The Night Watches

What is it about fame that drives us to do absolutely ridiculous, dangerous, absurd things? There is this drive to be seen, to be affirmed. We all have it. It's both silent and roaring within us.  I took a tour of an instagram account documenting influencers in the wild as they were creating their posts. These posts, the ones with thousands of likes, the ones that earn the coveted blue check mark, garnish reposts and the regular folk trying to recreate them. These are the posts that you will stumble upon while looking at your feed, the ones boomeranging in the middle of the posts by people you actually chose to follow.  These interruptions of the scheduled programming you have chosen to subscribe yourself to, thrust themselves into your line of sight, demanding to be watched. Dance moves, clothing try-ons, make-up tutorials, house DIY, sports clips, funny memes. It is an endless supply of distraction. I have clicked on many of them, taken on a ride into the world created there...

I often wonder if blogs are a thing of the past. In a world that is filled with voices, noise, distractions, and confusion- all of them constantly clamoring for our attention, the impression I get is this: no, no one actually wants to listen to another voice, no one has time to read a blog, and my words would fall flat in the midst of so much spectacle. It has been 5 years since I have logged into this account, dusted off the keys, and used my words to speak into the lives of anyone else, especially in this format. An enormous amount of life, sorrow and suffering has transpired in those years, and it feels silly to try to resurrect something so old, on a medium now antiquated. Pages and pages of journals have replaced this digital format. Tears spilled onto pages instead of keys. Less curated and impressive, those pages hold heart ache, prayers and sorrow. They also hold the truth of eternal value, heart transformations, and stories of hope. Is it time to revisit the notion of a blog, ...