The Reason I Haven't Written Much

From time to time, some friends of mine who enjoy my blogs will encourage me, usually via facebook to write something new. There are three of them who do this (Josh, Al, and Beth), and I'm not sure if they have worked out some sort of schedule for reminding me that it is time to write again, but I figured I owe them an explanation as to why their urging is often ignored. (Note: Now that I have started writing Husker articles for bleacherreport.com, I seem to have appeased Al.)

I'm fairly confident when it comes to my writing ability. In fact, it is one of the only things about myself I am confident in at all. The strange thing about it is, despite knowing that I am a good writer, whenever I post a new piece of work, I am paranoid that I've somehow "lost it" until I receive positive feedback on it. When I first started writing for the Bleacher Report, this was difficult for me because a lot of the feedback you receive as a sports writer is negative. It does not mean that you are no longer a good writer, or even that you are wrong about the topic. A lot of times it simply means that the only people dumb enough to disagree with me are the same ones that are dumb enough to be loud about it. This is not to say that I'm always right, its just that those who disagree with me in an intelligent manner I view as positive feedback because it allows me to enter into a discussion with the person and its usually rather productive.

I once heard from a best-selling author whose name currently escapes me (maybe Malcolm Gladwell) that writers have only a certain number of words in them and after they run out, all they can come with with is mindless gibberish. At some point, I became afraid that I would run out of words. So I guarded them. I decided not to write anything unless it was going to be absolute gold. I wanted everything I wrote to be the best thing you had ever read. At the very least I wanted it to be the best thing I'd ever written. Recently I realized that this is utterly moronic. Not the part about wanting everything I write to be the best you've ever read or the best I've ever written, I believe that's a great, although lofty thing to strive for. No, the idiotic part was guarding my words. If I died tomorrow, what difference would it make if I had more words left to write? I decided I would rather live a long life and at some point, run out of well-crafted words to write than I would die knowing I left some of them in the tank.

I am currently trying to become a professional writer. I've gotten some contacts from a friend of mine who works at a newspaper and I'm doing everything I currently can to try and make this happen. Who knows, maybe someday I will be a best-selling author, or maybe the high point of my writing career will have been being named the #2 Husker football writer for the Bleacher Report in May 2011. Either way, at the very least, I will know that even if I fail, it will not be because I did not try. Unfortunately, that's not something I've been able to say very often in my life but now is as good a time to start as any.

The Jesus Juke

A few weeks ago my brother wrote a blog about "The Jesus Juke" and those who perform it. For those of you who don't know, a Jesus Juke is essentially when "someone takes what is clearly a joked filled conversation completely reverses direction into something serious and holy" according to the man who as far as I can tell invented the term, Jon Acuff.

I'm sure we have all been there, everyone is having a harmless laugh and it comes to a screeching halt becomes someone feels the need to show how spiritual and religious they are while simultaneously condemning everyone around them as heathens. To be clear, there is a large difference between people pulling a Jesus Juke and people rebuking their brother or sister in Christ.

Anyway, my brother's situation was essentially that he was jokingly seeking revenge on his smoker neighbors. He offered his own idea of capturing farts in jars and unleashing them on his neighbors and was planning to ask for other clever suggestions for retribution which he had no intention of using. However he thought he would be opening himself up to a Jesus Juke and therefore decided against it. You can read all about it here.

The point is, I thought my four regular blog readers (you know who you are) might be interested in my take on the whole concept of Jesus Juking. Here is the comment I posted on my brother's blog:

I think the problem with the Jesus Juke is that it completely disregards the concept of humor. What does humor have to do with Christianity you say? Well, besides the fact that you can see God's sense of humor throughout your own life and history and the Bible (I'm not going to look up verses, just trust me, its there and its funny), God created us with a sense of humor. I believe firmly that the "image of God" we were created in involves not a physical image but rather our souls and reason and traits like the ability to love and laugh. If we were not made to have a sense of humor, I believe God would have not given us the ability to laugh.

That being said, had someone Jesus juked my brother for his humorous comment about farting in a jar, I may have felt the need to take a hot, steaming deuce on their front step. Not very Jesus like you say? Well I was just trying to let that person know that I didn't think the judgemental attitude they had about my brothers' smokers solution which led to their Jesus Juke was not the spirit of humility that God calls them to as Christians. I may not have done it in the right way . . . but then again, the Jesus Juker doesn't do it the right way either right?

The reason I can confidently say that the intent of Jesus Juking is as well-meaning as me pooping on someone's doorstep is because if you ever have had to rebuke someone in the love of Jesus, you almost always dread doing it. There is no joy in calling to correction the mistakes of a brother or sister in Christ, and it is not done in a public forum because all you want from that situation is for your brother or sister to grow closer with God, you have no interest in their humiliation. Jesus Juking is none of those things, it is an attempt to publicly shame those who we feel are not living up to the standard of what we think they should be, not of what God thinks they should be.

Jesus Jukers will deny my statement until the end, claiming they were trying to do the right thing. When they do that, just remember, I successfully defended the idea of me crapping on someones doorstep with the simple statement of it was well intentioned just poorly executed. But if this were really true, wouldn't they stop executing their good intentions in the form of a Jesus Juke? So next time you feel like Jesus Juking someone, think of it as taking a verbal dump on that person's metaphorical door step, and see if you still think its a good idea (Hint: its not). Sorry Raj, didn't meant to hijack the blog. Love you brother.

Any thoughts?