I want to start writing again. I sincerely do. Whatever flow I had regained after traveling to Japan in the spring of this year was entirely washed away by Hurricane Harvey this August. Many of my possessions were drowned and washed away in the floodwaters. Honestly, for a long time, so was my desire to write.

The enjoyment was gone. I had lost it. So I stopped writing. Entirely.

But now I want to write again, and I want to regain the focus I have had (and lost) in the past.

I'm not going to write about politics--that arena is always and will always be an utter disappointment. I have entirely given up on both sides of the American political aisle. Our system is brilliant, but it is currently stocked by self-serving and self-congratulating fools. I deeply love my country, which makes it easy for me to get charged up about those areas where I think she is going astray. However, my voice is drowned out in the cacophony of talking heads, many of them content merely to point out the transgressions of the other party without seriously considering the faults of their own. This kind of writing is a waste of my time.

I'm not going to write about the flaws in the church--again, another area where there will always be flaws to point out and draw attention to. As in politics, many in the church sadly thrive on pointing out the inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and sin of other churches, denominations, and groups while failing to consider the shortcomings of their own. I have been one of those people in the past. Yet I have yet to see anyone seriously reconsider their own beliefs or actions based on a critical blog post, news article, or online rant. Using my words for this purpose is useless.

I want to write about Christ. I want to write about living the Christian faith. I want to write about the rubber meeting the proverbial, messy, sin-wrecked road...exactly where God meets us.

How will I do this?

• I will do so positively, which doesn't mean ignoring sin but doesn't mean obsessing about the sin of others (personally or corporately) either. I am much more interested in sharing the work of God in my life and others instead of pointing out the flaws I see around me.
• I will do to so historically, which doesn't mean discounting current writers but takes seriously the reality that novel ideas in theology are more than likely false ones. There should be no new dogmas in the church at this point (though I'm willing to be challenged on that).
• I will do so liturgically, which means drawing on the rich worship traditions of the Christian church, both East and West, as the heartbeat and breath of our corporate and private worship. That heartbeat, that breath should naturally flow from deliberate times of worship into all other aspects of our lives. If it doesn't, we need to take a long, hard look at it and ourselves.
• I will do so as a Lutheran, which doesn't mean discounting or unduly criticizing other Christian traditions but unashamedly dives deeply into this tradition as the one in which I live and work. It is also the one which I believe most accurately expresses the historic Christian faith in a Western context.

There is nothing earth-shattering about how I aim to begin writing again. These foci, quite honestly, were mine when I started blogging in 2006 but ones which I have lost sight of from time-to-time. Critical writing is very easy--when emotions stir the world spill all over the page like a flood water released from containment. The world is filled with critical writers, and that's fine, but it's not who I want to be any more.

Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash