Beginning a new year, and a new blog...
with the trepidation of good intentions
I’m creating this space to write informally, to push back on my habitual paralyzing Doubt about my ability to dash off publish-worthy thoughts that haven’t been perfectly formulated or optimally articulated.
In the same vein, I’m also creating this space to speak casually from the heart; to risk being wrong, too off-the-cuff, poorly considered, in front of . . . well, whoever deigns to read or subscribe (which could be nobody, ever, for all I know). Cultivating a heart of curiosity is about seeking to understand what is true without attaching my ego to it, fostering humility of spirit and the openness it breeds, while living with clear, firm convictions. Can I explore, out in the open, questions of the heart and mind with real honesty, without knowing where I am going, where they will lead?
I’m also starting this blog with my left index finger bandaged out of commission, thanks to an accident the other day chopping celery too fast while making soup from the remains of our Christmas turkey. (This is not the first time, believe it or not.)
Hopefully the minute missing piece of my fingertip will not slow me down, but serve as emblematic—temporarily, at least—of the deliberate imperfectionism I wish to foster here.
My deeper purpose is that I want a place to scribble aloud my reflections on living spiritually in a material world, hash out the thoughts that drift around in my head daily. (Which is not to say I will be publishing daily, though I could hope.) One of my inspirations is Rod Dreher’s Diary. As a paid subscriber, I read Rod’s near-daily ponderings on the important events and trends of our world from his Orthodox Christian perspective. I don’t share his religion, but I deeply appreciate his ability to prolifically and intelligently filter the goings-on through its lens. Paul Kingsnorth is another brilliant thinker, a new(ish) convert to Orthodoxy, and I find his unstinting insights extremely clarifying, often soul-touching. (Here he is, in typically fine form.)
My own religious filter is the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th century scientist, philosopher, and Christian mystic-theologian. Having grown up in a denomination that regards his work as true revelation—the Third Testament, in fact—my entire worldview has been shaped by the profound new Christianity laid out in the many volumes that comprise his work. Swedenborg is not well-known, which is unsurprising as he deliberately published without any attempt to create a church or following; he was an unsurpassingly humble servant of the Lord. Yet I believe the sacred truths revealed in his Writings will, by the Divine’s Providence, speak to a growing audience of believers of all shapes and sizes as our Judeo-Christian culture in the West continues its precipitous decline.
So here I am, creating a Substack to consider life from a “Swedenborgian” (I resist that term, so think Swedenborg-informed) perspective. I hope to write regularly. The greatest challenge for me, aside from carving out writing time in the hullaballoo of my day to day, will be finding the courage to hit “publish” without having spent hours and days, even weeks, dithering and editing to death my thoughts so that they come out sounding as perfectly articulate and interest-worthy on the page as I heard them in my head.
This is not a small challenge. I’ve utterly failed at it with my other blog.
That being the case, I wish me luck here. Word on the street is 2024 will be an extra-ordinary year for content creators. So buckle up!
