When a blogger leaves
In memory of The Gospel According To Mark
I hate it when bloggers quit blogging.
Mark Morris is the latest to bow out, citing "blog ennui" and a lost of interest. As I said in his comments, I would cry if I didn't have such a problem crying.
I've already lost at least 6 bloggers whose blogs used to be on my blogroll: Jonathan Fox (For What It's Worth), David Sharpe (Damash), Duane Garner (Amberbach), Karen Haluza (Raw Faith - she seems to be making a comeback of sorts?), Tim Eaton (Ninepence, He Wrote), and Jon Davis (The Daily Drivel).
Ganns (he without the archives and permalinks) once wrote of bloggers who stop blogging and the sense of loss we feel. It's like a unilateral severing of a relationship. Like they are going away, leaving me behind.
You see, the blog was our point of contact; it was there that I dropped in to learn of them and share in their lives, it was there that a conversation would ensue, if I chose to leave a comment or write a related post on my own blog. Without the blog, it's hard to keep in contact, because I no longer know where they're at, no longer have anything to respond to. On the other hand, whether they will make an effort to keep in touch is a different question.
We all understand how - as Dave King once said - "real life gets in the way of blogging". And, as I wrote to a blogger once, I believe in seasons of life - that we may be called to do a thing for a season, and at the dawn of a new season God may call us somewhere else, to do something else. I want to say "Don't go", but I can't, because if God is telling him or her to go, who am I to hold them back?
Nevertheless it's difficult to let go, and my world seems a bit smaller, a bit emptier each time I lose a fellow blogger. The relationships we build are, after all, quite tenuous. We feel like we know each other well because blogging cuts through all the preliminary getting-to-know-you stuff, goes straight into all the things we believe and the thoughts we think. But when a blogger withdraws... I wonder whether we really have/had a true relationship. We exchanged ideas - but did we really care about each other? Were we really friends?
I guess I'm confused.
I'm glad Owen is still blogging - there was some intimation that he might stop at one point. As for me, I have cut back on blogging but I'm still here.
I'll miss you, Mark.