I have a two part Blog today. I want to discuss a short story I read by Truman Capote. I then would lould like to offer an analysis and possible explanation of the phenomenon of blogging.

Truman Capote was one of the greatest American writers. I read his short story, "A Christmas Memory" and was blown away!! Forgive the hyperbole, but I would sell my soul to write like that. But of course, if you know anything about Truman Capote, he was a most tortured man ......most great writers have suffered very troubled lives.
But what i want to share is what a wonderful gift from God this literary rendevous was on one of my wobbly days.

I take my oldest daughter to group violin lessons every tuesday and they are held at the Las vegas Highschool Academy downtown. The lesson is held in what is probably an english/lit classroom and I often browse through the text books. SO, while all the little suzuki violin stars of tommorrow sawed their way through an Argentinian Tango, I curled up in the corner with a textbook on literature and began reading Capote. That story moved me, washed over me, took me away. A true sparrow moment!! God always brings this fragile mind the right medicine at the right time. It also amazed me that he places the most brilliant talent into the strangest and often most wretched vessels. I closed that book and was in awe of the mystery and transendence of how God comes through in the simple story of an intimacy of two individuals written by one of his most wayward creations. Please, if you have a chance and love good literature, read this story. And now this leads to my next thought on why blogging has crescendoed.

Have you ever noticed that a commonality with bloggers is that they begin their first blog with either the reason they are blogging or with the lack of knowing why they are.

The reasons are probably numerous but, I think the primary one is that reading the thoughts of another brings you to a focused intimacy with an individual more than if you were to hear their thoughts in a face to face conversation.....Too many distractions occur in this mode. You (or at least I do) find yourself looking at the tilt of their chin or notice they are beginning to develop bags under their eyes or worse yet, you think " are they seeing something in me they are repulsed by? Have I got something in my teeth?, my nose?, .....what's that smell ..... Oh my gosh my two year old just ate a cockroach!?. Needless to say, this puts a damper on hearing another's heart in any meaningful way.

And let's face it, the art of conversation is abyssmal in this society. We have become (since the television ) visual addicts not conversationalists, able to express thought in a meaningful way (read Neil Postman's" Amusing ourselves to death" or watch the movie "Avlaon)". The "individualistic--put the garage door--down --I been workin' all day--turn on my favorite sit-com" mentality has left us with not only a limited vocabulary but a communal lazziness. Thus, we may have developed a compensatory mechanism to this paucity of connectedness by blogging. We can focus on the individual that might intrigue and amuse us in a deliberate way and feel somehow that we have entered the sanctity of their life. Their thoughts can make us feel like we are not the only one with those ideas, fears or feelings. We can feel compassion, love, hate, or say," Yikes! I finally have discovered someone more screwed up than me!"

BUT, and I mean a big BUT , as my friend, Meghann, so truthfully expressed, and I believe she is a wise young girl with a healthy built in bullshi......detector, Why aren't we saying all these things to one another face to face---we know each other; hang out from time to time, what's the deal? We are talking but not on a deeper level. And I think she has a very important point. And this may be an answer:

When I was a dancer I wore a very small amount of fabric considered a costume and danced at times as close as two feet away from the audience. But it did not bother me because in show-biz there is "The Wall" that allows me to become someone else or remove a mask and reveal vicariously through a role, parts of my true self that may not go over too big at a Christian potluck. I think blogging provides this "Wall" for many. They have the time and privacy as well to formulate their thoughts/reactions at the end ,beginning or middle of their hurried-sick lives.

I also think blogging is a form of social foreplay and mental copulation---forgive me for the freudian observation but I think it is true. The greatest need of the human being is intimacy (to know and be known)---and all addictions and neuroses are caused by the dysfunctional and erroneous searches to fulfill this insatiable need created for only God to fill. So blogging is (i don't know if it is healthy but) a way of revealing things-----of saying, please know me, without the mask, in a deeper way and hey, I might even spell the word bullshit without suffering the scowl of my bible study leader......and if you reject me or disagree ,my "CyberWall" diffuses that sting.

----So there it is, altogehter too prolific and prosaic but an analysis of the possible blogging revolution ---or as one blogger has mentioned----It could be just a God thing.

I am feeling a little guilt now about the long- windedness, sexual connotations and expletive....I think I'll go play a board game with my girls. They have become louder as i have been writing--- a clear sign that I am indulging and they are not getting intimate attention from mommy. Kids are such great B.S detectors.