Katiie’s Beer

Walt Whitman

LaShawn Barber shares her favorite childhood poem…

O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

~Walt Whitman

I read LaShawn Barber’s posts frequently. Not because she is a well-known Christian or conservative, but because she embodies Luther’s concept of vocation. She seamlessly ties in faith, culture, politics, technology and life. She inspires me to write and make my blog a platform to contribute to the world in the ways God has provided to me. Recently she wrote about her own continuing growth in writing and bloggging, in LBC Retooling,

I have a confession. I am bored out of my skull with the political ranting and raving and nitpicking. I’ve got to take this blog to the next level, mix things up a little bit.

Since November 2003, I’ve basically done the same thing: check the headlines, pick a story, rant and rave about it, link to other bloggers blogging about it, try to get links from other bloggers blogging about it (”chasing the link”), wait for the comments, read the comments, comment on the comments…and start over again the next day.

That’s what most bloggers do, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It’s just not the right format for me anymore. I do some of my best writing on the blog. I put most of my time and energy into it. In fact, I put so much time and energy into it, I don’t have time to do writing outside the blog.

My former boss at the former day job, a liberal, gave me very good advice at a “goodbye and good luck” lunch. Although he leans left, he really liked my writing. He didn’t agree with most of it, but he thought I was a good writer. I told him about my plans to build up the blog, and he advised me to get into the habit of submitting op-eds to print publications once a week. At the time I waved it off. My focus was the blog, the online world. Now I remember why it’s important for a writer-blogger to do non-blog writing.

I need to focus more on filling up this page than joining the next blog swarm or catching the next meme. I want to reach more people with my ideas and opinions, and the best way to do that is to be published in a wider range of print and online pubs. Instead of being one of hundreds of bloggers commenting on MSM stories and op-eds, I want bloggers to comment on my MSM stories and op-eds. Read on…

Thank you, LaShawn!

Tags: Blog-keeping, Vocation //