2000-10-03 - 23:04 MDT

October 3, 2000

Introspection

A time to look inward a bit. I have recently seen some of the same things said by other writers on the net. About, "Am I writing for myself -- or an audience. Who am I trying to please ?"

I started my diary as tool to know myself better and occasionally look back and see some of my attitudes, if and how they had changed.

Along the way I have noted some of my changes. The biggest one probably was when I came to the realization that rather than an agnostic as far as the Deity and the Bible were concerned, I am and have been an agnostic about organized and businessized churches with the huge expensive buildings, staffs and the associated squabbles about power and status that just didn't seem to me to be Christian. The last church I went to that I thought preached and showed Christian attitude was a mission church, an offshoot of the church I already belonged to. It was in a small frame building and pastored by a young, very dedicated young man. He had not long been a pastor, but he preached and encouraged the understanding of the Bible and the application of its lessons. The congregation was like I was trying to be, down to earth, kindly and friendly. There was no hint of status and power grabbing . . . . . I don't know how it fared after we left that town. I went there in a worshipful mood to get closer to my God and nothing happened that shook my attitude toward that little mission church.

After that realization, I could see that my attitude is not the norm, but one which has driven many of us away. Associated with it is my feeling that methods of worship and beliefs are highly personal and indvidual things and I respect that. And also that I probably won't see the inside of churches, except for weddings and baptisms

That is one of the changes that has come about from diarying. What started me was reading other journals and reading and posting in forums. Realizing that there were words within me that demanded to come out. I rather bashfully made the comment to an internet friend or two whose forums and message boards I admired that I would like to start a diary, but didn't think it would go for more than a month or two.

My inner feelings that came gradually about, concerned my thoughts about what I intended.

My feeling was, yes this will be a diary, my diary, my thoughts and feelings -- but that I wouldn't mind friendly people looking over my shoulder and reading what I was writing. So, I started my diary and did my rants, raves and solutions to the problems of the world similar to the way it used to be in the barber shops or around the "cracker barrel" in the store. The talk would ramble and yet feelings by each person would emerge, comments would come out from others about the situation stated and their attitudes toward the comment made. A group of friends wherin each person was well enough known by the others that they didn't dare come out with some pomposity or holier than thou comments. No display of tempers or grudges and very often the agreement to disagree. Much as I see that trend in diarys and journals, at least the kind I am drawn to. My diary says what I think at the moment I am writing it, and I reserve the right to change my attitude and if I feel it necessary make a retraction of something I said. Basically the skeletons in my area are not in the closet, but looking at me across the table ready to jeer at my stupidities. So I talk to me and sometimes think in words about things outside myself. Everyone is welcome, if they wipe their feet pull up a chair and join the (bad word for some) fellowship. No one of my friends has to be any one specific thing except that they be friendly, and close enough to laugh at me.

Diaryland offered a notify list, one for dummies like me who have Webtv and know doodly squat about html and the complexities of computers. I started my Dodo (extinct bird) a compatriot of mine who I will join in the next minute or next ten years, notify list so that my mentors and one or two others would know when I posted. As long as the owner of the list remembers to put his url with the appropriate html reference there is no need for the reader to go to his bookmarks. Just click on the cursor. Something I am trying to remember and am reminded of when when I forget to do it.

All of a sudden I find out I have more readers than I dreamed of who are sufficiently interested to want to be notified. How grateful I am that someone even wants to listen to the maunderings of an old man.

Even so, I have no dreams of a vast audience nor do I have any axe to grind except for a plea for common sense. I invite all to pull up a chair and cuppa and watch this fool fall into a fit of introspection.

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