I read a lot of blogs...
including a ton of book-based blogs,
which help me stay current in the school/public library scene.
I also read various artists blogs;
every day I can see beautiful photographs,
chronicling life, often in idealist happy tones.
I have RSS feeds for Canadian Papers on books, movies, music,
so I can slowly become conversant with various people,
including librarians.
And of course I read a lot of blogs that are Orthodox,
and my blog community of readers are often tied in here;
and I love reading Mom-blogs, and Orthodox Mom-blogs;
a lot of my friends are Mothers
and I learn a lot about what the struggles of Motherhood are,
as well as the joys.
This helps me understand and talk to my friends who are newly Mothers.
Of course I am from the Midwest of the States;
I have had at least three distinct phases of friends marrying
and becoming Mothers.
The phase of new Mothers now are the ones who are a bit
younger than I but who went through higher education
and had children in their later twenties or early thirties.
Anyway.
I love blogs.
I love reading about other's lives and struggles.
That I can support and be supported in prayer through the blog world
is a real gift.
What has really struck me though is how different the book and artist blogs are
if the writer is not a Christian.
It is so strange and sad for me to read what they see
as their ideal life, especially the blissful Sundays to sleep in,
make the wonderful breakfast, take walks.
All great things.
But no liturgy? No community to pray in?
No understanding that we need to learn to be watchful
waiting for Christ to return
while learning to live in Christ's presence now.
No monasteries to go to, or call when one needs help
or a loved one is very ill.
No instructions to learn to love others more than yourself
no repentance
no learning to love God
no hope in the midst of heavy despair.
One of the great and heartening things I find in the Church
is how it meets our every state,
prayers of Thanksgiving
and
prayers such as Fr. Lawrence's Akathist,
How much I wish that those blogs I read
the artists, the book lovers, the librarians, the lovely mothers
could know these things.
