20140112.0800

As I have noted in one of my social media feeds (and actually "feeds" this time), I am grateful to be in contact with a number of interesting people who read deeply and broadly and comment upon what they find.  I am also in contact with a number of people who are much more adept than I am at coming up with ideas and making them interesting; I feel that I am often able to come up with ideas, but that those ideas ring much of being forced, of my trying too hard to make them happen and make them good.  I find myself thus in awe and envy of many of the people with whom I have the good fortune to associate and who are sufficiently tolerant as to let me hang around them online and off.

As I write what I write--which is still probably not enough--I do so with the awareness that much of what I write is autobiographical and personal, offering testimonies of my experiences and comments about them.  In doing so, I hope that I can offer one of a number of things: additional accounts of and perspectives on phenomena observed by others, commentaries to let those who may be in some similar circumstances know that they are not alone in those circumstances, pieces of public intellectualism to possibly elevate the net median level of discourse in the world, or present what may actually be interesting reading.  Whether I am successful in the endeavor at all, I rarely know, but I hope even so that I am.  I supposed it is a matter of faith (and probably no small degree of narcissism) that I continue to act as though my small actions matter at all in the world.

I am fortunate to have been told that what I have done has mattered to some people, actually.  Not long ago, some friends of mine in The City made me aware that I was brought up as the subject of a brief narrative--not really an anecdote, but similar to one--by which Huffington Post commentator Rev. Vicki Flippin introduced one of her sermons at the United Methodist Church of the Village.  (It concerns something about which I have commented before.)  It meant much to me to know that I am remembered at all; that I am remembered fondly is, frankly, amazing.  (For someone who has been getting written death threats since age 10 and who is routinely the subject of many, many complaints, it is an unusual thing to be remembered kindly.)  It is relatively rare that people are shown that they have been and are appreciated, so I am once again grateful to have been among such people as will say to others that they value them.  I am once again grateful to have been one of those whose presence and actions have been valued, and I continue to be hopeful that I will someday become worthy of such valuation.