I have been thinking about my blog for awhile. I have been thinking about why I write, what I write, and the like.

The Vast and Empty Subculture
As far as the ICoC and the blog, I remember when Gordon Ferguson showed up in 2004 to comment on a reaction to one of his papers. I remember when Steve Staten appeared earlier this year to take issue with my use of the name Thomas for Kip. I also remember talking to both of them in Kansas City . A person in India wrote a post about Kip being “totally crazy” and another woman somewhere in the US wanted me to post a five page response to what has happened to her in the ICoC subculture. A friend here even asked me to post a letter of his experiences in the ICoC. I have written a couple times to a former member of the ‘doomed’ Milan planting and spoken in person to current members of the ICC in Milan. I even called the church in Houston to tell them that a member of the New Orleans Church of Christ board was in a hotel in town. I asked them to contact him so that he could get a hug and maybe some help. My church ended up helping three families in New Orleans – Shane and I almost took a road trip to help.

I’ve corresponded with Henry Kriete a few times and even had an accidental Reply All that basically told everyone of any stripe of leadership in the ICoC subculture that it’s a shame that Henry is made the villian for stating plainly what they supposedly were believing all along. Since then, some leaders seem unwilling to criticize the content of the letter, so choose instead to attack his character. As an aside, let me mention that the ICoC subculture’s habit of revising history (and this comes from critics and members alike) will become evident in a few years as we try to continue to come to grips with what has happened since 2003. I’m sure someone will eventually write a book that explains that Henry is some kind of anti-hero. I’m also sure that someone will write another book declaring him the only honest ICC minister. Both are overstatements in the extreme.

Outside of the blog, I have written to members of this subculture in several states and five countries worldwide. I have written to folks in the Stone-Campbell tradition that seem to be leaders and even dialogued with the editor of the Christian Chronicle. I received a letter from a Church of Christ minister in Arkansas about my church’s website in which he demanded that the word ‘pastor’ should be removed and we should have ‘associated with the International Churches of Christ’ in huge letters on the site. When I asked him what we needed to do in order to change and repent of our past, he stopped writing. I’ve written to ministers of several demoninations and even arranged to meet with some in town.

Why do I write about religion in general and the ICoC subculture specifically? It matters to me. I have a sixteen year investment in the ICoC, the last 14.5 as a member. Although I want less and less to do with the ICoC, I still care about God and my relationship to him.

Dira
I never read Lord of the Rings. I read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wadrobe over 20 years ago. I have only read three novels that have anything to do with the Fantasy genre – they were all by Robert Aspirin. The main source of inspiration for the creation of this world (in addition to understanding God’s process of creation) is the long, long history of playing role-playing games. When I say RPGs, I mean the pen and paper ones. (I also have not played MMORPGs except for an occasional visit to a MUD in 1993.) I still miss sitting in a room with friends describing a world that was full of adventure. As I got older, I began to look at the stories in this world, instead of the action. I thought about personal stories like the wench-turned-priestess, the urban wizard. I also thought about the personal issues in a world with multiple sentient species like the plight of half-elves in human society.

I still have the pink notebook of Binam, the second massive universe I created. It has less detail than Dira, but it dealt with life on a binary planet where interplanetary travel was commonplace, even outside the binary planets themselves. Using all the TSR(R) accessories I could find, I worked to create a world where all things were possible – magic, astral projection, travel through various planes of existence, and curiously, a detailed exploration of the Abyss. I still flip through that notebook from time to time. I remember a neighbor of mine played a character named Alexander that I made into the God of War in Binam. He seemed to think that was befitting the guy that drove the Orcs out of his country.

After that, I worked briefly on a world called Backara. It was my first experience with a low magic world, and it sounded like a great place to visit. Unfortunately, two of the main founders, soldiers for the British military, passed away. The website is gone and all I have are a few emails and notes. I worked on the Gainar in that world, a merchant class that dealt with all kinds of goods and prone to use clockwork devices. It’s from those initial musings that the Gainarii of Dira were born.

Dira was born out of these experiences and fueled largely by my visit to Rome. Seeing the buildings and learning the culture while visiting the ancient sites excited the creative juices and I began writing immediately. Up until the Rome visit, I was looking of Free RPGs and playing with the rules, but not really creating.

Like Tolkkien, I like inventing languages. Unlike him, I was happy to have at my disposal some tools that would have saved him at least a decade of work. The Hesberian speak a variation of Latin. The grammar is a little simpler, short vowels removed, and a few tiny things shifted here and there. Spoken, it sounds like Latin or Greek in places. In other places, it even sounds more like Kswahili, though I used only Latin words in creating the language. Why create a language? It seems fundamental that to understand a group of people, you first need to learn their language.

Unlike many things, I intend to work on Dira for years to come. I actually enjoy it and unlike any other endeavour, I’ve tried to quantify mundane things like crop production rates, food needed to support a population, the effects of war on a society, the fundamental nature of magic, etc. It’s not that it has to be realistic as much as internally consistent. Gravity should be the same everywhere and so should some others things. I even found a computer program to generate the entire planet. Unlike other programs, I can infinitely zoom in to specific latitudes and longitudes to create detailed maps. Denizens of Dira need to be able to take some things for granted. So far, they can assume that magic comes from a crystalline substance, the Empire/Republic has made contact with all ken on the planet, magic does not work west of the Awrelian Demarcation, Mavinian Traders are not to be trusted, and mathematics is the universal language.

All in all, it’s a great place to play. Who knows? In a decade or so, I may even tell stories from this world instead of stories about the nature of this world.

My Life and Times
This year, I’ve looked more at my own life and made it public. In the past, I spent so much time commenting about certain things, I never revealed anything about me. Since I stated that this blog is a journal, it seemed strange that I was treating it differently.

I’ve enjoyed chronicling the life of my son and the evolution of my marriage. I’ve also enjoyed noting certain events and what I was doing and how I reacted. I look forward to reading these things to my son when he is older. I also look forward to making a personal book out of everything I’ve written in this online journal.

Someone once told me that they enjoyed reading about some of the non-religious items on here because it provided an insight into how I think. I still am not sure the right emotional reaction to that, but it feels good. It’s not exactly praise for what I’m doing, but it’s different than saying I care about you. In any case, I am grateful.

pinakidion.*
All of this got me thinking about the past of the blog and its future. In the end, I came to the conclusion that I still do not write in order to be famous. I do not write because I think I am some great teacher in the ICoC subculture, though I entertained those thoughts for a while. I do not write for any other reason than for the sake of writing. Writing my thoughts and feelings is helpful in many ways. One way is to help me become more emotionally healthy. The other is to provide a records of first drafts. Yet another is the refinement of the writing craft by the sheer act of volume. (I really wish I had a spell checker here – my dyslexia always makes the grammar weird in places and the misspellings make it worse.)

I wish the best for anyone that visits here for 2006. May God grant you peace and guidance in the year to come.