Time for a change....

It's that time again, folks. My time as an assistant in l'Arche has ended (though, they say you can take the assistant out of l'Arche, but you can't take l'Arche out of the assistant). Therefore, my blawg title is obsolete, sadly. Time for a change. Naming a blog is no easy-to-acquire skill. These are, presumably, the things I'm trying to avoid:

1) Exclusiveness: Unless I really wanted to post entries about some esoteric interests of mine, I would need to avoid such titles as "Havarti Heaven: A Cheese Blog" or "Stuff Young White Mainline-Evangelical Women Who Are Politically Liberal and Theologically Orthodox Like"

2) Self-Absorbtion: Yes, I'm from the Facebook generation, where I assume everyone cares about my highly-nuanced political and religious beliefs, the number of countries I've visited in the last year, and the books I've read that have 'changed my life.' Blogs are an opportunity for my generation, already completely obsessed with Self, to further bolster the illusion that our ideas are actually new, unique, and deserving of other's attention. Of course, the mere fact that I have access to a personal computer and wireless Internet, as well as having ample leisure time to type away in subtly-hip coffeehouse as I sip delicious, pricey coffee, shows that my ideas are really the ideas of the privileged few. The single mother on government assistance? The migrant farm worker? The immigrant day-laborer? They remain voiceless in the blogosphere where, supposedly, everyone deserves to be heard.

3) Pretentiousness: There is a temptation in the blogworld to elevate the status (i.e. # of hits per day) of your blogged ideas and musings by referencing an obscure (dead) philosopher or theologian as your blog title, "Inside Foucault's Panopticon" or "The Aquinas Tales." Better (or worse) yet is a blog title written in a dead language.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy reading blogs and have many friends who update regularly. I so enjoy hearing their thoughts and ideas. And I enjoy putting my thoughts and ideas out there, as well. My project here is to create a blog that is not exclusive, doesn't lend itself to self-absorption, and doesn't try to convince others that my thoughts are particularly special. Maybe the project is impossible and I am willing to concede that it is (could my attempt at this be, in fact, a project in self-righteousness??). But if anyone has any fabulous ideas regarding a blog that does not fall into the above three categories, I will delight in them!