Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Brand New

This is kind of a big deal for me, to actually start a blog. All of the usual feelings about ego, and self-involvement emerge for me and yet, I have finally decided that instead of thinking about everything I would ever want to write about, I'm simply going to write about it instead. I figure, I look at other people's blogs, why wouldn't someone look at mine now and again? And if I'm bored with someone else's, I just stop reading it. Sometimes I come across something that is particularly meaningful to me. I hope the same will be true for those who take time to peruse my writing. Several things prompted me to actually create The Blog on this particular day. A good friend asked me yesterday what inhibits me from doing the things in life that I really want to do. I didn't have an answer, but I at least knew I needed to start doing some things that while risky, were desirous. So, starting a blog is one thing that I've always wanted to do but never did. At least now I can say that I did start a blog, once. The pond that I am across is the Atlantic Ocean. The photo in my header is taken from the Canary Island, Lanzarote. I am an American living in Sweden and have been doing so for almost 10 years. A 3 year adventure has turned into a way of life for my husband and me. So a lot of what I think about is conditioned by being a foreigner and a Christian in a very secular place where my church roots also happen to be. A bizarre cocktail of religious, cutural, and sociological circumstances. This morning when I was out walking my dog, I saw a poster for a concert...Matthew's Gospel will be sung in a church some time soon. The Swedes are big concert people, in fact, they are big religious concert people. It puzzles me why they like to sing about the gospel when most think it is fiction. More on that later. It feels good to start.

2 comments:

  1. Hey Jodi - welcome to the world of blogging! It's a wonderful way to keep in touch with family and friends across many, many ponds. :)

    I read a book fairly recently with this quote in it that really struck home with me as another foreigner:

    “Being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy- a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that the previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”

    - Jhumpa Lahiri in THE NAMESAKE

    Anyway, know that I'll be tuning in from Quito - I've added you to my Google Reader. :)

    ~Lisa P.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Jodi - Uncle Ted sent me your "Blog" account. Loved It. I really liked the pictures. Put some more on your site.
    Love, Your cousin Pam

    ReplyDelete