Build Your Own Ark

This weekend, I witnessed a performance that I still haven't figured out exactly how to describe. I'm not going to say what it was, because that would be in poor taste and if you're like me you would probably go look it up on YouTube and miss the point of this post. Anyway,what it was isn't as important as what I learned from it. I was reminded that the way I felt watching this performance that art and talent are subjective. As much as I tried to act grown up and search for the artistic meaning of what I was watching, it was all I could do to keep from laughing through the whole thing. It just wasn't my style, and simply didn't get it.
Through this experience, I was reminded of how this concept applies to me as a writer. I take a lot of pride in my writing, and it would make me very happy if everyone liked everything I ever wrote and really got what I was trying to say. But I have to learn that that will never happen. There will always be someone telling me how funny a particular post is when I'm really trying to explain a serious point, or a comment that makes me realize that someone completely misinterpreted what I was trying to say. There are probably even some people who read this blog one time and never returned because they didn't like it. Just as I didn't understand the point of the performance I watched, some people will not understand this blog.
So what do I do about this? Do I just not write at all because not everyone will like it? When asking myself this question, I thought about the story of Noah's ark. The people around him at the time probably thought it was pretty hilarious that this guy was building a giant boat because God told him that water was going to fall from the sky and flood the earth, not to mention the fact that he was going to fill this massive contraption with tons of animals. But that didn't stop him, and things turned out pretty well for him in the long run.
       I am learning to keep on going because it is something that I enjoy, something I do primarily for my own contentment but also because I feel like it's part of God's plan for me. I am beginning to understand that not everyone will like it, and that's okay.
      Like Noah, most of us will encounter people who won't understand the ark we are building, and maybe even laugh at the way we are building it. But we should keep building the personal ark that God has instructed each of us to build, because it is that very ark that will allow us to see the rainbow in the end.

This is Alex the pygmy goat, who I met this weekend. I'm glad Noah built that ark, because a world without animals like Alex just wouldn't be the same