Haircut, blog & prayers

I’m scheduled to give a speech to a civic group next week and I’m getting a bit shaggy so I cut my hair today. No, I did not go to a barber shop, I cut it myself.

I have such an aversion to being touched by strangers that ever since I became an adult I have cut my own hair to avoid it. I go out in the backyard to use scissors and this little comb/razorblade thing – just one of my little idiosyncrasies.

Ginny & I skipped church this morning; we chose to enjoy breakfast out and talk instead. Then we came home for pleasure gardening, bird watching and more talk.

Among the subjects we discussed were blogs. I have encouraged her to start one herself but she keeps so many records related to her job that keeping a journal just seems like more work to her, while I find it great fun and an important element of my spiritual life.

When I was a kid I chanced to read Bram Stoker’s great book Dracula and was fascinated with the journal/diary format. I began to read published diaries and was enchanted by the real life record of what people actually experience – especially as momentous events in history take place around them.

I was greatly influenced by journals such as David Brainerd’s,, John Wesley’s, Samuel Pepys, George Fox, and a host of lesser known journalists. I began to make daily entries in a journal of my own over 25 years ago, so making blog entries naturally follows.

My youngest son introduced me to bloging back in December. I started with his blog on Bloger(http://slackv.blogspot.com/ ), then clicked the “Next Blog” button to see what caught my interest. Reading the blog postings of other people really helps me in my prayer life.

There are eight or ten writers I check on daily because something or the other they experienced appeals to me. And I find it natural to pray about the private things these folks are going through.

One blog site I visit daily is a prayer list posted by some church in another state http://twinland.blogspot.com/ I know nothing about this church or it’s members, I am not even familiar with the denomination, and I’m not too keen on “church stuff” even here in Jacksonville; but these folks face reality instead of church stuff: A kid killed in an auto accident on Prom Night, cancer, an old lady who fell, job hunting, husband in Iraq, a work-place shooting, new babies… all sorts of things that touch my heart for these people.

Their blog means so much to me; it’s such a help.

Their blog and others I read push me out of my own petty concerns and urge me to pray God’s blessing on things and people outside my narrow focus, my wife, my children, my garden, my speech, my haircut…

God’s world is bigger than me…

BUT, Speaking of ME and the big world, the morning the webalizer statistics for my www.cowart.info show that this month over 9,000 readers from 72 countries have each spent at least ten minutes on my site.

That’s scary.

Anyhow, I got carried away writing when I’d started to say that Ginny & I enjoyed a wonderful day together playing in our garden where the high hedges keep the world outside. We potted and edged and pruned and rested and talked as though the rest of the world did not exist.

Then one of the kids called saying they are bringing strangers to tomorrow’s cookout. And, of course, in a grand Cowart holiday tradition whenever company is coming, the bathroom plumbing stopped up – From Blog to Clog, the story of my life.

Posted on Monday 30 of May, 2005 [05:54:00]