Dear Friends and Readers of One Lost Sock:
When I started this blog some three years ago, I was naming it for an experience we all have. Sure, we actually do lose socks. But their whereabouts, their seeming capacity to vanish in ways that defy the logic of the physical world is part of bigger set of experiences in life. Experiences that tune us into a universe of wonder. A place where just when we think we have life figured out and organized into tidy compartments, something happens that refuses to follow our expectations.
Lost socks are vexing, because they leave us with one bare foot in a pool of the unknown and unexplained.
At the same time the experience of a lost sock invites us into wonder. Yes, it may be irritating. If it happens regularly one might start to suspect a conspiracy, or feel as if the universe is plotting against you. But whether it’s relatively minor as with socks, or much bigger as with questions about fairness or justice in the world, we are a family of seven billion souls on this blue planet bound together by a mysterious existence. No matter how clever our science, there are things that lead us to mystery and wonder. Wonder and awe about the beauty of our universe, but also wonder and heartache at the evil and suffering.
It is into this wonder and mystery that I’ve felt called to reflect and write. I still do. I hope that my public wondering and reflecting and thinking have somehow enriched your lives as readers. I can hardly tell you how transformational writing it has been for me. But recently my journey has begun to take a slightly different turn.
When I started this blog, my “big” risk was being willing to let others see what I wrote and committing to write with some degree of regularity. What started as a readership of 5, has grown substantially. You all have been most kind to let me learn out loud and begin to hone the craft of writing. Today, while the call to wonder is still the same, the risk I’ve decided to take is a little different. I’m beginning to write with the intent of publishing as an author. This blog, One Lost Sock has never had my name attached to it. I wanted it that way so that I could be free to write openly without concern about how my online presence would affect how patients and other professionals thought of me.
In my goal of working towards publishing a book, I need to develop an online presence that’s clearly associated with my own name. So as part of this step forward, I’m starting a second blog, one that clearly ties my name and my reputation to what I’m writing. The new blog is called “Deep in Wonder”, and it perhaps represents the natural evolution of One Lost Sock as a more direct invitation to wonder. While I have no intention of hiding my life of faith, the new blog will be less explicitly religious and geared toward a broader audience interested in psychology as it is applied to daily life. I’m not abandoning One Lost Sock. I intend to post here, a little less often perhaps, but to leave this space as my anonymous place to post about my wrestling with God and faith and church and maybe somethings that feel too personal to post in a more public venue. The difference between the blogs perhaps could be captured this way: there are places for telling and places for showing. Deep In Wonder (DIW) is a place in which very little telling of the Christian story will take place, but hopefully there will be a lot of showing. I think we need both formats. And for now, I feel I need to write both.
The new blog starts out with a piece on Wonder (hence the name of the blog), moves to confessional about myself as a not-so-super parent, and soon will begin a series of pieces on working with our difficult feelings in a slightly unusual but helpful way. Back here at OLS, I'm working on a piece about churches becoming more accessible to people with mental illness that should be out soon.
If you’ve enjoyed One Lost Sock, please do give my new blog a try and see if you are enriched by its contents. Many of you who have been faithful readers are also big supporters of me as a person. I deeply appreciate this. While I’m a little shy of self-promotion, if you feel like you’d like to support me in new ways, you can take one of few steps to help out:
1) Read and follow the new blog (www.deepinwonder.com). You can hit the “follow” button and when new posts are published you’ll get email notices…having more followers also raises the profile of the blog which effects search results and overall promotion on the internet.
2) Tweet, repost on Facebook, or pass along by email posts you enjoy at the new site
3) Post comments on the new blog - feel free to give honest critique or share your reactions. These blogs are venues for me to try ideas out and get feedback as part of the overall moving towards publishing process. So getting your feedback is really valuable. If you really are to shy to post comments, please send me emails instead.
3) Tell your friends about the new blog.
4) Pray for me: I want these next ventures to take me wherever I can serve my fellow humans best as a writer, thinker, and public wonderer.
5) You can follow me on twitter if you have an account (you'll see the link on the new page).
With heartfelt thanks,
David.
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