Why do you have a blog? Does your blog serve any useful purpose? Some don’t, just thought I would ask. If it doesn’t, perhaps it should. If it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t, then why exactly does it exist in the first place? Sometimes I go back and forth in my mind with my intended purpose and usefulness. When you ask those questions, just go back and think about what you want to accomplish with your blog, or what direction you might take it from this point forward.
Your Blog is a Historical Archive of Your…. Something
My blog serves many purposes to me but I like to use my blog for my own personal historical archive, goal checker and to examine my own growth, or lack there of, over the course of a given time frame. My blog actually goes back to March 2001, and encompasses just about everything that happened in my life, and my wife’s life in that time frame (scary huh). This doesn’t always work so well if you only post to your blog once a month, but if you are using your blog actively, you can look back to a previous year and see where you were, what you were doing, and what your goals or purpose might have been at that point and see where you have come since then.
Of course, this works the same with photography as well. Both are archival and historical tools. I can look back at some of the photo I took a year ago and see what was important enough to shoot, where I was, and so on. Same with my blog. I went back to November 2007 and just flipped through some of the entries and they are totally different from my blog posts now, but they were where I was 12 months ago.
Looking Back at November 2007
Sometimes it is just a humorous way to look at your life. Some of note to myself from November 2007… Home Invasion or a Plague of the Ladybugs Has Arrived, I remember well, we have thousands and thousands of lady bugs all over the place. I was also completely irritated with the trend of not replying to email, and my annoyance to not getting replies to my own emails (not much has changed), so I wrote Steps to Improve Customer Service by Answering Your Email, and one of my personal favorites from that month What Would You Do With an $86,400 Gift?. I also started a blog called Damascus in November, which is now integrated into this blog, and I wrote a lot of boring entries.
I also wrote a lot more posts about how to improve your blog by using SEO effectively and posted almost no photos of my own work other than a few work related pics, and there is a good reason for that, I didn’t do much photography in November of 2007, apparently. I have a few pics of Deb, and then this photo of my short stint with Blackberry before I dumped it for my iPhone. Not sure what the significance is of the phone being between Auburn/Opelika and Montgomery but that was about it photographically speaking.
The photo does serve as a historical reference, for me. It shows the date and time right on the phone. It also reminds me how much I couldn’t stand that phone, but it is more than that, it does give me the ability to look back and see where I was in my life.
How to Use Your Blog for a Historical Archive
Everyone uses a blog in a different way… a few ways to use it for historical purposes…
- Post as frequently as you can. Even if it ends up being just a few times a week. The more data you have, the more accurate the information usually is, so the more frequent you post, the better idea you will have of what happened in that time period. Just posting 3 times a week gives you 152 posts in a year!
- Write (or shoot photos) with detail. The more detail the better. Most things will be easily forgotten within a few weeks. It is the small details of life we generally forget unless we write them down.
- Get personal. I am bad at this one, but if you feel comfortable on your blog, get as personal as you can and forget that you are talking to potentially millions of readers.
- Use photos as much as possible. Nothing sparks the memory like a photo (just ask any photographer, haha). You will be able to remember so much more with a photo, so even if they are not your best, post them anyway.
- Link to other blogs, articles, people, friends or other interests. Linking to other areas outside your blog really helps remind you of what was going on at the time.
- Backup your blog or journal. If you are going to be able to look back at the information you need to have the information, so back up back up back up. There are several wordpress widgets and other plugins that make this easy.
- If you don’t have a blog and don’t want one, write in a journal. If you don’t have a blog, get one if you want one. They are EASY EASY EASY to setup and run now. They are free, and you don’t have to know anything about computers to use one. A blog is just a journal that others can read. If you don’t want others to read your blog, just write in a journal program or make your blog private. There are many times you will write things down if you know others will never read it, but you have to write it down some how.
- Look back. You actually have to look back at the information to make it useful as an archive. Look back often as often as you can, but look back at what you wrote.
- Post comments on other blogs. Comments are archived by many different systems and you can look back at comments just like you can blog posts of your own. Commenting on other blogs is beneficial in so many ways, but looking back it will tell you what you read and found interesting enough to comment on in the first place.
- Have fun. If it isn’t somewhat fun then just forget it. That should always be in there somewhere, to me.
What do you think? What do you use your blog for?
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This is a continuation of my Sunday posts called Quotes and Quips. This week, Children’s Answers to Sunday School Questions. Most of these were saved by my mother-in-law in a notebook full of cute sayings. Some of us remember the days of Sunday School growing up, and sooner or later we had to actually learn something. Here is a list of “answers” that kids gave in Sunday School (you will have to figure out the questions (date is from around 1990).
Top 15 Answers Kids Gave in Sunday School
- Noah’s wife was called Joan of Ark
- The fifth commandment is “Humor thy father and mother.”
- Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day, and a ball of fire at night.
- When Mary heard she was to be the mother of Jesus, she went off and sang Magna Carta
- Salome was a woman who danced naked in front of Harrods.
- Holy acrimony is another name for marriage.
- The Pope lives in a vacuum.
- Paraffin is next in order after seraphim.
- The patron saint of travelers is St. Francis of the sea sick.
- Iran is the Bible of Moslem’s
- A republican is a sinner mentioned in the Bible
- The natives of Macedonia did not believe, so Paul got stoned.
- The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.
- It is sometimes difficult to hear what is being said in church because the agnostics are so terrible.
- God told Joseph to take Mary, and Jesus, and flea, to Egypt.
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Ok, so call me strange I guess. There are a few holidays that come up each year that I really don’t like, and Father’s Day is one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I love my father dearly (see photo left), and I am sure I will make sure he knows that on Sunday.
In general, when you work for yourself, holidays just become a pain in the neck anyway. No one works, you can’t ship orders out, sales go down, and the entire world is “out” running around when they normally are not. But, fathers day is the topic. I will say that there is one reason why I like fathers day, to be able to honor my own earthly father, who to me is one of the greatest and most meaningful people in my life, and to remember that we have a father in Heaven that is better than any earthly father we could have in any form.
But there are more reasons I don’t like this particular holiday, what about you? Not a father yet? Well, here is what’s in store for you.
1. It is a Made Up Day
You can say this about most holidays in general, they are man-made, made up days. Father’s Day was a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother’s Day, and first celebrated in the U.S. on July 5th 1908
2. Churches Celebrate This Day in Services
For some reason, even though it has long since lost its Christian heritage it is still put forth as a day we celebrate in the worship service itself. I would rather see its spiritual meaning talked about than how important fathers are (yes, I know they are) to all of us.
3. Churches Don’t Seem to Know its Origin in Faith
No church I have been to in the last 35 years (yes I have been going to church that long) has ever explained to me the spiritual meaning on how Father’s Day was started. In Germany is was called Männertag and was always celebrated on Ascension Day (the Thursday forty days after Easter), and it was a day for men to go do something together, like hiking or some other manly activity.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, Father’s Day is celebrated on Saint Joseph’s Day, commonly called Feast of Saint Joseph, March 1, but it is pretty much a secular day or secular celebration. Here in the U.S., the first celebrated Father’s Day was in a church. The Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. It was suggested to the pastor (some believe) because of a deadly mine explosion (called the Monongah Mining disaster) that had just happened killing 361 men. Another reason is Mother’s Day was first celebrated two month prior.
4. It’s Another Day of Required Gift Buying
Notice I said gift buying and not gift giving. I love gift giving, but I don’t like to be told by the calendar when it should be done. My wife and I have always thought this way. If you want to give someone a gift, give it to them, don’t hold back for some government made holiday. I don’t like the feeling of required giving that comes with holidays.
5. It Reminds Me How Old I Am
Remember back when Father’s Day would roll around and your mother would have prepared something for you to give your father or you would do something in church for your father. All designed to make sure you didn’t forget it (as a kid how could you remember it), but some day, you were required to remember yourself. Now my son is old enough to remember without being told.
6. It Reminds Me What a Lousy Father I Was
I have a feeling that some people don’t like Father’s Day because they had lousy fathers. I for one did not. My father took me to baseball games, football games, and all the normal fatherly stuff.
But that didn’t make me a good father (I say past tense because now that my son is out of the house I think that has made me a better father, haha). Father’s Day for me personally just reminds me of my shortcomings when my son was at home. My grandson William (see photo above of me and William) however is the cutest little guy ever (I am sure he doesn’t want to hear that) and I was thrilled to get to spend some time with him. He has a great dad. Don’t know where he gets it from but Bryan (my son) is such a fantastic dad to William.
7. It Reminds Me of the Fathers Who Are No Longer Here
Mother’s Day this year was different for my wife. She had just lost her mother to cancer less than a month earlier. This has to be the same thing with son’s who have lost their father over the last year. I know one in particular, Josh (see WILLIAM WALKER AGERTON), our Connections Pastor at the church.
I know he will be remembering his father this Sunday (although he is in Uganda right now) as my wife and I remembered Georgia on Mother’s Day. Others I know won’t get to see their fathers like my brother over at Worship Journey who’s father is a missionary in Africa.
8. You Are Reminded to Spend Time With Dad
Not that celebrating fathers is not important, but it usually has some time requirement attached to it. You can’t do this or that because it is Father’s Day. I spent time with my dad almost every day. I am lucky, yes. We usually walk about 2-3 miles together at the end of each day when he is in town and I am home. That usually equates to 3-4 days a week, but we often work together on the weekends or attend some sporting event together.
I don’t need to be reminded to spend time with my dad. I do it because I want to, not because the calendar tells me to.
9. The Restaurants Are Always Full
You can never get a table at a restaurant without waiting on Father’s Day. Being that it is on a Sunday (thank goodness for that), everyone finds it necessary to take fathers out for lunch after church. Don’t these people take their fathers out to eat any other time during the year? Same as with mothers day, if you want to eat after church (most do) you have to wait more than usual.
10. It is One More Day to Commercialize
And I saved the big one for last. Yes, it is yet one more day we can listen to a barrage of advertisements telling us buy buy tools and gift cards for our fathers. This starts just about when Mother’s Day ends. Walmart changes everything over the Sunday of Mother’s Day and that’s it, we’re toast.
For the next two months we are overwhelmed with advertisements from every angle, radio, tv, Internet, church, work, school, you name it. Somehow NASCAR and Father’s Day seem to go hand in hand now to. They actually take off on Mother’s Day and don’t have a race. How in the world could anyone who is actually breathing forget what day is Father’s Day. I love the Peanuts Christmas special. After the tirade that Charlie Brown and Linus goes on about how commercialized Christmas has become and then Linus reads Matthew.
We seem to be a society of one that moves from one holiday to the other commercially. There is no down time, we are constantly being told what holiday is next on the buying list. Do me a favor, don’t buy me anything for Father’s Day, oh, and by the way, I love you dad.
