking never sharing it at all, at least some of my writing is available and can potentially offer impact that changes the quality or course of the lives of readers. I think about such things … do you?

So, there you have it. Five ways blogging has changed my life. Instead of publicly tagging some friends, I’ll be in touch with them by email. Those I’m most interested in hearing how they respond to this question are under a lot of stress at the moment, so I want to be considerate of their situations. So, watch, and maybe their responses will pop up!

P.S. I’d hoped to go to GodBlogCon later this month, but doesn’t look like that’ll be happening this year. Anyway, all you who are going, have a most excellent time, and maybe ‘09 will be my time to meet you in person.

FIGURING BLOG FOG

Perhaps you are already aware of the “Fog Index” formula for figuring a book’s reading level. In case not, here’s a how-to I found in my files for the DIY-oriented who might be interested in subjecting their blogs (or the blogs of others) to Blogger Fogger identification. It’s got pluses and minuses as a measurement, but could be fun anyway!

1. Choose an excerpt of 100 to 125 words.  Divide the total number of words by the number of sentences in the sample.  Count fully independent clauses, such as those divided by a semi-colon, as separate sentences.  This number is the average sentence length.

2. Count words of three syllables or more in the passage.  Divide this number by the number of words in the passage (ignoring the decimal point) to get the percentage of long words.

3. Add the average sentence length and the percentage of long words. 

4. Multiply the total by 0.4 and ignore the digits following the decimal point.  The result is the approximate number of years of schooling needed to read and understand the passage.

EXAMPLE

*  120 words in the sample, with 4 sentences = an average of 30 words per sentence.

*  15 three-syllable-or-more words in the sample = 13% long words (rounded up).

*  30 + 13 = 43.

*  43 x 0.4 = 17.2 = 17 years education (rounded off).

In the typical North American system, 17 years of formal education would equate to: 8 years of elementary school, 4 years of high school, 4 years to earn an undergraduate degree, and 1 full year of graduate school completed. (If you’re not familiar with our systems, graduate school for a master’s degree generally requires the equivalent of a 2- or 3-year program full-time. Doctoral/post-graduate work takes the rest of your bank account, your brain cells, or your life – whichever happens to run out first.)

P.S. Personally, I skipped the master’s degree and am ABC – All But Coursework toward a doctorate. Umm … wadyuhmean, my blog doesn’t count as a dissertation? Hey, I’ve done almost 50,000 words on systems of spiritual abuse issues alone! (Oh, whatever …)