Radio Silence

I know you have been sitting at home wondering to yourself.. "Where has Maegan been? Why hasn't she written a blog recently? Whatever will I do without her blog in my life?" You have, right? I knew it!

It has been over 2 months since my last post (I had to go back and look.. I wasn't counting, I swear), and even those posts from 2 months ago are kind of cheater posts because they weren't for my personal blog, they were a blog project for my parish. Side note: what was I thinking committing to write a blog for a parish 30-Day prayer challenge, when I hadn't succeeded recently at posting blogs for more than 2 or 3 days in a row on my own blog?? I am crazy. But I did learn a ton from that experience! Mostly, that I CAN make myself blog more consistently, and that I am more likely to force myself to write for other people, than because it's something I want to do. That's a frightening thought, isn't it? Anyway...thoughts for a separate blog. :)

I have been ruminating in the silence... although I know that doesn't help you, dear reader, because you only hear the silent part... but I will share some of my thoughts and concerns, and I hope you will chime in as well!

One thing that I found to be very difficult in the Prayer Challenge project (you can go back in my previous posts to access those if you're curious) was the lack of interaction by the readers. I am very troubled by this! I want to blog, and I want to share about life and thoughts and beautiful/hard/messy things, but I don't want to be a window display where people walk by, stare, take it all in, maybe even think some thoughts to themselves, and then move along to the next window. I want to be a part of an online community of sharing, supporting, challenging, participating in each other's lives/blogs.

And this has had me thinking for the last two months...

How do I contribute to this culture?

I do it, you guys! So much! And I hate that I do it, but still, it continues.

The biggest culprit for me: the Face Books.

I'm almost embarrassed to admit my routine, but in the interest of full disclosure (and self-mortification, apparently):
I wake up, grab phone, scroll through Instagram (my fave) until I catch up to where I left off last time I scrolled through, and when I have exhausted that... I move onto FB. And for some reason, I get really stuck there. I don't know why, I don't even like it, and often feel "bored" there, but I just scroll and scroll and scroll. And you know what I have discovered? I don't even really read anything. I read the headings of articles people post, and occasionally I'll actually click on them and read them, but I mostly just scroll, and "like" and move on. To what end?

And this is what has kept me away from blogging..
I just scroll away my time, and my inspiration, and my thoughts... and I turn into a Zombie...and I typically leave a little depressed.

That. is. madness.
And I don't want to feed that monster anymore.
I want to say the things that are whirling around in my head.
And have actual interaction with other bloggers.
And contribute something beautiful and meaningful to my corner of the internet.

So, I'm going to try to replace that FB time slot with blogging. Reading blogs, commenting on blogs, posting blogs, thinking about blogging.

So please, dear readers, help me.
I want to hear your thoughts, reactions, comments, complaints.
Don't fall into the trap of the "casual observer" - be a participant... and I will be fighting for it right alongside you.