In one of my favorite comedy films, What About Bob?, Bill Murray’s neurotic character, stalking his psychiatrist all the way to Lake Winnipesaukee, gleefully proclaims to one and all, “I’m taking a vacation from reality!”

This summer has been more like a vacation to reality for me. The blogging world had just about worn me out. I needed a breather. Since posting about the PCA General Assembly, I have neither written nor read a single blog post.

It has been very refreshing.

The vacation also gave me time to think about this blog. I seriously considered bringing it to an end. Becoming a regular and fairly well-known blogger had been an interesting–sometimes invigorating sometimes exasperating–chapter in my life. And perhaps that was all it was meant to be: a chapter in my life.

However, when I shared that thought with family or friends, I was shocked at the forcefulness of their encouragement not to give it up. For some reason, there is a core group of you out there who like to read what I write, and who seem to be genuinely disappointed when the RSS feed once again comes up empty for Sacred Journey. To those of you in that camp reading this, I thank you. I never cease to be amazed by my family and friends, how very much they care for me despite my best efforts to give them reasons not to.

Even several people to whom this blog must be a constant irritant, a sure sign of the coming demise of orthodoxy in America, have written me privately and urged me to not quit.

So the vacation to reality gave me time to think. What did I want this blog to be if I did return to it? The incessant wrangling over doctrinal and ecclesiastical issues that dominates the Christian blogosphere–and far too often this blog–had left a bad taste in my mouth. The world and the church don’t need another blog doing that. That is not to say that I won’t blog still on theological or ecclesiastical topics from time-to-time. They are too much a part of my life not to. But I will probably move a lot of that kind of musing over to the Conn-versation blog, which I also hope to revive as summer ends.

So what to expect from Sacred Journey? I think a lot more journey, with the sacred very much there, but perhaps expressed in more subtle ways. More stories. More looking back on 50 years of living. And hopefully more Christ and less Christianity. Part of the impetus for this comes from time with my two grown-and-married daughters this summer. They urged me to share more of my life and past, my growing up, the things that made their father who he is, for better or worse.

For many of you who have been regular readers in the past, this new turn in my writing will probably bring that relationship to an end (if my two months of silence hasn’t already done that!). Unless you already know me personally, much or what I will be writing in the time to come will probably be too personal and frankly boring for you. I understand. I thank you for journeying with me as far as you did. You have all been good companions, even when we disagreed. I wish you well.

Yet I do hope that some of you out there who have no personal or sentimental reasons to stay attached to this blog will end up hanging around and finding something of value. Perhaps you will find that in my story, you recognize bits and pieces of your own. Perhaps my stumblings and graspings will encourage you, inspire you, or just make you laugh at me and at yourself. I hope that happens for some of you.

So my boots are back on and I turn back to the Sacred road. I will have blisters for the first few miles, but it is always good to know that this journey, no matter where it takes me in whatever time I have left, leads to Home.

It’s just a story….but then, so are we.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Blogging, It`s All About Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.