Prayers this Lenten season especially for peace.
[A Ukrainian woman stands with a white flag and an icon in front of the riot police line during a temporary truce. Photo Credit: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA.]
Category: Current Events
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My Word for 2014 – Dangit
It seems like everyone is doing a “One Word” theme for 2014.
At first, I roll my eyes. I don’t need to define my life and goals for a year with one word. I’m focused enough. Legalist Me says “It’s always God anyway” and Mystic Me says “It’s always Love anyway” (and yes, that’s kind of one of the same).
Already procrastinating on two of my
resolutionsgoals for 2014 – working out 3-5x/week and running 150 miles this year – I make sure the world hasn’t ended because of my absence from Twitter the last few days.I see my friend Sarah Mae tweet a link to a post about a gal named Dana who makes her word for 2014 Mike, her husband. In it, she links back to the post where Sarah Mae makes her word for 2014 Jesse, who’s Sarah Mae’s husband.
Then I say dangit, because I felt smacked upside my head with a burlap sack of coffee beans (drinking coffee: something I have yet to also do this morning).
Realizing dangit doesn’t really give me a theme word for 2014, I quickly change my word for 2014 to Tim. My super romantic, epic proposaling, tall, dark and handsome, Godly man extraordinary Tim.
We haven’t even been married but ten months, but somehow in those ten months my selfishness, my snark, and my stubbornness get in the way of a great marriage. My baggage, my lack of trust, oh – and did I mention my selfishness? – can put a wall up between us.
I already had a list of resolutions: spiritual, physical and career and I’m not going to abandon them. However, I’m looking over them all and making sure they are in line with the obvious responsibility of loving, respecting, and placing Tim as a priority in my thoughts and actions, words and deeds.
One of my goals was to reboot the “Change Me” prayer I wrote about last year; I recognize I cannot change anyone, Tim included. But I can pray to change myself. I choose to accept him and his strengths and weaknesses, to love him, to care for him, to support him, to encourage him, to do what I can to propel him forward in his faith and in his career (a fabulously gifted man behind a camera).
There are so many ways to be PC online: don’t make resolutions (or call them goals, instead). Make them. Post them. Don’t share them. Everyone has their own opinion about it, so, please do as you please.
However, don’t be like me and be closed off to the idea of doing something – like creating a word for 2014 that is your theme word – and miss out on an opportunity to do something amazing.
For God.
For you.
And maybe even for someone else.
Us on our Wedding Day -
Four Ways to Keep the Christmas Season from Ruining Christmas
The holidays are stressful. Shopping. Parties. Family. Finances. Weather. As I finish up the manuscript for my book Mad Church Disease: Healing from Church Burnout, I am reminded how much difference a little intentionality makes as we journey across the days of December.
These four things help me to daily the postures I’ll take this season and in doing so, maybe make things a lot less stressful in the process.
- Friends: Engage your friends. People travel, everyone seems busy, but reaching out to your friends during the holidays isn’t just good for you, it’s good for them. Even a simple text message to say hi and ask how someone is doing can be the only light someone sees on a really cloudy day.
- Rest: Rest is my favorite thing to do. After I stressed myself out so terribly eight years ago (so much that I was hospitalized for a week), resting is priority for me and my family. Even if this means emails, phone calls and texts go unanswered for a day or two, rest. In the Christmas season, it’s hard to have a Sabbath day, but do it anyway. And rest in the fact that you’re being obedient in the process. [Tweet “So much more gets done when we’re resting in the fact God has already done everything.”]
- Pray: It’s an obvious discipline, but one that can fall to the wayside in my life when I’m busy. Even though it may feel rote, commit to certain times to pray every day. For Tim and me, we pray before every meal and then we have an intercessory time before we go to bed. Every single day. One sentence prayers are also a big thing: “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”…”God, change me!” ….”Lord, help…” Meditating on scripture in the stillness of our own mind keeps us constantly in touch with what God might have for us to do.
- Be Thankful: It can’t be said enough: Keeping an attitude of thankfulness takes the focus off our circumstances and places it back on the God who gave us His son. In light of the coming of Christ to save us for our sins, long check out lines, annoying family members, even the bigger things like finances and health disappear into the shadows. What if you wrote down one thing you’re thankful for every day? And what if you shared it with a friend? I have a feeling the hope and joy would spill out and encourage both of you.
It is so very much in my DNA to desire health and peace and joy for those who minister either by profession or in everyday life. We are all called to it and there’s nothing more Satan would like to do than to distract us from celebrating and sharing this miraculous and sacred time of the year.
I would like to help you stay encouraged from now until the new year. I woke up this morning and felt compelled to start something that could encourage you daily, so I logged into my email account and made a new list for surviving Christmas.
By signing up, starting tomorrow, each day I’ll send you a very short note of encouragement, tips to stay healthy, some scripture and prayer…something new each day. I’ll also include a link to a talk (either video or audio – your choice) I recently gave on choosing joy this advent season that goes further into these four ideas.
It doesn’t cost you anything and I won’t try to sell you anything. But if you’d like to sign up, you can do so using the form below. If your browser doesn’t show a form or you have problems, just click this link to sign up.
Do you have any tips on how to stay healthy and proactive during the Christmas season?
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The Biggest Scandal in Church History
Lately there’s been some recent scandals that have surfaced in the evangelical world. I won’t link to them, but it’s the stuff you hear about on a fairly regular basis: affairs, assumed affairs, embezzlement, frivolous spending, abuse. My Twitter feed has been bloated with links and articles on how men and women have fallen from their pulpits into sin and devastation.
This morning I read a blog post a friend of mine linked to and cringed – not because of the scandal-du-jour, but because of the assumptions and accusations made by a person who is far outside of the situation.
Recently, a public figure in the Christian world confessed to an emotional-type affair, saying (or implying) the woman he was inappropriately involved with and he did not engage in sexual acts. People have torn into his confession and resignation letter, projecting the assumptions that somehow they were sexually involved, that the man’s wife has no other choice but to endure and is probably ostracized from their community because it is one that is highly patriarchal. That this man will take some time off, but because of his authority and apparent brain-washing, will be back in power again soon. Assumptions are made about the other woman forever wearing a scarlet letter (some assumptions were made she was a virgin and unmarried, neither of which were mentioned in the statement).
I take two issues with this:
1) So many assumptions are being made in this situation and others like it. Outside of what is stated in this man’s resignation letter, we know nothing. As Christians, we are called to believe the best and to hope for the best in our brothers and sisters. I understand the temptation to dig, to find the “truth,” to stare at the car wreck, but we cannot do this. It only destroys the beauty of our own hearts as well as tarnishes another at the time when they’re most vulnerable.
2) Although one, some, any of these “scandals” may be true to its worst assumption, we cannot let ourselves ruin a gift we don’t even have the right to have: grace. Grace is the biggest scandal in church history. It is something none of us deserve; something we’re given when we’re hiding in our sin and we meet our Saviour at the well. He offers us life, love, and hope: not condemnation. What will help someone who’s fallen “Go and sin no more?” Our gossip? Our assumptions? Our self-righteousness? Or our love, our encouragement, and our prayers?
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. – Paul
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Why Finding a Church is Hard, Hard, Hard (Even for a Church Girl)
The only way I’d be more of a church girl is if my mom birthed me while she was teaching Sunday school. That didn’t happen, but it could have, I think. Most of my afternoons growing up were spent playing “school” in the churches where my dad preached, stealing left over communion grape juice, and getting my fill of the local gossip by reading the notes the high schoolers threw away after services.
When my dad left the ministry when I was sixteen, slowly church was no longer an obligation; it was a choice. And for five years, the choice to attend was not one I frequently made. At 21, a friend invited me to hers and after resisting time and time again, I caved. I felt a specific call on my life not to just be the church-going Christian I always was, but to pastor, to commit my life to ministry. At the age of 23, I started full time vocational church work. Going to church was now part of my job (and it wasn’t necessarily a bad part of it!)
Burnout and time, production meetings and countdown clocks, entitled members and abusive supervisors began to overcast the joy I found in ministry with a grey cloud of skepticism and bitterness. This cloud came and went; not every church I worked at was terrible. At 29 years old, I was ordained and sent out by that church to pursue God’s call on my life to pastor by writing and speaking.
So much life happened in the last four and a half years. I’ve spoken at nearly 100 churches that are not my own and I have loved each and every one of them. When Tim and I got married and lived in the Davenport area, it was surprisingly easy to engage with a small church plant. Tim knew the pastor for almost a decade. It was in the mall…by the Sears. There was no countdown clock and they gave so much money away and every week there was a prayer meeting. Other churches and ministries could use the space. People wandered in for counseling or to use a prayer room. Oh, and the coffee house next to it was a part of the umbrella ministry and you know coffee is just as important to me as doctrine.
I kid.
A little.
It was not perfect but it was home for us for those nine months we lived in the Quad Cities. Now we are in Tennessee, complete with baggage from working at churches (and honestly, a tinge of resentfulness that creeps in from time to time), and with two different backgrounds (I consider myself a Baptipresbopalian who favors long liturgy and singing prayers and an altar for weekly eucharist; Tim is a non-denominational somewhat reformed guy who is spirit-led and hates the countdown clock as much as I do). Thankfully, we both desire a church that holds the Bible as its teaching, is crazy-intentional about prayerfulness and discipleship, that doesn’t want to be the biggest, baddest church but solely seeks to be the church God is calling them to be. We appreciate diversity, financial responsibility (holy cow, are we learning so many churches are millions of dollars in debt!), serving the local community, and being known.
Clearly, I realize that sounds like a “What Makes a Church Perfect in Our Book” list but it’s truly not. We’ve been praying for months to find this church, and wow, is it tough.
We live in a world of messaging, analyzing “What does this say?” to anything we hear – church related or not. When I get handed a bulletin printed on fancy paper and as the countdown video flashes sweet images and scriptures on LED screens and I see the church is $6 million in debt, what does that say? When I google “Small church, Franklin, TN” and the top result is a church that says “Come check out our new building!”, what does that say? When a church hands me a program on simple green paper printed from a copy machine and under debt, it says “zero,” what does that say? When a church website says, “We don’t get in your face and won’t impose on your life,” what does that say? When a church lets the homeless sleep in the church, and when a homeless man died on the steps of another church just miles away, what does that say?
As an introvert, this process is particularly difficult. I see the appeal of the large churches and am drawn to that, knowing I can sneak in and out and hide and nobody has to talk to me. That’s a temptation, but one I must fight. We went to a small, 60 person church yesterday and I literally wished I brought my anxiety medicine because I knew they knew we were new and would talk to us. Tim, who’s a bit more extroverted than I am, loved that people came up and said hi and were very warm and welcoming. I hid behind him like a toddler and darted out as soon as I could.
If it’s hard for me, a girl with a very active and intimate relationship with Jesus, who is an ordained minister, a girl who speaks at churches half of the Sundays out of the year, who grew up in the church and worked in churches for almost a decade to feel anxious visiting churches, how much more do those who are far from God or far from the church feel? How does a church welcome those who are extroverted and those who are shy? I appreciate the honesty of the churches who print their finances each week, but if a non-skeptic like me sees a big debt and has concerns, what would a skeptic think?
If you’re in this boat with us, trying to find a church home – not a perfect church – but one who shares important doctrinal values and a methodology consistent with the way God has wired you, you are not alone. Tim and I pray for us, and we also pray for you as you walk this journey. There is nothing Satan would rather do than to disconnect us from other believers, discourage us, and disappoint us so that we slowly walk away from serving and loving and being encouraged and taught and teaching. Stay on the course with us. And we will continue praying (and ask for your prayers, too.)
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What Should Christians Do About Syria?
I am not a student of politics. I look at issues, I vote, I read the news. On occasion, I’ll show up to a city council meeting if it’s something I really care about (like how the homeless are treated or where bike lanes need to be), but really, that’s about it.
Living in a country that has been at war or intervening somewhere for most of my life seems…normal; I don’t know any different. Watching videos of people being affected by chemical warfare is horrific. I have a friend that works in a high level of government, so high, I don’t really know what this person actually does. I just know there are many overnight meetings at the Capitol that he or she participates in. When I ask if Hollywood portrays an over-the-top dismal version of what actually happens in DC, this person doesn’t answer. That makes me think things are complicated beyond anything you or I could ever imagine.
So, Syria.
A boy is treated after sustaining injuries in Aleppo, Syria. (TIME/Nicole Tung) It’s been top on news pages and on news casts for weeks now. I’ve probably followed it as much as an average person follows it – mostly because I feel the need to be engaged and educated but I also feel helpless. I think a lot of us do.
What can we do in our daily routines to actually influence anything? What should we believe? Who should we believe? What is a “Christian” response? What is a “Christian” response, anyway?
I’ve been thinking on this, hearing debates from friends and reading forwarded emails with animated gifs of American flags and yellow ribbons. And I truly believe this is what we are to do.
We are to pray.
I imagine if Jesus was asked what He thought about Syria, or if we should intervene or stay out, much like he did with the yes or no questions He was asked, he wouldn’t answer yes or no. He would share a story, a parable, and point us back to a principle of the Kingdom.
Jesus teaches us to pray Your Kingdom come, Your will be done…
Paul instructs to pray for our leaders, and with thanksgiving make our requests known…
What should Christians do about Syria? We should pray.
It seems almost like it’s too small a response. Like it is the pat answer someone would give when they don’t know what to say. That humble words said over food or from our safe pillows in our safe homes in our quiet evenings would not be enough.
But I believe it’s in these quiet and gentle moments of intercession that a much larger war is being fought and we are showing up and our words may be humble but they are bold and they are mighty because of the Spirit who intercedes for us.
It is prayer.
It is how we can fight.
It is how we should respond.
And this is how we should encourage others to participate as well. It is more powerful than a diatribe on Facebook or our emails with pictures of eagles.
Pray. Encourage others to pray. Seek humility. Fast from something. And pray even more.
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Is There Joy in Holding on to Grief?
On July 3, 2012, eight days before my friend Jay Williams turned 32 years old, he was buried in Lebanon Cemetery in Plains, Georgia. The air was still and thick with southern humidity, and sweat collected in the small of my back under the layers of my black dress. My friends and I stood on the brittle grass of the cemetery, waiting in line to say goodbye to Jay one last time. We dodged the sun by shuffling in and out of each other’s shadows and swatted at clouds of gnats with paper fans provided by the local funeral home.
In the summer of 2010, Jay, myself, and 15 other people rode our bicycles from San Diego to Myrtle Beach, raising money and awareness for an organization that empowers people to fight the HIV/AIDS and water crises in Africa. Jay was the first cyclist to arrive at the church that would send us off. As I pulled into the church parking lot in San Diego, I saw a short, skinny guy with a tan wearing a straw cowboy hat riding his red bicycle in circles. Was he one of the team cyclists? Or some vagabond traveler who perhaps illegally acquired a nice road bike? Was he drunk? He looked so happy—too happy.
Quickly, we learned he was one of our teammates. While the rest of us worried if our gear would hold up or how we’d survive cycling nine hours a day in 110-degree weather, Jay was content to cycle the 3000 miles we traveled cross-country in Teva sandals, occasionally strapping a milk jug of water to the back of his bike so he wouldn’t have to stop. Even without clipping into pedals or using recovery drinks (he preferred chocolate milk), Jay was the strongest on our team. He wasn’t competitive, though; he’d stop and help someone change out a blown tube or, in his South Georgia accent, would cheer up a teammate having an unpleasant day.As we got to know Jay, we learned he was in a skiing accident when he was a teenager. After extensive surgery that caused his abdominal muscles to be separated and required him to lose a kidney, he was back on the slopes the next winter. Considering the doctors told him he’d be lucky to walk again, this was only one small miracle in Jay’s life. Jay was brave. Jay was humble. It seemed like Jay was invincible. He quickly and quietly became everybody’s unlikely hero.
After the tour ended, each cyclist returned to his or her respective hometown. Jay made an effort to stay in touch with each of us, scattered as we were.
After tornadoes ripped through the south in spring 2011, I volunteered at a benefit concert in Birmingham, Alabama. Jay drove four hours from Plains, Georgia, to help me sell T-shirts for two hours. Then he drove four hours back so he could be at his job on time the next morning. This wasn’t atypical. This was Jay. By day, he worked in his father’s peanut factory and by night, secretly repaired friends’ houses when they were on vacation. He loved Jesus, and to everyone who knew him, he never had to say a word to prove it. His actions proved this love beyond any shadow of doubt.On June 29, 2012, when the team received the news that Jay fell two stories and was fighting for his life, none of us could believe it. Twenty-four hours later, Jay passed away due to the trauma caused by his fall.
Sadly, Jay was not the first of my friends to pass last year. Two others have unexpectedly died: one in a tragic hiking accident in Japan and another after an arduous battle with cancer. I began to wonder if, as a 33-year-old, death simply becomes a more frequent notification or if last year has been an anomaly. Thinking on these things, my chest tightens and my breathing becomes shallow and quick. I’m faced with the reality of my own transience now; death has been speaking into my consciousness more repeatedly than usual.
Most of the cycling team was able to make it to Georgia for Jay’s funeral. We stayed in two guest homes on a farm in the tiny town of Ellaville. None of us knew the family who owned the farm before we arrived. They heard we were coming, and they opened their doors. They loved Jay, and they loved Jesus, and because of this, they loved us.
Alone in one of the houses while waiting for our ride to the visitation, I sat in the living room with the book I was reading. After attempting to understand the same sentence four times, I gave up and stared off into the smoke-stained fireplace in front of me, listening to the sounds that filled the house: water dripping from the kitchen faucet, songs of crickets and the rustle of leaves as squirrels jumped around in the heavy woods. In my hasty packing, I forgot to bring a pen. I searched the cottage and found a pencil and scribbled in the back of my book:
When someone in our periphery dies, it gives our spirits pause. A moment of silence. But when someone close—a kindred spirit—passes, our reality becomes surreality. We float through a new and different kind of time and space, and our bodies feel the loss of a bright soul that no longer walks with us. The air, the sounds, the light … all is different when someone departs. When they became part of us, they implanted a small piece of their spirit in our own. And when they leave, there is such pain from the empty space that spirit used to fill. This is grief.
During the days of Jay’s visitation and funeral, grief was loud. It was in the eyes of the 200 people who lined up in the heat to say goodbye to him and console his parents and his girlfriend. It spoke into the quiet moments in conversations as we spoke of Jay’s memory. It was in the tears of his friends as they touched his casket before it was lowered.
However, as loud as grief was, joy was louder. It seems incredibly trite to write those words; it feels as cliché as saying, “He’s in a better place now” or “God just wanted one of his angels home.” But joy outsang grief, and its notes ring just as beautifully today as they did last year. Joy sings of a life lived bravely and with love. Joy sings of friendships created and renewed. Joy sings of every minute someone spent with Jay. In the moments where grief is raw and bleeding, joy reaches in with peace and hope. It is not intrusive or overpowering. It is constant and gently comforts our sorrow. In the space this mercy offered us, we could mourn and celebrate.
July 12, 2012 marks the day Jay was buried. New concerns and mundane tasks seem to lessen the time I think of his death. Distractions threaten to numb the sensitivity to life and community and love I experienced so intensely almost a year ago. It’s effortless to let death, grief, and the overwhelming joy it paradoxically brings move away from our hearts. Our culture demands we must get over it—life goes on—but with intentional determination, maybe we have an alternative choice.
Yes, we must accept life and death, just as we must accept grief and joy. There is a season for all things. But instead of moving on from the things death awakens in us, perhaps we embrace them. Perhaps we choose to keep the mark a life leaves on our heart unhealed and open and, by doing so, we create space for others to experience the legacy of love and joy a departed friend leaves behind.
Can there, in fact, be joy in holding on to grief?
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The End of FlowerDust.net (Goodbye…)
(NOTE: I’m actually going on a fun little road trip Monday and Tuesday to see some friends and some of the beautiful fall colors so I won’t be responding to questions on this post or on Twitter until mid-week. I’m not even taking my computer with me on my trip. Thanks for the patience & grace. I’ve been traveling a lot recently and have had a bit of a family crisis thrown in the mix too…so I need a little break from it all!) :)
Five years is not a bad run.
I’ve been blogging on FlowerDust.net for about five years now.
And it’s time for me to stop.
In fact, it’s time for me to make several changes in regard to how I approach this ever-evolving world of social media.
Over the last six months, I’ve had three people significantly influence my decision to change directions as far as “who” I am online. And please note the quotation marks on “who,” as I truly believe there is only a certain level of intimacy one can share via pixels. There really is no “who” I am online.
There is just me. And this is what I’ve got to do.
Why share all this? Because you are important and you have supported me throughout the years. Also, I think there are other people out there that may want to take some steps and re-evaluate how they participate in social networking, and maybe this can help them process.
___________
THE INFLUENCERS:
Consistency to Your Design: One of these people has a very similar life to mine. A writer. A speaker. A person who spends maybe more time on planes and in hotels than I do. He wants to invest more time in his private life, in the relationships he has in flesh and blood. He wants to live like this more than he cares about his public perception. It’s not to say the people he interacts with online aren’t flesh and blood, or that they are any less real or important; there simply is a limit to how much you can share and with whom and time and space.
This person has followed through with his good intentions, carefully guarding how he spends his time. At times, it’s been difficult. He’s not neglecting opportunities to help others…he’s living true to his design (as one who gets energy from solitude – much like me) and that is allowing him to probably have a more pure influence in the world than juggling a public perception while trying to be holistically who he is.
—
Your “Identity”: Another one of these people is someone I’ve recently met. A musician. A talented singer and songwriter. Over gallons of hot tea and closing down Nashville’s Fido coffeehouse several times, he’s helped me dig into what identity is and isn’t. He’s helped me see why one of the reasons I get anxious or worried or feel guilty or angry is because the identities “Anne the author” or “Anne the blogger” or “Anne the speaker” have something opposing them.
There will always be opposing forces in life, but when I take them on as “Anne the _______” it will always cause more stress.
Why?
Because I am Anne. Simply Anne.
This doesn’t mean I don’t have talents or a career or relationships, but to allow anything related to ego or self-importance to influence the way I make decisions actually hurts me.
“Anne the Social Media Girl” has been trying to make everyone happy and it’s impossible. The guilt complex tells me I have to keep the boat afloat but the rest of my body tells me to stop it or I’m going to end up jumping off a cliff.
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Courage: The third and final person that’s helped me arrive at this decision is someone who has simply spoken words that have given me courage.
“Just do what you need to do. You know what it is. Don’t be afraid. I need you to be courageous. The world needs you to be courageous. There are going to be so many people that may not understand or agree with you, but you can’t let that stop you from doing what you need to do.”
And so, I’m doing what I need to do.
___________
Since there have been relationships formed on this blog or on Twitter in a variety of ways, I thought it would be best to tell you what I’m changing and why. I hope you can respect it whether or not you agree with it and trust me when I say I know I’m doing what’s best for me, my faith, my family, my health, and my closest community.
**BLOGGING
GOING AWAY: I will no longer be blogging at FlowerDust.net. There are a lot of really good conversations on here, and it has some important topics that are indexed well in search engines, so I think it’s important to keep the information available. However, all the comment sections will be closed and essentially, this blog will remain up for archival purposes only.
I will keep the comments on this post open for a couple of weeks and will answer any questions that may need answering. But I am not going to defend my decision if you disagree with me. Again, I just ask that you respect it.
WHAT’S NEW: *I will continue writing online. I’ll be writing an essay once every Tuesday and a poem once every Thursday each week on my new site AnneJacksonWrites.com.
It’s simple.
It’s just writing.
No more giveaways.
No more promotions.
No more random tidbits of information.
I love to write.
I love to write essays and poetry.
I am not a blogger.
Blogging is a form of writing and many writers blog well and many bloggers write well. I am not one. Not anymore. I just want to improve my writing skills so I am going to focus on how I write best. It will be consistent, still interactive, and hopefully thoughtful and present.
RSS READERS: Fear not. No need to re-subscribe to anything. Technology is magical like that.
**TWITTER:
GOING AWAY: Twitter.com/FlowerDust
I’m declaring bankruptcy. At some point in time today (Monday, 11/15) I’m deleting the account.
WHAT’S NEW: Twitter.com/AnneJackson
Whew…I’m so glad I name squatted my own name back before Twitter became popular.
To answer some of the FAQ’s I’ve gotten already:
Q: Why not just change usernames and keep your followers?
A: Two main reasons: I doubt 12,300 people really follow me and I really don’t follow 4,300 people.
Q: Will you be following everyone who follows you?
A: No.
I will not be following many people. It has nothing to do with whether I like you or think your tweets are valuable or not. There are people I know in person that I see almost every day that I won’t follow.
Here’s the thing: *I* have allowed Twitter to become another distraction to what I feel I need to become – a better writer. I’m going to keep using it, but it’s going to be much more personal and less about my “platform.”
If people interact with me, I’ll interact, but it’s not wise for me to follow everyone. To have several thousand people be able to send you a direct message and assume you can reply is very overwhelming for me.
Some people handle it with grace. I can’t. I am an introvert – online and off – and being “on” all the time drains me of who I need to be and what I need to do.
I realize this is a “controversial” move on Twitter (the fact there are such things to me seems a little ridiculous, to be honest. It’s just Twitter…) and because I already have received some — let’s just say “passionate” – messages about not following everyone, please hear me: If I don’t follow you, don’t take it personally.
Simply, it’s just not healthy or smart for me to follow everyone.
Something I do that is a good middle ground is create lists. I can follow people on lists without opening the DM floodgates. So know that I will still engage with people, I will still catch up with people, it just won’t be through the means of “following” in typical Twitter fashion.
**OTHER THINGS:
My Facebook page will still exist and I will still interact on it at Facebook.com/FlowerDust. Facebook doesn’t allow name changes on Pages yet, but as soon as I can, I’ll try.
Privately, I’ve shut off all my Google Alerts for my name and my book and my websites. I’d love to keep up with all that, but again, I simply need to focus on a handful of things I truly care about. My reputation is not one of them. It will hopefully speak for itself if I consistently seek after a more pure, noble, true, lovely and admirable life. And by making these changes in my online world, those characteristics will flow more consistently out of everything I do.
___________
Is this a poor career choice? I don’t know. It’s debatable. The “experts” say every author needs a platform. Experts have their place, but they don’t run the world. I think I need to be a better writer before I have a platform.
The bottom line is this: I think faith and love and character can and will supersede any social media campaign anyone can dream up. It’s not about being famous or selling books or promoting myself.
I need to work on the character things first and foremost, and then out of that I trust my best writing is yet to come.
___________
THANK YOU.
No matter how long or how short you’ve been a part of FlowerDust.net, or any extension of, I say thanks. I hope we can continue our relationship even if it looks a little differently.
It’s been a great five years.
Be well,
Anne Jackson
