It’s Been A While
Four years ago, I stopped writing publicly.
Well, I stopped writing for myself publicly.
The last thing I wrote was a eulogy for my friend Heather, who had passed away suddenly.
Philando Castile hadn’t been shot on Facebook Live in front of his fiancee and daughter yet.
Trump hadn’t been elected yet.
It was a different world.
Four years ago, I started writing a novel, my first. I’d like to say this is the reason I stopped writing publicly, but it wasn’t.
Sure, it was part of the reason, as was running a business where I did a significant amount of writing for my clients, as was raising our small children, but none of those was the real reason.
Call it polarization or political correctness. Call it whatever you want.
The real reason I stopped writing was because I was scared and hurt.
I’ve been a Christian since I was 12 years old, and I was ordained as a pastor at 23. My life and career were centered around my Christian community, and I loved it that way. It was such a privilege to do work everyday that felt not only important, it felt eternal.
But then 2016 happened.
10 years after graduating Bible College. Nearly 20 years into volunteering or working in some ministry capacity.
And all of a sudden, I didn’t recognize the world around me.
People I thought I knew, people with whom I had shared meals and prayed for their families, started ignoring, condoning, and even promoting racism.
One such friend even shared a meme that was actually created by a white supremacist group. And when I called him out on it, he “unfriended” me.
But that wasn’t the whole reason I stopped writing.
As the left and the right pulled away from each other, I found myself in no man’s land.
It felt like saying anything of consequence would’ve been a liability.
Unfortunately, being quiet didn’t fix anything. The right and the left didn’t come together and find common ground because I shut up. I harbor no illusions that anything will get much better because I’m blogging again. It’s hard to imagine a much less consequential action in a world that is fighting actual life and death battles.
Nevertheless, I’m back.
