I missed the bandwagon. Years ago, blogging was the thing to do, but it’s well past its edgy coolness now. It’s one of the older platforms in the world of online discourse, but a year ago I started anyway with a post called “What’s New About New Ireland?”. The fact is, some thoughts don’t fit neatly into the confines of a tweet or the text on a meme. For me, the process of distilling my scattered thoughts into words and sentences and paragraphs each week for a year has helped immeasurably to sharpen those same thoughts in my own mind. I hope it has been helpful to others as well. I like the freedom to write about anything I’m thinking about, which is why I used only my name for the site address: the thing holding these thoughts together is the fact that I thought them, and even that is a stretch because most of my thoughts are gleaned from the brains of others. Along the way, I’ve developed a growing appreciation for the amount of work others put in to expressing their thoughts carefully and well amid the constant stream of articles, news stories, and posts that is our modern internet. It’s not an easy task to sharpen English into the kind of point that can stick and do lasting good, and those who do so well have my respect.
On that note, and as a way of celebrating a year of blogging, I’d like to draw your attention to a few other Irish blogs that I have found helpful:
To Whom It May Concern
This blog is written by Paul Ritchie, a friend of mine and the pastor of Limerick Baptist Church. Some posts are summaries of his sermons, some take on a wide variety of other topics, like this one about his own personal experience with O.C.D.
Bethany Leah
We went to church with Bethany for years during our time in Youghal, Co. Cork, although now we’ve moved slightly west and she’s gone further east to Oxford. Still, her Irish perspective remains and her writing is vivid, like her latest post about the power of music.
Al-Jabr
Peter Grier is a friend of mine in Cork who writes specifically about travelling, and of using our travel for good. He’s even written a book about it: “Travel: In Tandem With God’s Heart”, which is well worth the read for any Christian who wants to think intentionally about the subject.
As a bonus, I’ll end with an Irish writer who didn’t blog (he lived before the internet), but whose compelling thoughts have left a permanent impression on me: C.S. Lewis. It’s not only his surname I like, or his fantastic children’s series (The Chronicles Of Narnia) – he wrote on many other topics as well in a style that makes complicated ideas come alive with wonder. I recommend Mere Christianity as a place to start.
sethlewis.ie 