With a blog, it's hard to know who my audience is. I can see how many people are reading and of course whoever leaves a comment, but that's about it. Based on what information I do have, I used to think that many of the people reading were people who went to my church and I based the way I wrote on that information.
I have not been to that church in fourteen months and have not been in contact with many people from it in that same amount of time. Since I left it, it has gone through an interim pastor and now has a new pastor who I have never met. It would appear from what I can see on social media that many people who attended there fourteen months ago do not anymore. I have a lot of opinions about some things that have happened there, but I also understand that I'm hearing everything secondhand from thousands of miles away. Now more than ever, I don't know who my audience is.
I just got back from visiting one of the Native villages near Nome, and I had four days of no internet and fewer hours of work than I'm accustomed too, and a lot of time to think. I thought a lot about this post, and what I wanted to say. I thought a lot about why I have a blog, and why I think it's worth my time to write things for people to read, especially if I'm not sure who those people are.
I've given myself a lot of excuses for not writing much lately, but during my time in the village I finally let myself face the real reason I haven't written much lately, a frustration with my supposed audience.
Maybe I'm mad because church taught me about the hungry being fed, and the homeless being taken in, and it let me believe that that it genuinely cared about people. It painted a picture of a world where justice prevails, and led me to believe that goodness will win in the end. It did not prepare me for all of the times it won't. It did not inform me that following what Jesus said only matters to the church until you no longer have enough time, resources, or money to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.
Every time I drive down Front Street, it makes me sad when I see so many people who don't have a permanent place to live, and seeing the way even the church treats them hurts me deeply. Maybe I'm just naive, but the faith I inherited from my grandmothers at a very young age led me to believe that no one should have to go without food or shelter, regardless of the life choices they have made.
I've wanted to write about this subject for a long time, but I shied away from it because of my fear of what my audience would think. No church wants to hear that the missionary they commissioned is angry, they want to hear the success stories that happen once the anger has passed. And no community wants to hear that a missionary living among them is struggling with these issues, because we are expected to put aside our own problems and always be helpful.
A few years ago, I was going through a hard time and tried to keep a scheduled speaking arrangement at church after I wasn't able to go on the mission trip I was supposed to speak about. Needless to say, that did not go well. Afterwords, my pastor at the time told me it seemed like I was wrestling with God. I was initially embarrassed to receive this comment from a pastor, but he did not seem to disapprove of my wrestling, he only seemed to be making an observation.
I think I'm having another time of wrestling right now, maybe not with God, but with everything I've been taught about God and what it means to be a person of faith, and how that holds up, or doesn't, against the harsh realities of the world. And maybe I am breaking the most important rule of writing by saying things my audience might not want to hear, but I do not think I will be able to continue writing further until these things have been said. Maybe I'm breaking one of the most important rules of writing, intentionally writing things I know it could be hard for m audience to hear, but in a way I'm honoring another piece of advice from a very influential journalism teacher who encouraged his students learn the rules, so we could break them.
