I started blogging ten years ago this weekend.
I created the blog (now defunct) on a lark, mainly to write stuff for extended family, who were also blogging and sharing ideas and stories with one another that way. I had no idea other people would be interested in reading it. I’ll never forget the feeling when I got my first comment from a total stranger.
It’s hard to express the impact that blogging has had on my life and vocation. I remember discovering other clergywomen who blogged—what a joy and a revelation! We became a tribe that thrives to this day. I miss the days when we would all comment on each other’s blogs and reference one another’s posts in our own. On the upside, many of those initial connections have become life-long friendships.
And it’s not an exaggeration to say that I became a writer through the experience of blogging. Blogging gave me a pseudonymous place to find a voice and to discover what I love writing about most: creativity, ideas, beauty, and the life of the Spirit (a former blog tagline). It’s still one of the main pieces of advice I give to people who want to write: Start a blog. Don’t just write about what you did that day—strive for something deeper. But don’t be afraid to experiment either. Your audience will find you, even if that audience turns out to be small and mostly related to you. By doing the work, you will learn what your next steps as a writer are.
In honor of my 10th anniversary, I’m giving some celebratory gifts: two lucky folks will receive homemade Christmas sweets and a Moleskine journal, for general note-taking or to inspire you in your own writing. If you don’t have a copy of Sabbath in the Suburbs, I’ll throw in one of those too.
There are two ways to enter. Pick one (or both—multiple entries are welcome!)
1. My very first post was a silly and nerdy taxonomy of Christmas music. What can I say, it was a few days before Christmas and I was on jolliness overload. So comment here or on Facebook with a Christmas song that encapsulates your life right now. (If you can’t think of one, general comments count.)
2. And/or, if you haven’t already signed up for my email newsletter (inspiration sent monthly-ish) do so here and you’ll be automatically entered.
Deadline is Thursday at midnight EST.
And thank you, always, for reading, and for your comments and your companionship on this journey.
~
photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin cc
‘The Canticle of the Turning” - which is not necessarily a Christmas song, but it is one for me right now!
My current Christmas song is the Straight No Chase version of the 12 Days of Christmas. Lots of fun, but a whole lot of stuff just crammed in together, hoping it works out into something beautiful.
I think “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” is the one that gets me right now-”yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light’ the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” That gets at the place I am walking these days, sometimes dark streets where hope and fear intersect. Praise God that the everlasting light is there.
Thanks for your blog! You are full of inspiration to part-time pastors at another tiny church in Oregon.
double-digit happy (to you)
Sufjan Stevens’, “Christmas Unicorn”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_cPQn6vOdo
I think I’m a Christmas song addict… I have too many that I like and find meaningful!
I just discovered Straight No Chaser and their version of the 12 Days of Christmas - I agree. Awesome. I ended up buying their CD for my mom, and thanks to Amazon I happened to receive a digital copy as well
On another note, I used your book for a “one-time” study over the summer at our church and I had a few people tell me we need to do it (and a longer version!) again! So I’ll be teaching it for 7 weeks beginning Jan 15. I’m excited to use it again!
That’s wonderful Katrina! I’m sure you know about the Sabbath Supplementals—they will make your job much easier:
sabbathinthesuburbs.wordpress.com/sabbath-supplementals-videos-and-discussion-guides/
Yes! I have them
It isn’t a song but an entire “record” - Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song. I can remember my dad letting me put it on the turntable (when I was old enough!) and gently placing the needle to hear the crack/snap noise. Then the soaring strings and his voice “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, And folks dressed up like Eskimos.” (not the most appropriate image!)
The year after my dad died, my mom and I cried as we listened to it. Now that my mom is gone and it is no longer a record but a CD, I will find a night to sit and listen to that song with the only light coming from the fire and the Christmas tree. There will be tears.
Merry Christmas indeed.
These comments are turning out to be unexpectedly moving… which shouldn’t be surprising, I suppose. But thank you for this comment.
I have similar rituals to this one…
In The Bleak Midwinter. As I write that I realize that it makes me sound melancholy about Christmas, which is not at all true. I just find that in the midst of a lot of events this season, in the midst of a lot of dressing up and going out and doing, in the midst of the fun revelry and the slight hangover, that song helps bring me back to a more reverent and reflective place as I prepare for Christmas. “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part. What can I give him? Give my heart.”
A perennial favorite of mine. Do you have a favorite version?
Shawn Colvin, from “Holiday Songs and Lullabies”. It’s an “after-the-kids-are-in-bed, cup-of-tea, by-the-light-of-the-tree” album. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5i1QzXdezU&feature=kp
Congrats on 10 years! Way to stick with it.
Christmas songs…anything sung by Nat King Cole. As far as hymns go I love In The Bleak Mid Winter. All Christ wants from me is JUST me.
I was going to order your book b/c our Sunday school class just started doing a lesson on it…but I think I’ll wait to see if I win…and then I’ll order it cuz I never win.
bob and i are in williamsburg this week. i’ve loved learning that the ‘traditional’ holiday decorations in williamsburg were started only in the 20th century.
back before the revolution williamsburg celebrations focused on worship, feasting at home, and perhaps singing carols together. maybe they’d put a little holly and ivy (or holly and pine) in a vase or basket to decorate, but that’s all
through the years there have been many fitting ways to mark the season. how we do it is a choice we make that reflects who we are at the deepest levels.
I love so much Christmas music, my favorites would be a huge long list. But, this having been a tough week for me, I have found just what I needed by re-visiting Adam Sandler’s song Here Comes Hanukkah. It just makes me laugh and I need that so much right now! But it’s a great kind of laugh because I grew up in a like 97% Jewish neighborhood, where I had a real case of Hanukkah jealousy. So, I love the sense of jealousy of Christmas in that song…having to explain to Jewish kids that they could be proud of all the great people he mentions in that song. Here we both were…jealous of each other. Happy Birthday to MaryAnn McKibben Dana and Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to all!
Ah, I wish I could say I’ve been reading since day one, but I haven’t. I think I came in maybe a year in-or two? I remember the first post I read was one where you said your daughter was experiencing her first snow-with her child care provider.
Well, my song is “Let It Snow.” Selam sang it in her girls’ choir concert on Saturday and was totally stunned to discover that I know it, too. So we’ve been singing it non-stop (with her correcting my diction from time to time-didn’t know one had to use proper choral diction for pop music). Anyway, “Since we ‘veno place to gooooooooo, Let it snooooooo, let it snoooooo, let it snoooooo.”
That post, according to the archives, was 8 years and 11 months ago… that’s pretty early!
Martha Spong was a bit before that. I think there were earlier commenters, but I don’t think I keep in touch with them. You two are my oldest continuous blog friends.
thank you for your blog. i find it to be encouraging and inspirational. and i did start a blog 15 months ago. i need to use it more.
my favorite worship song right now is The Canticle of the Turning. We’re using it each week in our don’t-call-it-contemporary-but-it-is worship service (different configurations of verses each week). I find it to be so stirring and for me touches on the preparing for Christ’s return/changing the world part of Advent.
My favorite radio-style song this time of year is David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth
My newest christmas music that i listen to on continuous loop at work areTrace Bundy’s O Night Divine and A Few Songs for Christmas http://tracebundy.com/ond.html
I love In the Bleak Midwinter and River right now! Thanks for your blog!
Ooh, I love River as well. Thanks for the reminder!
Congratulations! Your blog has been inspiration in starting my own and part of my weekly drop by ritual. Christmas song: “Beautiful Star” by Emmylou Harris. I first heard it driving through southeastern Kentucky when I lived there so it always reminds me of that time. It sounds Appalachian - simple, festive, plaintive - and it’s a good compliment to all the slick pop Bing/Berlin type tunes so omnipresent.
That sounds like something worth checking out! I downloaded the Shawn Colvin album Erin recommended last night-so good and a similar feel.
O Magnum Mysterium: See my blog post for the Christmas-altering moment!
http://stainedglassreflections.weebly.com/
Dona Nobis Pacem
It is my hope for my life right now, it is my hope for my children right now, it is my hope for my profession right now…for the community, for the world, for the universe.
But, selfishly….it is mostly for my day to day life.
I found your first blog on journalscape, where my mother had her blog. Mother and I were estranged and the blog is where I kept up with her life. Life has changed, as life will do….mother has Alzheimer’s and can no longer write.
It has been a blessing to not only follow you , but to become friends with you.
Dona Nobis Pacem
<3
Someday we will take our friendship to the next level and, you know, meet. And run together...
“Silent Night” has always been my favorite Christmas song. “All is calm” and “Sleep in heavenly peace.” This reminds me to relax and think about the true meaning of Christmas during the hectic frenzy of preparations.
I have never really felt compelled to do much writing but I fell into it a few years ago in your Sunday school class. I sang at both services and had not planned to go to Sunday school, but it started snowing and I didn’t want to drive to breakfast with the Folk Group. I decided to go to your class without knowing the topic. When I realized it was on writing I almost got up and left. We were going around the circle telling why we were there and when it was my turn I admitted that I was there because it was snowing. I enjoyed the class and went every week in the series! I guess I should add, “Let It Snow!”
Wonderful memory Dot! You were a wonderful part of the class! And if you win the giveaway I’ll hand-deliver
I don’t comment often now, but I still read. I don’t know when we first found each other - probably reasonably close to the beginning as our connection was our children’s birthdays - just one day apart in 2003.
Congrats on reaching 10 years - my blogging is sporadic at best, but mostly nonexistent. I have found that I’m NOT a writer, even when it comes to blogging. I guess that’s why I ended up a science teacher huh?
Again Happy Blog Birth Day, Happy Holidays to all!
Judy! How wonderful to hear from you!
Season’s Greetings to you and… LB, isn’t it?
Nicely done, it is indeed LB! I can hardly believe that he’s 10, is that the same for you and Caroline (that is your eldest’s name right? You blog about them enough that I SHOULD remember their names. Caroline, Margaret, and James, right?
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“Love Has Come’ - my favorite in the new PCUSA hymnal
There are some wonderful ones in there… I didn’t realize until I’d already set the course for Advent, but it makes me want to cancel the sermons next December and sing our way through the season.
My song for today is “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” as I sit at my sedk surrounded by Christmas Eve bulletins and worship notes and somehow there is glitter in here, even though I have not used any.
My Christmas song is by the band Paul McCartney was in (not the Beatles) with the lyric “Simply having a wonderful Christmastime.” It catapults me back to the first time I heard it when my Big Brother in the Big Brother/Little Brother program took me bowling. When I hear it I know it’s Christmas!
Oh Lou, I know so many people who do.not.like that song. I’m not a big fan either. But this image is so sweet that you may have redeemed it for me!
Hmmm… torn. Either Manheim Steamroller’s Veni, Veni… Eden’s Bridge Breath of Heaven… or… yikes… Amy Grant’s I Need a Silent Night. Or maybe Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Come Darkness, Come Light. Clearly, I’m rocking Advent still, and not so much Christmas yet. (And also why I wasn’t up to creating a Jingly running playlist… glad you did!) Happy Anniversary!
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