Ponderings on the anonymity of cyberspace

I used to wonder about how individuals could pour out all of their innermost thoughts, struggles, desires into the world in a blog. How could people say what I didn't/wouldn't want to share with my closest friends and share them with innumerable strangers? I think that it is a part of our confessional collective American past (which has spread out into other first-world countries). We need to share our sins/ failings/ admissions of falling short of our potential with *someone* and that has been replaced by sharing it with *anyone* or *everyone*. I don't know that it's the same. I don't know that it is even necessarily always constructive, but it certainly seems to be cathartic.

I've been asked/ it was recommended to me that I do journaling during this time of seminary.

Why am I here? God sent me and I said yes. Isaiah 6 - "Here I am, send me!" It reminds me of Shrek, "Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!" Well, I got picked and it turns out that I thought I knew what I was signing up for, but I didn't. Not at all. I figured that I would learn something about the Bible, learn the original languages of the Bible and take a few baby steps towards becoming a Bible scholar. My late friend, mentor, and honorary family member, Elaine Follis was a Bible Scholar. I am not. I may, by the grace of God, one day become one, but I wonder if I will ever accept that title in my own mind. People have already tried to bestow it on me, who are not taking Bible classes, but it does not, at least yet, belong.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm taking the nudge, well shove really, that God gave me to go to seminary and if I'm running in the right or wrong direction. (What would the right direction be? The wrong one? How would I know?) In my theology class this semester, I learned that it is very common that people worship something other than God, while they say that they are monotheists. Few, really, would like, even, to worship God, even though many say that they would/do. (This is Richard Niebuhr's work). There are many distractions that are easier to worship - money, clothes, intellectualism, etc. Some are more insidious - church, my religious concepts, how I worship - my routine. That's the tricky part. When we are not wholly willing to change what we believe, how we act, indeed, who we are, when God tells us, then we're not truly worshiping God. While I can intellectually accept this (which is a step (or many) in maturity from where I was a few years ago), I don't really know where I fall in all of this. I suppose, as Ben Franklin said, If I were to say that I had succeeded in becoming humble, then I should not have done so. He left humble on his list of traits that he was working on after all of the others had been marked off.

I think that we cannot really judge if we are worshiping God or not. Only God can do that, and I haven't heard how I'm doing. We have a directive that I am working on/towards in the meantime: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. And love your neighbor as yourself." I've spent a lot of time and energy in the beginning and the middle. I'm going to work on the end this week.

That's enough for today. I wonder if there's anyone out there. If not, that's fine. :) God bless, nonetheless.