Wednesday, May 6, 2009

First Try

The first try at anything is both exciting and scary; one generally feels insufficient to the task and yet left wanting to continue at it. Can you imagine your first time? I can, it was horrific, to say the least! Did that make me want to quit trying, sure, but it could not outweigh the benefits of trying again. It was not only the benefits that I wanted to receive, but also the ego boost from trying again, and succeding.

So, in keeping with my first time, I am going to proceed with this BLOG try and, again hoping for the best, knowing deep down (where it counts) that I will be happy with the outcome eventually, to move forward.

The purpose of this BLOG is two-fold: first to allow myself the opportunity to express my thoughts on a subject close to my heart, and second to invite you to criticize my words, my thoughts, my manner of expression, and just about anything else you wish to criticize. You see, for a long time, I've thought of myself as a man having no content to share, no story to tell that would be reasonable for you to appreciate. I had thought that I was just an ordinary guy, moving through life taking up space and offering little to those around me.

For the longest time, I was only important (in my mind's eye), to me. Now I am sure that my wife and even my kids would disagree at least a little bit with this rather bleak profile of myself, but I am talking about the larger world; a world that would include friends and family, but would extend to also encompass acquaintances, and even strangers, those who could know me by other means.

Perhaps you knew my name, and had seen that I had been the web editor for a poetry journal, never having contributed a single poem, or play, or short story, but having placed all of the above online for you to read and enjoy. Or perhaps you knew me from my work in our church, having sung in the choir or from a band I played in, without ever having created a single song of my own, or from my passion of being a lector, reading God's word, but without creating a single homily, or even from my work as a teacher of catechism to every grade level there is, but without creating a single lesson plan.

You see, to me content is king! The creation of words, in placement within sentences that stimulate new thought in you; that is what it is all about. This is what I hope to bring to this forum, a BLOG aimed at expression of my thoughts in such a way as to create a new thought in you!

Now, just perhaps I have already done that by this issue of my BLOG, that is helped you to view content as something that does more than just take up space, offers a little more than just a few words that are strung together. I'd like to think that you have enjoyed this first try as much as I, and not found it horrific, but rather found it pleasant to read, a treatise that gave you a new way of looking at content, knowing all the while its benefit to me has been one of stimulating your thought processes to try once again to see meaning in life.

--DPH