My vorpal sword and I

I love Lewis Carroll’s whimsical rhymes and his unabashedly morbid narratives. I love how he works within the “system” to poke fun at, add to, and eventually demonstrate the flexibility of the rigid system. Some may say such actions actually lead to the system’s demise, which isn’t a bad thing.

I’ve been wanting to start this blog for some time now. I mean, I’ve always enjoyed writing, explaining, and simply announcing the going-ons in my life. I tried a variety of blogs; a regular personal blog felt too narcissistic and any blog requiring photos required too much work.

During my year abroad I had an interesting conversation with an equally interesting girl. She asked, “What moves you?” I told her I wasn’t sure. I told her in movies what makes me cry is when people bully other people, when something happens and people are helpless to stop it, when things aren’t fair, when life is taken for granted, or when life is appreciated. I told her how I grew up with a sense of what was fair or not, and only recently learned how mercy outweighs justice. I told her life mattered – human life. I told her I wasn’t sure if this was clear and she nodded and told me that it was.

I look back and am grateful that she had me verbalize something that had been churning in me for a while. Something that I had difficulty expressing and reconciling; the idea of how to live a life that is full, in which I can act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). I wanted to fix the wrongs in the world without ignoring the fact that these are outpourings of a deeper, spiritual problems. I didn’t want to address the soul without following up with practical actions. And i realized throughout this all, that I was just hopelessly ignorant, both of what the Bible says about the world and of what is happening.

So I’m changing.

I’m reading the Word and growing more aware of what is happening in the world. And this blog is going to help me digest what I learn by being a place where I can draw awareness to what is happening globally and regionally. A place where I can summarize issues that everyone should know but doesn’t. And finally a place where I can track my own progress in being a woman who practices pure and genuine religion (James 1:27) by both caring for those in affliction and keeping herself unstained by the world.

This blog shall be (to borrow from Mr. Carroll) my vorpal sword.