An update. Because I have not written for awhile and have reached that moment where it’s time to put something up here, even if it’s ugly.
I have been muddling along these last months working on this little blog and website. Trying to write consistently. Succeeding, sort of. I have not written as much as I wanted, but I have not quit, and here I am again, so that is something. I set up an Ordinary Holy Twitter account. I have not tweeted anything yet. Still trying to figure out how that works. I have been sharing posts occasionally on Facebook because it seems like that is what you are supposed to do if you have a blog and want people to read it. And why have a blog if no one reads it? My Ordinary Holy Facebook page has a handful of likes from people I don’t know. How did that happen? Thank you to the strangers who liked my page. Thank you to my two friends who liked my page. Thank you to anyone else who goes to Facebook and likes my page. It’s what I’m supposed to aim for, right?
Part of me has dreamed about what it would be like to have lots of readers and hundreds of Facebook likes. Experts talk about how we should strive to build an online presence that showcases our ideas. Facebook likes and a big group of Twitter followers would make me feel affirmed and successful, like I was doing something right.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I remember Fr. Keating. Thank you, God, for Fr. Keating. What is the point of this Ordinary Holy website? To examine where I get caught everyday by the false promises of success, power, and security. Oh, right. Facebook likes and Twitter followers? That’s the success idol. If I had them, they wouldn’t make me happy anyway (tempted to insert something here about the President and his Twitter account and how happy it is making him. Resisting the temptation. Sort of). Followers and likes are not the point.
So what is the point? Jesus says it’s love. To love our neighbors. To know we are loved in return. Love before all, above all, below all. In this moment. In this breath. We are all loved unconditionally, just as we are. If this blog helps one person- just one- remember they are loved, that would be success. It is not about the many; it’s about the one.
So I will keep spending my time working on a blog that only my best friends reads, a Facebook page with five “likes”, and not feel like I should be doing something more. It frees me to love where I am, even if it is little and hardly anyone notices.
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