Scary Step

Back when I began this blog, I thought it would be – and intended it to be – a quiet little place for me to post a few thoughts, some of which I might want to share with a few friends. It seemed like an easy way to share thoughts with a few, carefully selected friends. Well … if you're reading this, you know it didn't exactly work out that way. Within the first couple of weeks, I got involved in the discussions about GC06 and was quickly involved in the wider blogosphere. This little blog got some attention that pleased me, and some that I found dismaying (to say the least).

I quickly realized that I could not blog confidentially or anonymously about my parish or my diocese. Members of my parish were reading, and I soon learned that even my bishop was popping in from time to time. But I continued to post on some other blogs anonymously or with a pseudonym. I thought it protected me in some way.

Not long after I started blogging, some of those folks we call the "worthy opponents" did a little digging. (It's not so difficult to do with the tools the Internet provides us.) They quickly, gleefully revealed my full name, where I work, my parish home, and so on. At first, I was dismayed by that "outing." As time has passed over these 17 months or so, I've come to realize it was a good bit of discipline. I had to take ownership of my words. For me, it just is not good to live in any kind of closet. If I try to be secretive, then it gives power to people who might want to hurt me. I refuse to give them that power.

When Jim Naughton launched the Episcopal Café and required people to post comments using their real names, he said he was pursuing an "ethic of transparency." That began a long, slow thought process and finally a "self-outing" for me. Eventually, I edited my profile to reveal exactly where I live and provide some other details. In the past month, I edited my profile so that it shows my full name – both here and on the other blogs I visit and on which I comment. Now, wherever I visit or comment, my identity is fairly transparent.

Today, I'm taking one more step toward transparency. I've envied those people who have their photos on their sites. I like the fact that when I visit the sites of my blogging friends (like Mark Harrris and Elizabeth Kaeton), their photos are visible. It helps me remember the real person behind the blog.

I had another epiphany during the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans. "Worthy opponents" Baby Blue and the StandFirm gang video-blogged from that meeting. Once I had faces and real, live, three-dimensional people to attach to their blogs, it wasn't so easy for me to dismiss or (God help me!) attack them in ways I had done before. I'll still tackle their views and statements when need be. But no longer can they just be "abstractions" to me. They have faces now.

But I did not have a decent photo that I was willing to share. (I'm not attractive by any means, but my photos generally make me look even more awful than I am in real life.) Thanks to a good photographer (and Roberta, who scanned the photo for me), I now have one that doesn't entirely embarrass me. A thumbnail version now appears on my blog.

So here it is. It pretty much looks like me.

This is the face behind the voice on this blog. It ain't much, but it's the only one I have.