About Random Musings

I am a Christian, trying to live out that life as a member of the Anglican Communion, the current expression of which in the USA is the Episcopal Church, which is at this time deeply troubled.

Professionally, I have been a Funeral Director for some 20 years. Personally, I am (formerly!) divorced (look for a longer post to come! for the first draft, see  this link ) with two grown children. They are living proof of the mercy and goodness of God.

OK, why start this blog? I don’t quite think it’s to enlighten the digital hoards clamoring ‘round my virtual cabin door, hoping for a morsel of wisdom never heard before! Then why? (By the way, I have found I stick my oar into other people’s blogs much more than I post fresh things myself. If any of these scratchings amuse you, you can find a pretty good bit more by googling for me by “R. Eric Sawyer”  -use the quotation marks!) 

 

I deeply hope that I have very little original to add. Anything purely original, at least on the topics that interest me, is almost certainly wrong. All that is truly wise and accurately descriptive of the ways of God and man has been said before, and by wiser heads than mine. The surest path to error is to crave to be novel. Several tasks may still bear fruit:  catalogue the wisdom gained, or rediscover it afresh, testing it against the old; or take the conflicting bits we know, and attempt to see how they fit together into a seamless whole.

These are the things that interest me. We know that “x” is true. We also know that “y” is true, and that “x” is not “y” What then can we know about the nature of “x”, “y”, and “truth”

 

But why write? Because to write is to think. When my father said goodbye after moving me into the dorms at Univ. of Houston back in ’73, he admonished me to write every day. Write something, no matter what, but attempt to put thoughts on paper. I did, to a large degree, for years, and then stopped. After too much rest, one gets flabby and slack.

But why blog? I have deeply enjoyed the interaction at two of my favorite sites, TitusOneNine, and StandFirmInFaith (both in my blogroll) to which I have sometimes added a comment. What I find is this: my father’s advocacy of writing draws fruit from the fact that one’s thinking is made accountable by being written. If I simply put down the “chain-of-consciousness” ramblings that I call my thoughts, I get a chaotic mish-mash of thought and noise, a dozen topics tossed together (I hate those kinds of novels!) Writing forces one to try and tease it into some recognizable form, to discard at least some of the crud. Then the thought can stand or fall on its own merit. And that, too, is a major reason to write. I don’t believe we can be easily corrected from errors which we cannot articulate. Left in their native form, my jumble of thoughts and errors can no more be purged from my mind than can fine dust be swept. First, it must be dampened, made to hold some regular shape, so that it may be removed at ease (Pilgrim’s Progress).

But finally, putting this stuff in a blog forces one more level of accountability. That is an accountability before you, and any who should happen by this site. I trust that you may shake your head in amusement at some of these musings, but feel free to stop for a moment and throw a comment full of cold water on the dust of my errors. Such a kindness will help me sweep.

R. Eric Sawyer
4/10/2007