Not so much anymore.
Perhaps it comes from the wisdom of growing up a little. Perhaps it comes from the slothfulness of settling into a comfortable routine. Perhaps it comes from fear. But I don't want to be famous anymore. I have rethought what it means to do great things for Jesus. And I'm becoming cynical or resigned or wise enough to realise that the world is not going to change until Jesus returns to it.
So I've gone from flirting with the idea of fame to fearing it. I have been horrified by how vicious humanity is. We get on our high horse and tell our children that bullying is wrong, and we want to pass laws to prevent cyber-bullying, and we grieve the deaths of those young people who felt they could no longer go on under the pressure of being bullied online and made the terrible choice to take their own lives, but read the comment section of any newspaper, any well-known blog or magazine article. Watch the Facebook feeds as mayors fall, as world leaders die, as religious leaders speak or write. We are vicious, vindictive, mocking, self-righeous, arrogant, and ugly. What we condemn our children for, we feel quite free to do as adults, and as Christians. Cyber-bullying is alive and well. And anyone who stands out from the crowd becomes a target. The world of the internet is an ugly and barren wasteland. More and more, I find myself longing to find a way to never have to leave the house.
Ah, but there's the rub. The internet invades the house. I innocently open up my Facebook, and I find you screaming at me. In the privacy of my own home, in what is supposed to be my safe place, you barge in and you yell at me. There is no warning. There is no escape. Every instinct in me is to bar, to block, to hide, to flee.
And yet . . . and yet. . . .
God has not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. A healed mind. A mind that was broken and crushed under the weight of fear, but has been renewed and strengthened by His power. Mine was a mind that was shattered into pieces, each piece trying to fit into someone else's puzzle, each piece trying to be what someone else wanted me to be. But that mind has been knit together, patched with gold like a piece of broken pottery, into a whole created by God. To flee is to go back to the broken, to reject the whole that God has made and try to fit my pieces into someone else's pattern instead of God's. To quit is to reject love and power and a sound mind and return to timidity. To quit is to let the bullies win.
I can't do that. I won't do that.
So I will keep blogging. There will be things I say that you don't like. I don't see the world in black and white anymore. I see it in colour, full of shades and nuances which dance and contrast and clash and complement each other and create a thing of beauty. I hear it as a riot of sound -- melody, counter-melody, harmony, notes blending and clashing, dissonating and resolving, and resonating with the voice of the Creator. So I'm sorry if my colours clash with yours. I'm sorry if you think I'm singing off-key. I'm sorry, but you're not the artist, and you're not the director of the choir.
I know that putting my voice "out there" opens me up to attack. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope people are gracious. But it's not idealistic hope. I know it's only a matter of time before I say something that you hate, and I will be crushed and hurt by the response I get. I don't want that. I don't look forward to it. My heart flinches from the thought. No one likes the thought of being attacked by people who are supposed to be friends, brothers and sisters in Jesus. But then I look at the picture of that pot, and I think about what Paul says about carrying the Glory in jars of clay, and I think, What is the worst that you can do? You can break my heart. And God can patch it together again with gold, and my heart will just be more beautiful in the end than it is now. It will only reflect more of Jesus, more of his glory.
C. S. Lewis wrote, "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable" (The Four Loves).
Do I want my heart broken? Of course not. Broken hearts hurt horribly. But I'm not going to back off and quit and run and hide in an effort to protect it. I gave my heart to Jesus years ago. He's held it in his hands ever so tenderly, even through the breaking. He's called me to love. He's called me to write. He has not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. So I will press on.
And hope I never become famous.
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