Defining the Blog
Remember when you're dating someone and the relationship has begun to evolve, and there is that moment when one or both of you realizes that it's time to define the relationship? In the world of single folk at BYU, "DTR" is as important an acronym as GPA, but I'm far removed from that world. Or so I thought, until Summer set up her new blog. Suddenly we have to figure out if this is my blog and that is hers, or if this is ours and I have my work blogs to fill that part of my life.
(I know, so far this is shaping up to be the worst blog entry ever. It will hopefully get better...)
This of course gets me thinking about the roles the blogs play, as I now find myself at least partially responsible for this and 8 other blogs over at Wordpress for work (I'm not counting my two defunct work-related Blogger blogs). But only this one fills a personal need. In my case, that need is to stay in touch, to share moments from our family's life. It's a blend of email and photo albums that makes me feel more connected.
I say all this because my high council speaking topic for this month is the role journal-keeping plays in family history work. It's a topic that makes me less than comfortable, mainly because my journal-keeping experience has been abysmal. Even on my mission, I would miss months on end. (I claimed I was working too hard to have time for a journal, but we all know I eschew work and would certainly rather write.)
But in thinking about and studying the topic, I have come to some conclusions about how families work and the role a family plays in our lives. And I think this is the direction I wish to take for my talk. (Is this then a thinly veiled attempt to get feedback on my talk? Perhaps...)
I contend that there are three reasons why we have families. The first is to feel part of a group, to love and teach and serve and learn from each other. The second is to find and create an identity for ourselves, to give, both literally and metaphorically, a name to our sense of who we are. The third purpose is to unite ourselves to both a past the precedes us and a future that we will not see.
I see journals playing a role in all three facets of family. They help strengthen our relationships, both in the act of reading each other's thoughts (which, as it turns out, is made more possible via blogging) and in the act of reflecting on our connections to those we love. They allow us an avenue for exploring identity and putting into words that sense of self. And they help us create a record that--whether is is preserved for posterity or not--factors into the turning of the hearts that is central to our theology.
I see this last role as crucial. Obviously family records play a role in family history work today, as we are able to compile the information needed to carry out temple work through records kept by our ancestors. But we also fulfill in part Malachi's prophesy and Elijah's mission by stepping aside from our daily concerns, the minutae that occupies so much of our lives, and contemplating from whence we came and what will remain when we are gone. As I said at the Catherall Memorial Day gathering, our great fear is that we do not matter, that when we are gone, no one will know that we ever were. And in recording our lives we turn our lives to both the past and the future.
To return to where this began, I see this medium as an exciting way of doing all of this. And I take from my wife (as I typically do) a lesson in finding ways to live gospel principles that I usually do poorly at.
2 comments:
I can see why you would be a good high counsel member. You're good at writing. I enjoy reading your posts. I like the blogs because now I know what you guys are up to. Since I'm lazy and for 5 years I never bothered to say hello, now it is much easier to stay in touch, even if it is not at a real personal level, I think it is better than nothing. But about journaling, I think it is great in any form because I love looking back on my ancestors and reading about what they were like and what they experienced. That's why I do it, because I hope that someday somebody will care what I did or that I was even alive.
Your post made me think of a quote from Tolkein in one of his books. He was describing the origin of the written word in Middle-Earth and he said something to the effect that it only developed to record the hardships that the people were then experiencing. (I'll dig the full quote out later) I think that's definitely true. The only area I really wrote on my mission was in Meaux. That's where I opened a companionship where we had no investigators, the members hated each other, and I found out my parents were divorcing. In other words blogs are nice because you have a tendency to write about the good as much as the bad.
Post a Comment