Supporting mission personnel and humanitarian workers worldwide
I'm not much of a blogger, but here are some occasional posts.
Practising clinical psychology on the autistic spectrum
Reading and telling Joshua as a story of the oppressed
Taking Christ out of Christmas?
Extreme decluttering, Recluttering, Decluttering part III
Jo Hawker's life, her time in a care home, parts 1, 2, & 3.
"Of the making of blogs there is no end, and much study wearies the body". Ecclesiastes 12v12, New Internet Version.
It seems like the wrong time to start a blog. All the interesting things have happened already. Some time in the last ten years would have been better. Not to mention all the crazy stuff that happened before then. Plenty of far better writers have been blogging for years.
Just under ten years ago we left behind good jobs and good friends to come and live near my increasingly disabled mother. Debbie started working full time with overseas humanitarian workers, many of whom had similarly given up a lot to go and work in more challenging places. I took on a short-term role as full-time carer for Mum, with a view to helping her move to a more suitable house. Instead Mum stayed put and kept getting more disabled, and I became her long-term housekeeper (at a distance). We didn't really have time to settle in and make friends.
To our surprise, we had a son, and to our surprise we found parenting harder than we had expected. He got a diagnosis. I got a diagnosis. Mum got a diagnosis. Looking after a disabled son and a disabled mother, without much social support, running two households, pioneering psychological services for inspiring people who needed our help but couldn't always pay, long-distance travel with a toddler: there was a lot I could have blogged about. Never mind other stuff that interested me - emergent theology, midlife crisis, ethical living, babywearing, rethinking evangelism, controversies about psychological debriefing, communication security, being a mental health professional on the autistic spectrum, heritage railways and other ways of entertaining a young boy who loves trains, hillwalking, amateur dramatics...
Now much of this is past and life is beginning to look more normal. Mum has gone into a very good care home. Dual housekeeping is coming to an end and I have been contributing more to our work. Our son's interests have broadened into those more typical of his age. Parenting isn't quite as hard as it once was. A regular amount of work has picked up, and more of it pays. We are starting to put down more local roots and enjoy more leisure time. My active interest in some of the other topics has waned.
The closest we got to blogging was putting some of what happened in the last ten years, and before then, into annual round robin Christmas letters sent to hundreds of friends on email. Not everyone likes round robins. We liked to think ours was different. Many friends would tell us they looked forward to reading it because it made them laugh so much. That sort of thing. It was always a joint effort. Sometimes I wrote more of it and sometimes Debbie wrote more. We liked it when friends attributed the better parts to the one of us who hadn't written them.
There was always a dual purpose. Some people pray for us and want to know what to pray for. Some people are mystified by our work situation and need to know that we are actually doing something productive and not just messing around. It's a tricky balance. Occasionally some family or friends whose opinion we care for have been quite upset by something we have sent out to everyone. Then there are the friends who might prefer not to be bombarded with another round robin, but don't tell us. Being both entertaining and informative has been more of a strain as life has threatened to become more normal. Recently the round robin has looked in danger of becoming one of the worthy boastfests that is so dreaded.
This year we almost decided to write two versions, one more serious and one less serious. In the end we managed to do the trick again of combining them in one. But we also decided to put it on a webpage, emailing friends the link instead of the attachment. That way everyone can choose whether they want to read. It's only a short step to thinking about a blog, which could further take the pressure off producing something suitable once a year.
I barely considered a blog up till now because I don't write fluently, there was too much else to do, and I waste quite enough time online anyway. Plus when I have stuck my neck out in more public places (online or elsewhere), I have often not expressed myself well, been misunderstood, and caused unnecessary arguments. There is a risk of our opinions compromsing our work. Also it seems strange to start it so late after so much of interest has passed. I'm not even sure whether to keep it hidden and unmapped on our work website, or to put it in wordpress somewhere independent. I don't really know whether this is the opening post of a blog or something that will go no further.
But it seems worth a go. At least it gives me more choice about what to write, and readers more of a choice about whether to read. And perhaps there is something coming up worth writing about. My next big task is to clear out and dispose of a family house and generations of an extended family's possessions and memories. Now that could be something worth writing about. We shall see.
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