Monday 8 November 2010

7 Months in the Blogging Wilderness (or How Easyjet Failed to Kill Me...This Time)

I am really embarrassed. That is the only way to describe the feeling I have right now regarding my blog. Despite an eagerness to find a valid excuse or someone to take the blame for my action (or more appropriately, lack of action) the reality is I have no one to blame but myself. Although for the next 80 words I will try to lump the blame on to my brother. He won’t mind, firstly because he has broad shoulders and can take it but more importantly he’ll never read this blog so there’ll be no come back.

Let me take you back to the start of the year. I had set myself the challenge of writing one blog a week for an entire year. In addition to that challenge I had decided to give up playing the Xbox for Lent (no doubt encouraged by my blog writing progress). It was all going brilliantly when in the midst of my celebratory smugness, I was too busy high-fiving myself to notice the massive hole I was about to fall in.

Smack bang in the middle of Lent my calendar informed me that my brother was coming to stay. I knew that this was going to be a challenge resisting the urge to play the Xbox when he was around due to our innate need to compete against each other (I believe it is written in to our DNA). It also turns out that playing Xbox is one of the only things I am actually better than my brother at. So under normal circumstances it is vitally important to seize every opportunity to redress the balance and notch up a much needed win for the home team. Irrespective of these factors I was fairly confident that I would be able to resist the urge to play, after all I’m on a journey of discovery; a deeply spiritual sojourn; a divine path that surpasses any petty sibling rivalry. Here’s how I remember the conversation going:

Me: Hi Bro, hows it going? Great to see you

Brother: Going good. It’s great to be over again. Fancy a game of FIFA on the Xbox

Me: Okay

What can I say? On the back of that decision everything spiralled out of control. Guilt, which is so often seen hand-in-hand with Failure, punch me square in the gut. It took the wind away from me. From the moment I picked up that Xbox controller I was against the ropes. It wasn’t a Rocky moment where despite being pummelled for an hour I would rise with a killer uppercut and finish arms raised in victory. It was Mike Tyson (in his prime) vs. Mr Muscle (without any of his sprays). One punch and I was on the canvas. In the space of 5 days I had broken both Lent and my New Year's Resolution!

So the reason I didn’t write the blog that week was guilt, the reason I didn’t write the blog the week after that was shame and every other week after that it was embarrassment. It is silly how we let guilt and shame tie us up in knots. How something so small can grow into something so all-consuming and cumbersome.

So here I am today facing my shame, fear and embarrassment saying sorry to anyone who will listen in the hope that I can reclaim my therapeutic blog which I have really missed (everyone needs to vent once in a while). Thanks to everyone in the last 10 days who seemingly simultaneously mentioned the blog to me in one way or another, encouraging me to just get over myself and start writing again.

Oh, and Easyjet didn’t kill me as my last post may have suggested. Don’t you just hate a cliff-hanger ending.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed.

My chains are gone

I’ve been set free

My God My Saviour has ransomed me

And like a flood, His mercy reigns

Unending love, amazing grace